Seven Words That Changed My Life

I was married to a man who, I’ve concluded, was probably the most insecure man I’ve ever known. I’ve told him that in recent years, but I doubt that he truly heard it. I was very young, early 20’s, when we met, was uneducated past high school (save three agonizing months at my local university), and about as down as one could be. He rescued me from myself, and gave me some tools with which I could deal with my demons. We married a few years later, despite my own misgivings. How I loved him! My heart took full control over my head and my better sense, and besides that I was afraid to be alone, on my own, with my two little boys.

My husband used to tell me that my impressions of something—often his behavior—were “only my perception”. I heard that so many times, during infidelities, during times when I commented on his differential treatment of his children and my children. There were to be no “our” children, but I had agreed to that before we married, so I couldn’t push the issue. Over the months and years of psychological put-downs, referring to the way I looked at things to be “just my perception”, I began to doubt my judgment, felt inadequate, and wondered how he could love such a person who continued to have erroneous perceptions.

I started working for a friend of my husband who was conducting a research study and he needed some help with handling the data. I had no experience, so he (my new boss) suggested I take a class in Fortran. That was fun, let me tell you! NOT! Since I was taking one class in the morning, I decided to take another one on the alternate afternoons. Sociology 101 seemed like just the ticket, and it was reinforced by the fact that my husband knew the woman professor and liked her.

I remember that it was the first day of class, and when the students were coming into the class, the professor was writing in large letters across the entire width of the blackboard this sentence: Anything perceived is real in its consequence. ANYTHING PERCEIVED IS REAL IN ITS CONSEQUENCE. My heart beat harder, my breath quickened, and at that moment, I began to grow. Why had I never known this? Why didn’t I realize that on my own, without being told? But most of all—thank God I just learned this!

It took just a few years after that and some intensive sessions with a psychotherapist, but that sentence started me on a journey to selfhood, a sense of freedom and autonomy that I’d never had. Anything perceived is real in its consequence. Wow! OK, tell me that the fact that you’re staying out later and later and that a woman keeps calling you is just my perception and that she’s just a client. Yeah, my perception. Not only was the perception my own reality, it was reality. I learned to trust my gut, now that I disallowed the psychological abuse of “it’s only your perception”.

I went back to school full time after a bit, graduated Summa Cum Laude from SUNY Buffalo, and after our divorce, I received an M.A. from the same university.

I trust my perceptions. They are my reality, and what I perceive leads to what I do, how I behave, and whom I trust. Yeah, the consequences. Seven words, one short sentence, writ large on a blackboard and on my heart and soul. I am free.