What Does Clinic Do? Part Four

Another response to: "How did your exerience at the Confidenc e Clinic impact your life personally?"

Diana Wood (past participant, current volunteer):

Well, that’s easy to answer now. Going to college. That’s the biggest impact. Showing me that my brain can work, that I can think, and I can function. ‘Cause I was taught that I couldn’t for so long. And without the Confidence Clinic I wouldn’t be going to the college - taking classes that I’m taking right now, and learning and growing, learning about listening skills and taking a special one-on-one with my instructor, uh, through the summer, and interviewing people and listening for understanding.

And I realized when I was doing this current work through the college, that the reason that I’m so intrigued with all this about listening is that due to verbal abuse, for protection and survival, I couldn’t tell you five seconds after he said the horrible things to me what he said. If you offered me a million dollars, I couldn’t tell you a thing he said.

AW: You learned how to block it out for protection.

DW: For years I blocked it out. I was not listening. I was using it to escape. So now I’m retraining myself, and I’ve found this wonderful… life changing skills that I can learn in this listening book. I have it out practically all the time. And so it’s just wonderful to know that I can, can just start listening.

AW: Uh huh. Uh huh. You can let go of an old skill that you needed, because you don’t need it any more.

DW: I don’t need that anymore, and I certainly do need to listen and understand what’s being said.

AW: Uh huh. Uh huh. That’s great.

DW: But none of this would have happened without the Confidence Clinic.