The Perceptual Process

I have recently discovered that I am very skeptical about others motives. Not "others" as in, young, old, male and female. I am skeptical about the motives of divorced woman who will do anything to get on top. I will share with you why I think this way and I realize that I need to change. I also would like to explain what influences got me here.

In my previous blog, the authentic self, I shared a little background about being raised in four different families  between the ages of six and nineteen. This has been good and bad for me with the lessons I learned from each step-mother. The last step-mother that I had lived with just before I had graduated from high school was Sue. I have changed the name to Sue for confidentiality reasons. Sue had two daughters, and my dad had us four kids. So together there was a big happy Mormon family. Well, that's what Sue wanted everyone to think.

The story goes as usual, my dad meets a blue- eyed blond haired woman at a church dance. They date for three weeks and before you know it, I have a new family. I was only in the sixth grade when this happened, and I was certain that this would be the last time my dad married anyone else. Looking back on that now, boy was I ever wrong! After the divorce, I find out that my dad and Sue were in marriage counseling within the first three months of being married. They new their marriage would never work. So they made a business agreement that Sue would raise us kids, while my dad worked to bring home the bacon. So it was, eight years went by with this fake relationship that was kept secret to all us kids and everyone else we knew. Every Sunday, we would attend church as a happy family. Family outings with the extended family were always happy go lucky. The side that nobody saw was when we were all behind closed doors safe within our house. Nobody would talk to each other unless we needed to. My little brother and I would stay in our room and play X-Box while everyone else came and went as they pleased. We were the very definition of a dysfunctional family. The idiom, "behind every red door is a dysfunctional family" stands true for me because I know i'm not the only one going through this. Others have it much worse than this, but I am laying the foundation as to why I have stereotyped divorced woman the way I do.

Once my dad won his battle with stage four cancer, that's when Sue's plans were spoiled and she finally had enough. I know she was waiting for my dad to die, so that she could receive his life insurance and 401-K retirement plan. He was worth more dead than alive to her and she would have been set for the rest of her life if he had died. Thank God Almighty that miracles happen and my dad was healed. Sue's demeanor changed 360 degrees overnight. She went from this loving and caring wife, to a vicious viper wanting nothing to do with my dad. My dad went back to work, and figured he was better off spending as much time away from her as possible. My dad had a stroke in April 2008 that went unnoticed. We all started to detect strange behavior from dad and non of us knew what was going on. Just a week after graduating high school, my dad's clothes were thrown out on the lawn and he was asked to leave. I would have intervened had I known what was going on. This took place at 3:00 AM and I was peacefully sleeping. The next morning, Sue sat me down and gave me the sob story full of lies about what was going on this entire time. I stood up, looked her in the eyes and said, "I'm sorry, but I don't know who you are." I am proud of myself for doing this, because for the last eight years living with this woman, she was simply acting a part in her play and we were her puppets.

We all hoped that after this split, Sue and her kids would go their own way, and we would go ours. No, Sue knew she couldn't make a comfortable living for her kids on her own. So she took my dad to court and fought for alimony for her kids. Alimony is a form of child support required by law to be paid that is taken out of my dad's paychecks based on his income. Here is a sick man who has just suffered a major stroke and barely survived cancer and is now placed on disability with no job required to pay alimony for kids that are not even his own. It does not stop there. Sue forged my dad's signature to get a car for her eldest and Credit Cards to pay for her traveling expenses to NYC and California. This is why I am skeptical about divorced woman who are desperate and willing to do whatever.

I now work at the credit union and here is where I go wrong with all this. Not every divorced woman who comes into the credit union to close an account is like Sue. I suspect and my sensation is to think that these woman are pulling all the money out and making a run for it. Leaving a sick innocent man with nothing. I organize this data sensations into my experience files that have been skewed. I interpret all this into believing that this woman standing in front of me in the credit union is a Sue. Lastly, my evaluation stands discerning them to be criminals and without a conscience. Here is where I go wrong and I must change.

The Authentic Self

I would like to talk about the self-defeating drivers, specifically the third one about trying to please others. I am the third child out of four and I was raised in a joint family. What I mean when I say "joint family", is that my dad divorced my mom when I was six, and he has been re-married four other times. So I have been raised by several step-moms with kids of her own and in these combined families, I have still always been the middle child.

Having always been the middle child, I adopted being the peace-maker and people pleaser. I am really good at doing both these things because I started doing it at a very young age. I became the hardest yardworker, competing with my siblings to pull the most weeds so I could receive recognition. I would be the one volunteering to sit in the worst spots possible in the car so that nobody would fight over who sits there. At the time I had no idea why I was doing these things other than enjoying the praise and recognition. Now that I am older, I think it had something to do with trying to fill the void of not being recognized by my own mother. She was charged for abandonment when I was young and my dad received full custody of us kids. To this day, I have very little to no contact with her.

These qualities have been working great for me now that I am married. My wife loves the things that I do to allows please her. Luckily, I married well and she does not by any means abuse the qualities that I have to serve her needs. When Eric Young mentioned in class that the fourth agreement ties in perfectly with this driver, I would completely agree. I have been trying to do my very best all these years not for myself, but for others. So that others can tell me that they approve and I am a deserving person.

Introduction

My name is Kirt Heywood, I have lived in Saint George now for four years and have been attending Dixie State University for the duration of our stay. I have been married for four years to my wife Shersti, and together we have a 14 month old son who's name is Brayson. I work at Security Service Federal Credit Union part time as a Human Relations Teller. My job is great because I have a boss who is flexible and supportive of my school schedule and co-workers who I can honestly say are good friends.

The reason for taking this class is really to get the credit for my bachelors degree. However, the conversation that we had as a class with Eric Young got me thinking otherwise. This might actually be the first class that I have taken at Dixie where real life application is taught and will strongly impact my life. I look forward to the transformation and getting to know more about myself and those who I interact with.