What Does Clinic Do? Part Two

Here are two more responses to the question, "How has your experience at the Confidence Clinic impacted our life?"


Betty Moore (past participant):

The feeling of success. Uh, the feeling of walking out the door and there wasn’t this heavy weight and being able to be who I needed to be here, myself, and not pretend I was somebody out there that… You know, in the real world I always pretended I was somebody else, the hard-core-shelled person of, and I wasn’t. ... There was this inner side of me that needed to be let out. From probably the age of 9 or 10, probably was when I started pretending I was somebody else on the outside and became the tough, hard core person.

Yeah, I got to be Betty for the first time.


Allison Green (past participant):

I uh, my son had had a brain injury. And um, I started getting panic attacks, and I didn’t realize what they were. And um, I thought I was dying, actually. And, I was afraid, and I didn’t...it got to where I couldn’t leave my house. And I couldn’t, I couldn’t walk to the mailbox across the street, um, without being afraid. So I knew I had to do something. And uh, so I called Confidence Clinic. And I’ve, and I’ve always said, over the last 18 years, you know, that Confidence Clinic saved my life. And um, that’s how I feel. And I realize now that, you know, I saved my own life, but Confidence Clinic gave me the tools and the skills,...and helped me find that that I had deep within myself to succeed. And I’m not saying that I’m anxiety free, um, because everybody has anxiety, you know, over their life. But um, I’ve done a lot of things since then…

What difference has it made? Well, I’ve stood up for myself. And I can stand up for my friends. Um, I would have never ventured out to go to college, uh… Maybe I would have, but I don’t know, I don’t think so. Uh, I, when I graduated from Beauty College, you know, that was really good, you know.

But when I went to police academy, I’m telling you, my family was shocked. They’re like, yeah – you know my family’s all from, you know, the inside of the bars looking out, you know. And so they were just really pleased that I went out, and I did something. And I’m 49 years old. Um, did I think I was going to die on the way, you know, running? Well, I had to call on Jesus a lot, because otherwise I don’t think I could have run six miles. But, um, I’ve learned to have inner fortitude. I’ve learned to speak, be a public speaker.

I’ve learned that, uh, the impact that it had on me was, you know, I know I’m not all of that [good looking], you know, Anna, but I know that I’m not uh hard on the eyeballs either. I used to think I was the ugliest thing that walked. And Clinic helped me know that beauty’s from the inside, and it’s what kind of person you are - and make-up helps, you know.

[laughter]

And um, so it impacted my life that way - that I could be who I really am, and not the person that I became because of abuse, or because of… And I wasn’t a mean, or, you know, any person like that. It’s that I didn’t have the confidence, or the willpower, or the, to bring it out. And it helped - Clinic helped me do that, to see that I could be all that I could be, you know. And um, and at 49, I’m the oldest female to graduate academy. And so, um, I learned uh that you can do anything you want to do. Was I scared? Yes. Did I have anxiety? Oh, yeah. You know, but I had the tools to deal with it.