Stress Center Peer Support

Hi to all, Be sure that you notice "slimjim's" testimonial in the last folder #15. What a testament to his resilience and dedication. I hope it inspires you as it did me.

Peace, Carolyn

Carolyn,
How do I find the last folder, #15, so I can read Slimjim's testimonial? I am new to this, sorry.

Carolyn or any other astute member, I can't find Slimjim's testimonial. I used the Find box - Advanced Search and folder #15 to locate it with no success. A little help from a friend, Please ... Seadog

Carolyn, JeanD, I found Slimjim's Post...
Like you said Carolyn, it's under Session - 15 Getting Beyond a Growth Spurt Topic..
its bacckkk.. Look down the thread to find
*slimjim - read both!
Congratulations James B. (*slimjim) you should be very proud!!! James, I hope you also post some more in Stress Center Community forums, under "Triumphs", where more eager readers can see your story. Congrats again...
Seadog

do you have to have the program to access that ?

<A HREF="http://bbs.stresscenter.com/eve/forums/ ... 2361055334" TARGET=_blank>http://bbs.stresscenter.com/eve/forums/ ... 1055334</A>

just scroll down for Slim Jim

Nuts! I pushed the wrong button. Oh, Well. I just wanted to wind up telling all you folks out there that there is a ray of hope for everyone involved in this program and that if you follow it to the letter you will GROW LIKE YOU'VE NEVER DONE BEFORE! I KNOW BECAUSE I'VE GROWN THE BACK BONE I WANTED TO! And every day I thank everyone involved for their wisdom and love they showed me as I worked through my crap!
Thanx.

The Following is an e-mail I sent to the Public Relations person at the Clinic I belong to asking her to allow me to be their poster child as far as my recovery is concerned so that I maybe be able to let the doubting public know that there is a way to survive Mental Illness.

Greetings KarenC. July 15 2009


This correspondence is to bring your agency, upon the times and life of Slim Jim B.. I'm sure you'd like to skip the details of my birth and just get into why I think I'd make a decent spokesperson for your clinic.
In my mind they're several, but I'll only cover the Top 5.

1. I am no longer living with Manic Depression since I completed a program called Combatting Stress and Depression Program (the program) Program some 1 1/2 year ago. At first I attempted to do the course all on my own, yet I found I just wasn't understanding what they where trying to bestow on me. Then as I was ready to "Throw in the Towel", one of the operators at the Mid-West Center the business that created the program suggested that I hire a Tutor to get me through the entire course. Of course I was already in a financial hole just getting the program in the first place and now she wanted me to dig a deeper hole. But despite what my common sense told me what I should do I got the Tutor anyways. And 15 Weeks later I became a graduate of the program. But getting through it was not a walk in the park be any means. This was a Cognitive Restructuring Behaviorial Training of ones mind that allowed me to put my entire life under a microscope and discover the core reasons that were fueling my mental illness for half my existance. So as I peeled away all the layers of crap and deception like an onion I realized that I was drowning in a cesspool of lies and shame stemming from the relationship I had with my dysfunctional family unit and the sick and twisted connection I had with both my Father Figures (One was Alcoholic/ Womanizer while the other was a Gambleacoholic). Thus nothing I could say or do would allow me to share in any of their time or love. So in a sense I too became an addictive personality except my choice drug was: FANTASY (Comic Books, Graphic Novels and Adventure stories).

2. I have over 2 years of Professional Public Speaking under my belt through my time of taking a training course with Toastmasters (T.M.). My goal at first was to see if these people could help me escape the Comfort Zone I had painted myself into by avoiding taking responsibility for my life because of my mental anguish. So by the time I was ready to leave T.M. I had developed the skills to write and create speeches that won me a number of Best Speaker as well as Best Table Topic ribbons awards. However I didn't start out creating such terrific speeches but I had a friend who lived in Phoenix take my hand and helped me crank out speeches that meant my growth in the topics I had chosen: My Many Dads (Stories of what it would've been like if my father figure was more like John Wayne, Rodney Dangerfield, or Abraham Lincon); Choices (Tales of all the various jobs and vocations I had to work at for over 27 years); The secrets to Drawing The Line (My advice of teaching my fellow members how to draw using simple shapes to create more complex shapes later on.); Horror Incorporated (My thoughts on the movie horror industry and how horrible I thought It had become); and lastly a tale called The X-Factor (Explaining to all how I had created a character called Madame X Incorporated and what her gang can do and why getting her out of my head had helped me in my quest to beat my mental condition). You see I just didn't just pick easy topics to talk about I chose ones that scared me right down to my toenails. And so this friend of mine who helped me piece mail my ideas into award winning speeches just past away not more that 2 months ago. It was indeed a shock to my system when I learned of his death but it just didn't send me into a tailspin concerning a relapse because the student had now become the teacher. Before his death I was writing and creating my own speeches that even left him speechless. For I had grown from a terror filled individual to a speech writing guru.

3. If any of you are afraid that I would buckel under the pressure created by being in the limelight I wish to address your fears right off by saying that these are unfounded because of an incident that happened to me in grade school. Years before I even developed my mental illness I was a student at Local Elementary School and I had asked my teacher if I could go to the little boy's room. But for some reason she had denied me the permission and told me to retake my seat. Which I did because I thought at this time that Grown Ups were never wrong. But a few minutes later I wet myself. And once it was brought to everybody's attention she then ordered everybody except me out to recess and file outside while she called in a janitor to clean up my mistake. So there I was standing in soaked pants and awaiting her next order to do something, anything. But she just left me there alone as she got a custodian. To tell you the truth I really don't believe she even said she was SORRY! So the following day I went to school and the kids asked me if I was wearing my Pampers. This was the beginning of a long and discussing moment that burned into my brain. And I became the "INVISIBLE STUDENT" for the rest of my time enduring school all the way to my graduation and even when I decided to go to a local College to study Advertising Art I still distanced myself from everyone. Yet once I discovered this sorry moment as I worked the the program program I came to the conclusion that it wasn't my fault for following adult orders because I was too afraid to go against the system. Even when my body told me otherwise I refused to "Rock The Boat!" So you see that there isn't probably anything the news media can do to me now that can top that incident.

4. Because of my shying away from my fellow students and not developing a social life with many of them I probably saved myself from winding up from making some pretty dumb choices that wound up most of them in premature graves. So instead I occupied my down time by practicing my hand at becoming a cartoonist/ illustrator. Thus my wild imagination took me away to worlds of unbelievable beauty and fantastic and savage characters
that helped me polish my talents to the point of almost professionalism. That I'm now engaged with a number of my artist friends to which we are producing all on our own a comic that I feel will become the next Harry Potter Saga. Madame X Incorporated was idea of mine that came to me on one of my most horrible moments in my life at the time I lost my father Ralph to a heart attack at the age of 54. And not only this but I've also been able to create a Small Business using my cartoons as my main product. To which I am happy to state that it has been growing profit wise every since I started back in October of 02.

5. My final thought is this. Out of all the hundreds and thousands of students that have gone through the the program program I was chosen among a dozen or so to take part in Mid-Western's new Info-commercial they...er that is the advertising agency that they hired to do it; Target .com. shot it a couple of months ago after they flew me and my mother out to California for the shoot. So according to the grapevine it should be on the airwaves fairly soon. So you see my face will soon be on millions of flat screen T.V.'s any day now. And I am willing to be a living example to the viewing audience to prove to them that recovery from a mental illness isn't just a fairytale because I am living proof!

Thanx.

To all of you who have decided to get back on course with the program. Congratulations and Damn the Torpedos and Full Steam Ahead. Hee Hee I heard that on a Submarine Movie years ago and I believe that that's what a person in recovery has to think about when you have to go up against just a sneaky invisible foe! Your Negative thoughts will do their darnest to dig in and convince you that you NEEEED THEEEM! Don't fall for their LIES! You like the rest of the world need to take off the Rose Colored Glasses and see where you are at this time in your life. When I started to realize that the Enemy was me and my nasty negative thinkingwas ruining my life then I was ready to do battle with it and the many recovery books I've read tells me that this is a Blessing not a Curse! To figure why you keep running off the tracks to your life is just the beginning! The hardest part is to say NO MORE! THIS IS MY LIFE AND I'M NOT GOING TO PISS IT AWAY ANY LONGER! Then start to read one page a day in the program. OH and have a dictionary with you because like me I wasn't the sharpest tool in the tool shed. And when I came upon a word I wasn't sure I knew what it meant or why the author used it in the last sentence then I looked it up and went OH...So that's what they mean. Cool! Oh one my thing about me. I am Dyslixic so no one knew this about me when I was in school so I was put in the SLOW LEARNERS CLASS. But years later as I started to reeducate myself by reading on my own then I discovered my condition and the more I read the better I got to fix it.