life – Life with Charli

Interviewing Pamela Topjian: Part Two

Hello everyone and welcome back to Life with Charli! In my last post, I shared part one of an interview I did with mental health and holistic health advocate Pamala Topjian! If you have not read that yet, please read that first! You can also watch a video version of this interview on Pamela’s YouTube channel here!
Enjoy part two of the interview!

Content warning: talk of abuse and suicide. If you or a loved one is experiencing abuse, please reach out for help. If you live in the United States, click here to contact the National Demostic Violence Hotline. If you or a loved one is considering self harm, contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988 at any time.

How do unresolved childhood mental wounds subconsciously map out our adult relationships and mental health struggles?

Pamela

We are learning to be adults throughout our whole childhood, so if there’s neglect, or abuse, or a lack of modeling or mentoring from healthy adults, then you’re at a disadvantage. And you may not even realize how deep some those struggles or mental health issues you have are from that. You may not even realize that it’s from your whole childhood. I didn’t. But a lot of people don’t. You don’t know where it came from. Your subconscious mind holds on to all these things often without you making that connection.

But the bottom line to that question is it might be a better question for a mental health professional. About how the unresolved childhood mental wounds subconsciously map out our adult relationships and mental health struggles. That would be a good question for a mental health professional. Yeah, it goes so deep, and people don’t often realize how deep it can really go. Even simple things that aren’t so traumatic can be detected from way back in your childhood that you don’t even make the connection.

One thing, and did make this connection, so I have, even to this day, even though I’ve been through so much therapy and everything else, I don’t cry at that times that I should be crying. I have trouble showing emotion. I’m very comfortable with other people’s emotions, but not my own. So I had a sister that was killed in a car accident when she was 18. She was 18 and I was 14, and when we were at the hospital, my mother’s friend pointed right at me, she pointed right at me and said “Don’t you cry. You have to be strong for your mother. Don’t you cry”. So I really internalized that. I said “ok. I’m not gonna cry”. That still affects me to this day. So that’s just one example how that can happen.

Charli

Wow. Yeah, I think sometimes we don’t, even as adults, we don’t realize how our actions, or what we say, can really affect the children. And someone might say “Well, that was a while ago”.

Pamela

Oh that was 1980, yeah.

Charli

Yeah, “oh that was a while ago” they’ll say, but no, it still lasts with us even after years. I know for me, a lot of times I was bullied, and still as an adult, that still sticks with me. And so a lot of things still stick with us and shapes our actions, how we react to things, how we interact with people. It’s a powerful thing.

Pamela

Yeah absolutely. Even things like people who have weight issues. And even though they might be healthy and a healthy weight, they still are obsessed with it. If they grew up with their mother being over weight and always talking about they can’t eat this, they can’t eat that-they used to say watch your shape more than they do now-but you know always being on weight watchers, or always counting calories, if their mother always did that, and that’s the model that they saw as a woman that they looked up to, and then as a kid even if they’re healthy, they might still have that sort of obsession. Yeah, so things like that. Doesn’t have to be something big and dramatic, but things like that.

You have been incredibly transparent about your past battle with deep depression and suicidal thoughts. What was the most critical mental shift that helped you move from a state of surviving to actively thriving?

Pamela

I think I touched on this earlier. So it may sound cliche, but really gratitude. Moving from a state of surviving to actively thriving took a lot of steps, a lot of steps. Including that therapy. But having gratitude and just believing that it was possible has helped me to continue to grow, and evolve, and thrive in life, and to have a life that I now have, which is not anything grandiose, or big, or hugely successful, or anything special, but to me it is. Cause I didn’t even know that it was possible to be this happy and to just love life as much as I do. I didn’t even know it was possible.

So, I think just having gratitude for it all and just recognizing. Not taking things for granted. Having that self awareness that “oh my gosh! Five years ago I would not have believed this. Ten years ago I would not have believed this.” Just having gratitude and awareness for everything.

Charli

Oh wow! I love that answer so much! I love that. It’s something I’ve been learning myself, gratitude. Like, paying more attention to things that make me happy, and just paying attention to the small details and little things, and appreciating them.

Pamela

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, life just keeps happening, and you’re not always gonna be in love with everything that happens in your life, no matter what. Right? Cause that’s life and you don’t live in your own little bubble. Things happen around you.

So I think that if something happens, then you’re feeling anxious about it, you’re feeling depressed about it, you’re feeling confused, upset, or mad or whatever emotion that comes up, to have that awareness and think to yourself “why do I feel this way about this situation?, what is this coming from?, what is this doing to me?, how much control do I have over this?, and what am I learning from this?”, I think that’s important too. To ask yourself “what am I learning from this terrible thing that’s happening to me, or why did this happen?”. Look at it. Why did it happen? Cause every move you make is a step towards the next move you make. So it’s almost like, what happened last few days to make these next few days be so terrible? What happened back there? Just kinda really taking a look at it.

Charli

I love that! Taking accountability, and sometimes figuring out how can we be in control a little bit? A lot of times we’re not always in control.

Pamela

Right, you can’t always be in control.

Charli

Yeah. But sometimes there are things we can do. And I love that, looking at how I can do certain things. It kinda reminds me of the serenity prayer. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, to change the things I can, and to know the difference”. You know? Accepting the things that I can not change, changing the things that I can, and knowing which ones.

Pamela

Right. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then also “did I say yes to something that I really felt in my mind wasn’t really right for me?, did I do something that I knew might not be right and then it made me crabby or it turned into something more terrible?”.

I do house and pet sitting, so “did I take a job that I kinda had bad feelings about and then it turned into something more horrible, or did it put me in a bad mood, which then made me make a bad decision later?”. So just even little things like that that you can look back on yourself, or “did I not sleep good the night before and so I snapped back at my friend or my husband or whatever, or a family member, and then it turned into this bad argument or something?”. Just looking back at “how did this get here?”. I think that makes a big difference no matter if it’s small or something big.

Charli

Love that! Love that! It’s a perfect mental health type of strategy, because it helps you to think about “how can I make my mental health better? Have I eaten breakfast this morning?did I miss breakfast? Have I taken my medication? Did I get enough sleep last night?”. All of that is important to why your day might be going poorly.

Pamela

Yeah. Yeah, you wanna not just sit there in the nastiness. You wanna look back at where it started. It’s like if you lose something it’s like “I’m gonna retrace my steps to see where I dropped it”. Same thing.

Your famous turning point happened on a cross-country bus trip. If a reader feels mentally trapped right now but can’t physical leave their life, how can they initiate a “mental cross-country trip” from home?

Pamela

So honestly I feel like my big turning point was in therapy, like I mentioned. But the bus ride was really that first step in not giving up. Once you’re ready to end it all, nothing really scares you. You’re just numb at that point. But if someone reading this feels mentally trapped, and can’t physically make a big move like I did, reading stories like this will help your mind to get in the idea that it’s possible, and that to know that there is hope, and I think that’s really huge.

I myself had read several memoirs, as I mentioned. And this was while I was writing mine and even before I wrote mine. I was reading a bunch of stories, and I think just knowing that it’s possible. And there’s plenty of podcasts out there. One is “The Life Shift Podcast”. There’s others out there where people talk about big shifts in their life, big changes in their life, and how they made it out of terrible situations. Surrounding yourself with those types of stories, whether it’s podcasts, or reading books, or whatever, can really help change that mindset.

And I think that when we feel stuck, we usually feel like there’s a locked door, but I think once you realize that it’s possible to get out that door; maybe that lock isn’t so tight; or maybe you can open the door, but you don’t know how to walk through yet. So, just knowing that it’s possible, just changing your mindset is a very first step, I think, in making that big life change, and getting out of the situation.

Charli

I love that! Beautiful answer! It’s very difficult to get out of a situation. A lot of people do feel stuck, so I think what you said was beautiful. It does give hope.

Pamela

Yeah. And one thing too that I find, so many people are really attached to the place that they live, or they have possessions they feel attached to, and rightly so, but if you’re at a place that you’re gonna end your life or you’re thinking about it, then the things, the physical things in your life, the possessions that you have, if you don’t make it out of that place of those suicidal thoughts, you’re not gonna have those possessions anyway.

So, to be able to let go of some things even if they’re hard to let go of, to save your life, then its easier to leave physically than to leave your life. So if its down to that kind of a thing, if it’s down to my life or I have to stay in this house cause this is where I grew up and now it’s my house, or I have to stay in this town because this is all know and this city is where I’ve always lived, or what would I do with all this stuff?, I have all these possessions, but if it’s your life or just taking off for a fresh start, you have to get real with yourself, I think.

I know people who are stuck because of their possessions, and you can’t really get through to people, so hopefully this helps a little bit. I gave up so much. When I got on that bus, I had sold or gotten rid of everything I had. I even sold my car, and I got the bus ticket. And the only thing that I left behind was a box of memories like my kids school memories, photos, things like that I couldn’t bring on the bus with me. And I just had a handful of clothes. I had a few little things, just necessities that I brought with me. And later on I was able to retrieve that box of the kids’ memories, so I still have those now. I had a friend holding on to those to be able to ship them out later or if I was gonna come back, because when I left they didn’t know if I would be coming back or not. So you just have to really prioritize what’s the most important thing that you need. What are necessities for your daily life compared to my antique doll collection, for instance, or plants that I have, or a crystal collection, or the furniture that even if it’s furniture you have that was your grandmother’s, or pictures on the wall, or your paint set, whatever it is. We’ve all got so much crap that we love! But it’s what we surround ourselves with, and we can’t imagine just getting on a bus or driving to wherever, but sometimes that’s what it takes to make those huge, huge life shifts. Sometimes that’s what it takes.

Charli

Wow. I absolutely love that. My Dad told me a story one time about somebody who was in the desert, and he had a whole large, heavy bag of gold. Instead of leaving it behind, he stuck with it, and he ended up dying. And somebody passes by years and years later, and they’re like “oh this is not even worth it”. Sometimes, like you said, our life is more valuable.

My Dad used to tell me “somebody tries to rob you outside, if that ever happens, just give them whatever they want. Your life is more valuable. We can always replace it, but we can not replace you”.

Pamela

Exactly. Exactly. Is that bag of gold that’s gonna kill you, is it worth dragging it with you if you’re gonna lose your life doing it. Cause either way you don’t have it. I love the metaphors and the analogies. I think that was the last question.

Charli

Yeah, I think that was the last question. That was really wonderful. That was a really awesome conversation.

Pamela

Yeah, Thankyou for inviting me.

Charli

It was a pleasure! Anything you would like to say?

Pamela

I think that if you have been through some trauma, and I’ve said a lot already that it’s so important to hold on to that hope, and to just know that it’s possible, and to live with gratitude. So those are things that I really said a lot about during this whole time. But if you’re somebody who has never told anybody, never shared your story, it can be really difficult at first. And that’s ok.

It’s ok if it’s difficult. It’s going to be healing, because if you have some trauma inside of you, it’s gonna feel like a ball of something stuck in there. If you have stomach issues, if you have throat issues, which is really a lot of times a sign of not being able to say what you want or not being able to get it out, if you have throat issues, if you have stomach issues, a knot in your stomach, a knot in your throat, that’s because all this stuff is stuck inside of you. Once you start getting it out, and the more that you talk about it, the more that you write about it, the easier it becomes. And that’s a huge part of healing. Even without therapy, I do suggest therapy of course, it saved my life, but that’s a first step as well, being able to get it out of you.

They talk about sweeping things under the rug. Well you can sweep so much under there that it becomes a big lump that you always trip over. Like I said, I love the analogies! So, being able to get rid of some of that stuff little by little, and yes it’s hard at first , but it’ll make that lump go down. It’ll clear up your stomach issues and your throat issues. I promise you it will. So, get it out. Get it out of you. If you’ve never talked about it, if you’ve never written about it, you don’t have to publish it, just write it out. Get it out of your body and down somewhere else.

Charli

Awesome! Beautiful! I think this is gonna be so encouraging to the readers and listeners!

Pamela

I hope so. That’s the goal, to encourage others. Thankyou for all that you’re doing, getting this information out there.

Charli

Thankyou! I think that was a beautiful answer. I love that analogy of sweeping things under the rug.

Pamela

Yeah, that lump can get so high you’re always tripping over it.

Charli

There is definitely a connection between your physical health and your mental health, and when your mental health is not good, it could start showing signs in your physical health. Like you said, your stomach could have stomach issues, you can have throat issues. Those are definitely signs.

Pamela

Yeah, and you know, remember when I said that when I first went to therapy before I went, I was like “what am I gonna say to the therapist”? I didn’t know what I was gonna say. So if some people are feeling that way, just know that that’s the therapist’s job. They will ask you questions. They will ask you about things. It’s their job to figure out what they need to know, to know however you’re feeling, if you’re depressed, if you’re anxious, or both, or having nightmares, or whatever it is, or trauma that you feel like is holding you back.

I mean, if you’ve had trauma and you haven’t been through any therapy or healing in any way, it’s gonna be holding you back, whether you realize it or not. So if you’ve been through some trauma and you’ve never processed through it in any way at all, I really, highly, suggest some sort of therapy. And it takes diligence and patience a lot of times to find the right type of therapy or the right therapist for you, because not everything works for everybody, so you need to find what’s right for you. But don’t hesitate because you don’t think you know what you’re gonna say, because that’s their job to ask you what they need to know to be able to help you.

Charli

Exactly. And don’t be afraid to open up to them. That’s very important.

Pamela

Yeah. We’ve probably both have heard of people that go to therapy and they’re like “oh I didn’t tell my therapist this” or “I was afraid to tell my therapist that”, or “I went to counseling but I didn’t share the whole story”. Well, how can you expect them to help you if you don’t share the whole thing? They’ve heard it before. It’s not gonna shock them. They went to school for this. This is their specialty. So yeah, you’re not gonna surprise them.

Charli

Yes. Exactly. It kinda reminds me of when you said earlier that the doctor actually wanted to put you in the hospital, and the doctor listened to you. And I think a lot of people are scared that “if tell my doctor this or that, they’re gonna institutionalize me”.

Pamela

Yeah. I’m surprised, thinking back, I’m surprised I was able to talk him out of it. But it’s not the worst thing, because had I went into a facility at that time, I would’ve gotten therapy the next day. As it was, I had to wait two, three months to get into a program for outpatient therapy. Cause that’s a real hurdle as well, is having to wait to get your appointment. But if you go into a facility, you’re gonna see somebody within 24 hours.

Charli

Yeah, that is another big, big issue. That definitely I wish we could have discussed too, the wait time.

Pamela

Yeah, and that’s why too, we briefly talked about my podcast Holistic Connections: Conversations with Holistic Practitioners, and one of the reasons is so people can know all their options, because a lot of alternative therapies can work in the meantime, or can work along with regular types of therapy. So a lot of these different practitioners are not just physical stuff. A lot of it is for mental stuff, or even spiritual stuff, or just helping you to understand yourself better, like on a self discovery journey or a healing journey, or even, like I said, a spiritual journey. A lot of these different types of more holistic practitioners can help with that. So think out side of the box a little bit sometimes if you’re having trouble with getting in right away.

Yes, that’s very important, that’s very important. That was so beautiful! That was so much beautiful information!

I’m so glad. Thankyou.

Thankyou again to the wonderful Pamela Topjian for this lovely conversation! I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me!

Get to know Pamela more! Find her on her podcast, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok

Buy her first book: I Didn’t Come This Far, to Only Come THIS Far

Buy her second book: Behind The Mask, Scrubs and Gloves

Interviewing Pamela Topjian: Part One

Hello everyone! Welcome to Life with Charli for those who are visiting for the first time! Welcome back to those who are familiar with my blog! In this post, I’m very excited to welcome a special guest! Her name is Pamela Topjian! She is a mental health and holistic health advocate! She runs the podcast Holistic Connections: Conversations with holistic practitioners, and she has a YouTube channel where you can also find her podcast videos! She is also the author of two memoirs. Her first memoir is called “I Didn’t Come This Far, to Only Come THIS Far”. Pamela shares the trauma she experienced throughout her life, including abuse in her first two marriages, in this memoir. Her second memoir is Behind The Mask, Scrubs and Gloves, which touches on her experience as a nurse. I had the pleasure of interviewing Pamela recently, and I share part our conversation in this post! I hope you gain inspiration from reading this.

Content warning: talk of abuse and suicide. If you or a loved one us experiencing abuse please reach out for help. If you live in the United States, click here to contact the National Demostic Violence Hotline. If you or a loved one is considering self harm, contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988 at any time.

Enjoy the interview!

Tell me about your current healthy marriage. How did you find the courage to trust and find love again after your abusive past relationships?

Pamela

That’s a very good question, cause I always said “I’ll never marry again, I’ll never marry again”, and I wasn’t even dating for a relationship. I wouldn’t have been able to without going through therapy first. I had to look at what I learned from my past and knowing how I got to that point in my life with the first two marriages, and then looking at what I would do differently.

This is kinda one of the things we went through in therapy is, like, ok this situation with this past relationship, what would you do differently now? Or what are some red flags that you maybe missed or ignored at that time? So learning from the past relationships is what helped me to be in a healthier relationship now. And then, you know, gaining self respect and learning what is acceptable and having healthy boundaries as well. Being able to say no to whatever doesn’t feel right for me, or whatever feels disrespectful, or doesn’t feel safe, you know? So through therapy is the main answer. You know? I would not have been able to be in a healthy relationship, not without going through therapy.

Charli

Wow! Absolutely. Absolutely. I completely understand that. And how did therapy help you to love yourself and trust that person with your love?

Pamela

Yeah, it was just through connecting the dots and through understanding how I got to that place in my life. You know? How I got to that place. Cause going through therapy was during a mental breakdown, which we touch on later in these questions. I was at the lowest I’ve ever been, so you learn to connect the dots and connect those puzzle pieces, and figure out how did I get to this low point from where I came from. How did I get here? And then being able to understand all that really helps to gain self confidence. And talking about what you’ve learned from it all makes you trust yourself more again.

It’s like “oh ok”, cause, you know, so many people will say “oh my picker is broken” if they keep having bad relationships one after the other. But what they don’t understand is that can be sort of fixed.

Well, that’s not the best term to use in mental health the term “fixed”, but when people say “my picker is broken”, then you can fix that picker, really, by learning from the past mistakes rather than just saying “oh this terrible thing happened. Oh this terrible thing happened”, and looking at it as “what did I learn from that?, What was good that came out from that? What would I do differently now?”, or what was good out of that? But also what was not acceptable from that. What was the point that was this was too much, this was unacceptable? So learning from those things really makes a big difference.

Charli

Absolutely! Absolutely! I get that! Like, knowing what to accept and what you shouldn’t accept in a relationship. Learning about that. Beautiful. Beautiful.

Tell me about the title of your first memoir “I didn’t come this far to only come this far”. What made you give your book this title?

Pamela

So when I first went through therapy, during that mental breakdown, I felt like I climbed out a very deep dark hole, and so I couldn’t do everything that it took to claw myself out of that deep dark hole and then just sit at the edge of that cliff. You know what I mean? I didn’t come all the way through that to just be here at this place. You know? At the edge of it and not move forward.

So I had to move away from it. I couldn’t have just made it through all that I did, all those suicidal thoughts, and all the work that I had done for healing, I couldn’t just get there and be like “ok, ok. Now I feel better. I’m just gonna sit here at the edge of this cliff and look down at that deep dark hole and be like ‘I made it!’. For me anyway, I felt like you had to keep going to make my life purposeful. I might not have made it, so there has to be a reason. So I didn’t come all this way, I didn’t come this far to only come this far. You know?

What moment or breakthrough during your solo cross-country trip made you say, “I didn’t come this far to only come this far”?

Pamela

I don’t feel like I was really feeling that way at the time. Really, that was after therapy, like I just explained, which was after the bus ride. But just the fact that I was still alive after having a plan for suicide, I had to just hang on to hope. So, just the fact that I didn’t carry out that plan, and I got on that bus, and I was going for a last ditch effort to move far away for a fresh start, whatever. The same kinda thing. I’m not still here for no reason. So it’s just really holding on to hope.

Charli

Absolutely. Beautiful. I like that. I think a lot of times we find that moment where we say “ok, I just feel like I wanna keep going” like you said before. I wanna keep pushing forward. This up, an upward motion. Sometimes it takes that moment for us to find that breakthrough.

Pamela

Right. Yeah, I think they talk about rock bottom. It’s usually with alcoholism, or drug addiction, or something, but you can totally hit rock bottom in other ways. Even not having to do with substance abuse or anything, but just your own trauma can make you drop down to that rock bottom place to where you’re anxious, and depressed, and suicidal, and unable to function. Even that can be your rock bottom that you have to decide at that point “Am I gonna stay under this rock or try to get out of it?”.

Writing a memoir takes incredible vulnerability. Did you find the 5-year process of writing your story to be triggering?

Pamela

Absolutely. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It felt really important to do though. So honestly, I knew that it was healing. It was cathartic writing it all out. And I started writing it all out as a journal as I was going through therapy. I was writing as a journal to help myself connect those dots and put those puzzle pieces together. So that was the reason I was writing it. But then later, decided I was gonna publish it and turn it in to a memoir.

So yeah, during the time of writing it, I was having flashbacks, and I hadn’t had flashbacks before, flashbacks of abuse. I was having nightmares. But yeah, just understanding how I got to those points in life, and like I said, connecting the dots, and putting those puzzle pieces together, and being able to get it out of me, to write it down and get all those words and experiences out of me and down out on paper was really healing. And so, it was triggering, but I knew it was one of those hurdles you had to go through.

Charli

Wow. Wow. Really interesting. What particularly made you decide I want people to know about my journey, about this and to publish it?

Pamela

Yeah, so I was reading other memoirs and during the time I was in therapy, and I was writing my journal, and I was reading memoirs of other women who had made it out of difficult situations, a lot of them much more horrific than what I had been through, but I know that so many women, so many people, have been through the same kinds of things that I have.

I mean, nobody has the same exact lives or stories, but people go through similar things. So I knew that there was plenty of women, too many women, who had been through similar situations that I have been through. And so I thought, as I was reading theses other ones, it helped me to realize, oh, if they can get out of that horrific situation to go on to love their life and not just survive but to thrive, if they can do it, why not me? You know? So I felt like my story can be helpful to someone too. Cause a lot of those stories, as I was talking about before, a lot of those stories are people who had been through addiction or substance abuse, or something that might be a little bit different than my story, and things that we hear more about, those kinds of stories. Or people who have been through really really horrific things that people can’t even imagine, like child trafficking and stuff like that, or cult abuse, and just really really horrific things. Or even a lot of physical and sexual abuse and stuff throughout their childhood, some really really horrific things, and they want to get out of it. So I felt like my story was a little more relatable to a lot of people. I just thought, oh my story might help somebody too.

Charli

Amazing! And to piggyback off of our other questions, it’s amazing that you were inspired by other stories. For me personally, I know that made me want to receive help, and that made me also want to share my journey too. So for you, when you started receiving help, did others inspire you to also recieve help?

Pamela

I wouldn’t say that others did. So I started therapy because I had went to the doctor. I was a nurse at the time, and I was thinking more medical and I thought “We’ll I can’t sleep and I have so much anxiety”. I was going to the doctor for something to help me sleep, cause that just makes everything worse if you’re not sleeping. And I was having nightmares and stuff too when I did fall asleep. So even the act of trying to fall asleep was causing anxiety, cause I had so many bad nightmares.

So I went to the doctor and it was the doctor who said “yes, I’ll give you some medication, but I also want to have you go to therapy”. So yeah, it was really the doctor. I didn’t have people in my life encouraging me to go to therapy. It was the doctor.

Charli

And when the doctor told you you should go to therapy, what was your response? Were you hesitant to go to therapy?

Pamela

Well at the time, and this is so funny, but at the time, I didn’t know why I was having this reaction. So I had just had a second divorce from an abusive marriage, and when I divorced him I thought, and this is just before the mental breakdown, I thought “oh my gosh everything’s gonna be wonderful now”. You know what I mean? I was just so excited to not have that in my life anymore, to be on my own, but then everything from my childhood and my whole life just came crashing down on me and I spiraled downward. But at the time I didn’t realize it.

When I was at the doctor’s office, I did not realize what was causing all of this. And I thought “what am I gonna say to a therapist? I can’t get over my second divorce? Even though I’m the one who divorced and it was abusive and I wanted out and I needed out?” It wasn’t the person. I wasn’t missing him. It wasn’t like that. It was just I was fearful all the time.

One of the reasons I moved far was partially because I didn’t know if I would see him at the grocery store or he would show up at my job. He didn’t know where I had moved, but I didn’t know if he stayed in the same town. So I was always fearful, and I thought that was the reason. So when it continued after I moved half way across the country, I was so confused as to why this was happening.

So when the doctor told me that, I thought “what am I gonna say to the therapist?”. I was like “I don’t even know what I’m gonna say, but if you think so”. And to be honest with you, the doctor really wanted me to go into a facility. You wouldn’t recognize me. I mean, the person I was sitting in the doctor’s office, I was ringing my hands, I was almost shaking. I could not focus. To sit in a waiting room with other people, it was so scary to me. To drive there was a really difficult task. Just to drive to the doctor’s office, or to go to a store. A lot of times I’d go to a store and I’d leave before I got everything I need cause I just could not handle it. So, he wanted me to go into a facility, and I was like “I’m not suicidal. I don’t wanna go into a facility”. And I promised that I would be ok, and that I would definitely go to that first appointment. So I talked him out of it actually, which is surprising. I talked him out of sending me some place and started out-patient therapy.

So, I want to mention something else that I was thinking about when you talked about the reason for writing the memoir. Another reason is I’ve got two adult children, and I thought if the suicidal thoughts won, if I wasn’t gonna make it out of this, I wanted them to have the whole picture as to what happened. This was Mom’s life. This is what happened. This is what happened that got her to that point in life. And I wanted them to have that story. And then also my father died young, my mother now has the beginnings of dementia, and I don’t have a whole lot of information on their childhood and even young adult life. I would like my kids, when I’m gone, to have it all written out. You know? Cause I would have loved to have that with my parents.

Charli

That’s touching! Wow! To have your children know this is your Mom’s story.

Pamela

Yeah. And I think that would be really cool. I don’t have grandchildren yet. I mean, I still may, but even with nieces and nephews, or their children, I’m gonna be somebody’s ancestor someday. And I think it would be really cool if I had some ancestor, some great aunt, or even a great great grandmother, or somebody from long long ago, if I had a memoir of their whole life story…

Charli

Oh that would be amazing! It would be so amazing to know this is what was going on in their time, this is what was going on in their life. I think that’s amazing.

What advice do you have for blog readers who want to share their own trauma stories but are terrified of being judged?

Pamela

I would let them know that it can be incredibly healing to get it all out of you, whether you write about it or talk about it like on podcasts, it helps, but to also know that it can help others to not feel so alone, because others have been through so much that they don’t talk about and they feel so alone in their pain. So, those that judge may not have had similar experiences, and they just don’t understand how it can feel for somebody, or they have, maybe, and think that you should just keep things secret and not air dirty laundry or put your trauma out there for the public to see. But keep in mind how helpful it can be for those who are afraid to speak about it, and it may even save a life.

So, as you age, when you’re younger you might worry about being judged, but as you age you don’t care as much what other people think. But also if they’re judging, that’s just showing that they don’t understand, and that’s ok. Not everybody is going to understand. You know? You just have to know that it’s something that’s important to you and very helpful to you, and that’s what matter’s most. Even if others are gonna judge it.

Charli

I love that! I love that, because a lot of women don’t report or want to report their abuse, they don’t report their trauma, and they don’t tell their story. And it can be so encouraging, it can be so helpful, to hear someone else share their story. And they can feel open to sharing “this is what happened to me”.

Pamela

Yeah. And I think I answered this in other questions too, but it helps to know somebody made it out of that. It’s not just a story of trauma, it’s also a story of healing at the end.

Charli

Yes! I love that point of view! I mean, yes you’ve been a victim, but you also are a survivor. You’ve made it through that point in your life where you can say “I made it through that. I’m strong”.

Pamela

Yeah. And just knowing that somebody else did, that helps to know that you can too.

Your life is a masterclass in starting over. What mindset shift is required to successfully reinvent yourself when everything feels broken?

Pamela

So before I answer this, this is my third book. So I’m writing my third book about reinventing myself. The first book is so much trauma and everything I’ve been through, and at the end it’s about healing. The second book is everything I’ve been through as a nurse. I wanted to write a book that was focused more on the healing and the rebuilding than all the trauma. So yeah.

So I guess the mindset shift is to have hope and know it’s possible. That and to learn from the past and to have gratitude for everything positive in your life. That’s the mindset that you have to have as you’re rebuilding. Not to focus on all the trauma, and not to focus on all the things that were bad, but to focus on, and even if you’re writing everything out that was traumatic, focus on what’s good now.

You know, a lot of my childhood we were hungry. We lived in poverty. We didn’t have food to eat a lot of the time. So even just to be thankful for a meal. You don’t have to be religious to give thanks for your meal. Every little thing really. I mean, if you have ever lived in poverty, you know you are wearing your clothes until the last thread. You can’t get a lot of things you even really need a lot of the time, let alone things you want. So every little thing, be thankful for that. And I think holding on to that gratitude helps you to reach for more as you’re going through your healing.

What advice do you have for people who feel it is too late in life to make changes or achievements?

Pamela

Making changes can be done as long as you have your mind and you have your breath. It’s really never too late. It can start with just knowing that it’s possible and holding on to hope. You don’t have to know where or how to achieve that big goal, but one small change or movement in the direction at the time is all it takes. You don’t have to know “how am I gonna get there from here? It’s like you’re at the bottom of that hole and it’s like “I don’t know how I’m gonna get up at the top. I just know that I want to. I’m just gonna keep climbing one little step at a time”. That reminded me of that quote “you don’t have to take the whole staircase at once”. You just take it one step at a time. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. If you’re driving somewhere, you don’t have to see the destination to drive there. You’re just going one mile at a time.

Charli

I love that. I think a lot of people will be encouraged by that. I know for me, I’m a perfectionist. I know “I want to get to this route”. And I wanna plan everything, and “this is how I wanna get there, this is where I wanna go”. And sometimes when things don’t happen the way I want them to, I get so bent out of shape, I get so down. And I think it’s encouraging to know take your time. You don’t have to be perfect to get to your destination. You don’t even have to perfectly know your destination.

Pamela

Right. And sometimes it can be one steps forward and two steps back. Just inching your way up, you know? I changed careers in my 50s. I took took new classes and courses in my 50s. I started therapy when I was 50. I started painting. I wrote my memoirs in my 50s. I’m 60 now. I’m writing a third memoir. And there people that are much older that are famous people. You can easily look it up. What famous people didn’t start till they were much older? There’s plenty of them that you know of, that you’ve heard of, that didn’t start until much later in life.

So if you’re feeling like you’re too old, like I said, if you still have your mind about you and you’re still breathing, you can make changes for the better.

Thankyou, Pamela, for taking the time to do this interview! It was truly a pleasure and honor speaking with you!

Get to know Pamela more!
Find her on her podcast, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok

Buy her first book: I Didn’t Come This Far, to Only Come THIS Far

Buy her second book: Behind The Mask, Scrubs and Gloves

Happy Disability Pride Month

Picture taken from the City of Los Angeles Department on Disability

Welcome to July all! How has the start of the month been treating you so far? Did you know July is disability pride month? As someone with a disability myself, I’m ashamed to say I wasn’t aware of that until I started seeing a lot of posts on Facebook celebrating disability pride month.

One post that really stood out to me was one that mentioned people with disabilities still struggle with rights when it comes benefits and marriage. It’s actually true. A person on benefits can not be making over a certain amount of money, or they will be seen as no longer needing the benefits. If a person with a disability gets married, the couple’s combined finances is considered. A person with a disability can be taken off benefits if he or she and the spouse is making more than the amount of money allowed by the social security administration.

This leaves people with disabilities with two options. They can either choose to never get married, or they can get married and depend on their spouses financially. Unfortunately, the second option leaves people with disabilities vulnerable. Studies show that people with disabilities are five times more likely than people without disabilities to go through domestic abuse. Without an income of their own, people with disabilities might feel trapped when in an abusive situation. As seen from the above image of the disability pride flag, black represents people with disabilities who have suffered from violence.

When I was looking through the comments of Facebook posts about Disability Pride Month, I saw many negative reactions. Several people couldn’t understand the need for the celebration. Disability Pride month is needed to celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of people with disabilities, as well as recognize the continuing needs of the disability community. As long as there is still a struggle within the disability community, there is a need for awareness.

Are you a person with a disability reading this, or do you have a loved one with a disability? Where do you or that loved one fit on the the disability pride flag?

Happy Disability Pride Month! Let’s celebrate and embrace differences!

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence please reach out for help. In the United States, help is available 24/7 from the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you need assistance, please click here.

Blogging with a Disability

“I wish I had your brain”.

That’s what a classmate once told me in college. That classmate was from a science class I took. The professor of that class liked to give shoutouts to students who received the top mark on her exams. During my time in her class, I always received the top mark on her exams. My performance in the class led to the previously mentioned quote from my classmate during a conversation.

Little did that classmate know that I actually struggle with a learning disability that makes math and science very difficult for me. Due to my challenges with my disability, I decided to take the science class alone with no other classes. It also helped that I didn’t have a family to take care of (still don’t). All this to say that you don’t know what a person might be dealing with. I wasn’t so successful in that class because I was smarter than everyone. I was successful because I knew myself and my limitations. Based on my limitations and strengths, I did what was best for me to succeed.

Math and science aren’t my only problem areas. I have a hard time with processing information, and that causes me to take longer to complete tasks than my peers. I’m a pretty good writer, and but I can take a while to properly sort out my ideas and thoughts. I also get tired easily, so extra time and breaks are a must when working on tasks. That leaks into my blogging.

Some readers who visit my blog might notice that it takes me a while to respond to comments. You might notice the same issue on my social media platforms. It’s not that I want to take a long time to respond. It’s just a struggle to keep up with all the tasks I have to complete for my blog. The beautiful thing about blogging, though, is you can move at your own pace. For my health, both physical and mental, I have taken plenty of breaks from my blog, and I have given myself enough time to respond to comments and socialize.

So, if I take a while to get to back to you here on the blog or on social media, I apologize. Know I haven’t forgotten about you. I’m just doing what is best for my wellbeing. If you are a fellow blogger and influencer, especially if you are a disability advocate with a disability, know that it is completely alright to take breaks. You don’t have to fight against your disability. You know your limitations, and you’re just doing what’s best for you.

Take care of yourselves, and see you in the next post.

100 posts! Let’s Celebrate!

I just received a notification from WordPress that said I’ve published over 100 posts on the platform! Yay me! But seriously, this is wonderful. One of my fears when I started blogging was that I would run of ideas to write. Here I am nearly six years and 100 posts later, and I’m still going. I started this blog because I believe everyone has an interesting and important story to tell, and I wanted to share mine.

Sharing my story and experiences has been a wonderful journey so far. I’ve talked a lot about my experience with a genetic disorder called Turner syndrome on my blog. For years after I was diagnosed as a teenager, I kept my condition to myself, only sharing it with a very select few people. As I grew older, I started advocating for myself, and I needed people to understand what my day to day life is like as a woman with Turner syndrome. This inspired me to share my story. One of my first blog posts was “Imperfectly Perfect: Life with Turner Syndrome”. The truth is, I actually wrote this blog post for a major magazine. I submitted it, but never heard back from any representative from the magazine company. That’s when I decided to create my own platform. That’s how Life with Charli came about! I was nervous about starting a blog, but I realized that if I wanted more awareness on Turner syndrome, I needed to be comfortable with sharing my story.

I have also talked a lot about dealing with mental illness on my blog. I have mentioned many times on my blog that was hesitant to start therapy and medication for my mental illness. To be honest, even up to the time I started my blog, I was still hesitant. However, I noticed a lot of other bloggers boldly talking about mental illness with no shame. Then, one day, I asked on one of X, then Twitter, if anyone would like to share their story on my blog.

I was so happy when I got a response from a fellow writer Lesley Skinner. When Lesley told me that she wanted to write about mental illness, I gladly collaborated with her and published “Christianity and Mental Health”. Around that time, a fellow blogger, Nadine, shouted me out as a fellow mental health advocate.

I was shocked, because I didn’t see myself as one. However, I happily accepted the praise. It wasn’t really my intention to focus on mental health, but looking back, that was a topic I have been talking about from my very first post “This is Life: Your Purpose, Your gift”, which focused on self love. Other early posts that followed also focused on mental health, like “Judgements and Assumptions”, which focused on social anxiety. I just did not realize how connected to mental health those posts were. I was just writing my experience. Amazingly, people were listening responding so positively to what I had to say. Little did my fellow bloggers know, though, that I was listening to them too. I decided to reach out for help with my mental illness like so many of my fellow bloggers, and was officially diagnosed with depression and borderline personality disorder.

It felt so good to finally be getting help. I’m very grateful to the bloggers who have had an influence on my mental health and blogging journey. With the beautiful feedback I have been receiving throughout my time blogging, I know my story has reached others as well. For instance, a beautiful soul took the time to send this email to me:

A very warm thankyou to you my friend, and to all those who have been supporting me through all this time. If you are sharing your story online like me, know that people are watching and listening. You are making an impact on someone’s life. Keep sharing your story.

Thankyou for visiting and helping me celebrate 100 published posts. Here’s to 100 more.