What does Clinic Do? Part Three

These are some answers from women who were staff members at the Confidence Clinic:


Mary Murphy (past participant, then Advocate, Program Aide, Program Director):

But the clinic saved my life or my soul. It truly did, and it is still doing that today. It is still doing that. And it’s just uh... and get a self-image. I don’t even mean make it better. People that went to the clinic, like myself, didn’t have a self-image, didn’t have any, just zero, despair, despair. And it was just amazing those people, they just uh put their life out there, put everything out there for the women that went through the clinic. …

Well, as I said, I believe it saved my life. If not physically, how do you say it, emotionally, mentally, being alive, not just being this horrible, fearful person. I mean if that man hadn’t come back to my house over and over again [to persuade me to go]. So, there it shows you the people, uh he just wouldn’t give up.

And then if the clinic hadn’t, if the clinic wasn’t what it was, I mean, if it was, if I had gone somewhere where they judged you, or looked at you funny, or nobody had experienced… These people that run this program have been through the things that I had been through. You know, except a lot worse, many of them. Um, what I had been through was nothing compared to some of the others. So, like someone said once, “Well, wasn’t it depressing?” Well, I don’t even know why they said that, or who it was, but I thought, “Heavens no, it wasn’t depressing.” (They’re saying because of all the troubled things that had happened to these people.) Because you were there with your own. You were there with people that had dealt this, no matter how wonderful people are that have never experienced something, even some of the folks that helped in the beginning. It’s having people there that actually went through what you’ve been through. And it’s just uh saves your life.

Charity McSperitt (Program Coordinator):

One of the things that happened for me at the Confidence Clinic was, you know, my own personal history, is uh, you know, there’s, there’s domestic violence and there’s other kinds of traumas. And, uh, came from a pretty chauvinistic family, and I didn’t really have a sense about what it meant to be a woman, you know, what that really is. I had a sense of what it was to be a woman growing up in my family, which wasn’t the kind of woman I necessarily would want to be.

And, uh, so coming into the Confidence Clinic gave me a perception of what it really means to be a woman. And, the power and the dynamics that women can bring into the world, and how to, you know, help perpetuate, strengthen women through your children, and you know, teaching that to your families, and, uh, you know, like my mom.

A lot of the raising and rearing that [my daughter] Catherine got was around principles that I learned at the Confidence Clinic, about how to empower women. Uh, you know, we learned self defense at Confidence Clinic. My daughter was learning it. You know, so she was like walking that walk with me. And, uh, you know, she’s incredible. And, I think that a lot of that had to do with what I learned there about being a woman. I have a great Catherine story, which has nothing to do with the Confidence Clinic per se.

AW: Tell it anyway.

CM: How um, how that strain I passed on to Catherine. And that was, she’s at school, I think she’s in 3rd grade, maybe, and um, she has a group of little girlfriends. And, there’s a boy in there, and he’s being really inappropriate, and he’s like grabbing the girls. And, they’re scared, and they’re not saying anything.

And, Catherine gets the group of kids together, these girls, and marches them down to the principal’s office, and is like, “This is not okay.” You know, “He is doing this.” And, just really helped these girls advocate for themselves.

And, you know, parents got involved, and I mean, there was resolution because she had the courage and the strength to stand up, which was something that I had been teaching her based on what I was learning at the Confidence Clinic about what a woman could do. You know the strength in woman, and the strength of women in numbers, and how a network of women can do anything.

And, uh, you know, I just really think the Confidence Clinic gave me that for her. And you know, more than anything, that’s what I appreciate most about the Confidence Clinic, is that my daughter is strong and can take care of herself. She broke someone’s ribs this last year because he jumped on her back, while she was walking across the parking lot. And, it scared her, so - elbow, elbow to the ribs.

So as she learned those self defense techniques, because she’s been learning them, you know, ”Grab, pull, and twist,” or ”Grab, twist, and pull.” You know, she learned those as I learned them. And as I taught them to the women, you know, I continued to teach them to her. And so I know when she goes away from here, when she goes to college, she’s going to be able to protect herself, and she’s going to be able to take care of herself, and she’s going to be able to make choices for herself, and she’s going to be strong. And that all came from clinic. …

Yeah. It was good, a great experience for me. I think, uh, it’s one of those cornerstone things in, in my life. You know when I think about the things that make me the person I am today, well, getting clean and sober was, you know, of course huge in that, but the Confidence Clinic, working there and then the, the time that I spent there - I think I was there for like six years.

That was like another huge foundation piece for me. And then like my education, my formal education. So out of those three things, I’ve just learned so much about myself and who I am and how I want to operate in the world. But it’s [the Confidence Clinic is] definitely a huge piece of that.