The story of Jayde begins on January 7, 1987 when I was born to Margaret and Eduardo Ramirez. My mother had just graduated medical school and was working as a pediatric nurse and my father was a family lawyer. They had wanted a child so bad but had trouble getting pregnant. After trying for a couple years, they got pregnant with me.
I was born and raised in the city of Manhattan, New York. We lived on the upper west side next to millionaires but my parents always told me that I wasn't better or worse than anyone else. We vacationed like all upper west siders in the Hamptons. My childhood memories are of me playing with other kids while our parents visited.
When my mom was younger, she met a woman named Betty Sue Wells. Betty was twenty years older than my mother but they became like sisters. In 1963, she gave birth to a son she called John Christopher II. My mother enjoyed watching him grow up through pictures that would be sent with a letter.
Johnny was one of the first people to hold me after I was born. He was working as an actor but always made time for a phone call, a letter or the occasional visit. My parents loved him and they treated him like a son. The adults would joke that someday we would get married. I didn't know back then how big he would become. I don't think any of us knew. Through Johnny, I met Alice Cooper, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry who became like fathers to me.
School was difficult for me. I didn't want to pay attention or sit still. The school wanted to test me for attention deficit disorder but my parents refused. They told the school that I was just an imaginative child and that I would grow out of it. I had a lot of friends and my relationship with my teachers was love/hate. I was very smart, I just didn't know when to shut up. They saw potential for me as a lawyer or attorney even at an early age.
High school was a time I was trying to figure out who I was like all teenagers. My parents setup strict rules for me. I was not allowed to bring boys home and if I did, we would get a talking to. It was in my senior year that I tried cocaine for the first time. I didn't realize back then that the drug would mess everything up for me. Because my parents worked late, I was able to go out and do basically whatever I wanted. As a teenager allowed to do whatever I wanted, it was a dream come true.
My parents didn't notice a change in me until I had been using coke for a year and a half. My habit had got to the point where I was a monster. I slept all the time, was not eating, was extremely moody and difficult. Nothing mattered anymore. My mother called Johnny and told him what was going on. He told her that I was being a teenager. Nobody knew.
I was visiting Johnny and was able to get some coke behind his back. He caught me using and he refused to talk to me until I came down from the high. Once I did, he yelled at me. How could I do this to myself? He told me that if I was going to ruin my life, he was done. He told me that he loved me but he was not going to enable me or sit around and watch me kill myself. He had tears in his eyes. I realized then that getting high wasn't worth it and I agreed to get help.
I had ruined two years of my life because of my addiction. He paid for in-patient rehab for me. Going through withdrawal was the definition of hell. I spent two weeks in detox before I went to rehab. The counselors were strict, no bullshit. I didn't want to work the program and it took about a month and a half before I started participating. I worked through the program step by step. I slowly realized everything that had happened because I started using.
When I graduated the program, I came home. I was living by myself before I went to rehab but I had to move back in with my parents. They set new rules for me: I was not allowed to be by myself for a second or even use the bathroom by myself. I got up every morning and went to work with my father where I would be put to work and he had his assistant watch me like a hawk.
I rebelled against their rules and they threatened to disown me if I didn't stay clean. On my first anniversary, I celebrated by getting drunk. This led to a huge fight and I moved out. I never went back to my parents, although I still worked for my father. After I came home from, I called Johnny and apologized for everything. He told me that he was proud of me for getting clean, but he couldn't trust me. I would have to earn that back.
My relationship with my parents continued to deteriorate until I quit my job and stopped talking to them all together. I was talking about going back to school and my father wanted me to become a lawyer and join the family business. This would become an ongoing argument. In his family, the men make the rules and children must obey. If he said I was going to become a lawyer, I better do just that.
While in school, I started interning at Manhattan's Special Victims Unit. I finally found a place to call home. They included me right away on cases they were working on and I had to prove myself. It working with them that I realized what I wanted to do with my life. When I told my parents, they were less than thrilled. I was wasting my life. How could I do this to them? My purpose in life was to go to school, graduate, go to law school and become a lawyer. Then marry a lawyer or a doctor. No arguments or exceptions.
It was then I decided to cut my parents out of my life forever. I was without a family and I started going out with the detectives I worked with to forget about my parents. To me, they weren't my parents. I was an orphan without a family and whenever people asked me, I pretended they didn't exist.
Through the years I have been married and divorced twice and had two broken engagements. I have 5 amazingly beautiful kids (Steven, Kiera, Rafael, Lucia and Santana) who have stuck by me through the craziness that is my life. I recently came out and I am dating an amazing woman. After I graduated college, I left SVU to work as a forensic psychologist. I currently work with children who have been through some type of abuse or neglect. Do I have any regrets? Yes and no. Sometimes I look back and regret certain parts of my life but then I realize that I had to go through bullshit to be where I am today.
Jayde typed up her autobiography and emailed it to Rafael. Here's an abridged version of my autobiography. – Jayde
Very nice. Are signing autographs? – Rafael
Not yet, Rafi. You'll have to wait for the official copy. – Jayde
He read her reply and laughed to himself. I promise to treasure this copy forever then. I'll even have it laminated and put in a frame. – Rafael
Omg. I'm honored. – Jayde
