self love – Life with Charli

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.

My Mental Health journey so far and looking forward in 2025

Picture taken from Pixabay

Hello everyone! Well guys, we are at the beginning of a new year again! As I was thinking about what I wanted to post next on my blog, I began thinking about how far I have come on my journey with working on my mental health. I started working on my mental health in 2020. I started from being afraid of going to therapy to firmly advocating for it. I went from being against psychiatric medication to believing in their effectiveness.

My journey has not been easy, and I have had a few depressive episodes and break downs. Last year though, I am proud to say that I have not had any depressive episodes or breakdowns. I’ve been feeling more confident than I’ve ever felt before. I’m doing so well with my mental health that I am even having less therapy sessions. At the beginning of my mental health journey, I was going to therapy 3 times a week. That’s how bad my mental health was. Now I’m seeing a therapist once every two weeks. My mental health is not perfect, but I feel so different than I felt before starting my mental health journey. I never thought I would reach to a point where I would be able to say I truly loved myself. I have never felt better. I am very much looking forward to another year of mental stability.

Guest Post: A Letter of Self Love and Strength

Last time, Arlene and I talked about self love. You can view our first collaboration post here. This time around, the focus is on trying to move on mistakes or traumas. We decided to write letters to ourselves, and post the letters on each other’s blogs. Below, you will find Arlene’s letter to herself:

Dear Angie,

Your life has been about overcoming challenges, breaking through barriers, and moving

forward. Ironically, I know you’ve never asked for much, yet the love and support you’ve longed for seem out of reach. I want you

to realize how proud I am of your resilience and how far you’ve come. I can’t think of anyone else who has faced the trials you have and decided to rise above them. You’ve had the perfect excuse to give up if you wanted to.

I understand how exhausting and draining it can be a

t times. Seeing how much of a journey still lies ahead can be disheartening. It’s like swirling the entire ocean, only to find that the shore is still

far away.

Now that you have the incredible tools and knowledge you wish you had from the beginning, it brings up an inevitable question: If you know what you have left to do, why don’t you do it?

Morpheus

expressed it more eloquently in his response:”Sooner or later, you’re going to realize, just as I did, that there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”

We both know you know better, so What’s holding you back from moving on, dear?

I know you’ve been trying to take care of your mom for as long as you can remember.

Despite your efforts to detach, surrender, accept, honor, and support her, it seems there’s still a small yet big step to take.

Acceptance and

resistance both have many layers. You might think you’ve moved past something until it catches you off guard.

Spending each day by your mother’s side causes you sorrow and drains your energy. It’s challenging to accept that there’s nothing more you can do for her

, and both of you need to move on. With numerous changes and challenges, you need to continue with your life, while she needs to follow the natural course of life as well. The days seem long and unbearable for her.

Facing the inevitable, especially knowing she wants to move out of your home

, feels like you’re pulling a trigger in a way. It’s like a one-way ticket.

The thought of a care facility is burdensome and unpleasant to you. Ironically, your mother would be better cared for there than at home, and it would also give you a break from the

the constant stress of dealing with nurses, medicines, and everything else.

Maybe deep down, you know it’s not just

about her; it’s about your whole life

changing. The uncertainty of what’s to come is

both exhilarating and terrifying. Perhaps you’re using the situation with your mom as a shield, almost a symbol.

She is the last link you have with your known life of origin. Everything else seems to be spiraling. It’s a positive spiral, yes, but a dizzying one. Your whole life is new.

I understand you may feel alone in the world

.I encourage you to continue your spiritual journey, filling the void, and moving on with love and purpose.

Keep moving forward, Angie.

About Arlene

Arlene is a blogger, Systemic & Family Constellation Practitioner, Energy Healer, and Trauma Specialization student. You can click here to visit her blog. You can also visit Arlene on social media and say hello!

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/arlenedeangelis/

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When Loving Yourself is a Struggle

Picture taken from Pixabay

Hi all! Welcome back to my blog! How many of you heard about the concept of the angel and the demon on your shoulders? I am playing the role of the demon on the shoulder and will be talking about my insecurities. Fellow blogger Arlene De Angelis will be playing the role of the angel and will be responding to my post. Arlene has a beautiful blog that focuses on helping her readers learn to love themselves. Her posts are in both English and Spanish! Arlene’s posts come from her experience as a Systemic & Family Constellation Practitioner, Energy Healer, and Trauma Specialization student. I had a great time collaborating with her and talking with her! She is honestly so sweet, and you’d definitely feel uplifted by her posts! So visit her blog and check it out!

Without further ado my half of the post is below:

I’ve been bullied since I was small. I can’t help but feel there are too many things wrong with me, and people notice them right away. I don’t like my back, because I have scoliosis. My posture is horrible. I also don’t like that I’ve gained a lot of weight recently. Maybe I need to really need to lower the amount of food I’m eating. I should skip breakfast or lunch from now on. I also don’t like my feet. I’m never wearing sandals! Sometimes I wish I were someone else. I don’t know what to do.

To read Arlene’s response please click here: https://arlenedeangelis.com/is-disliking-yourself-getting-you-somewhere-you-want-to-go/ and read some of her other posts while there as well! You can also visit her socials to say hello!

Blog

Home

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/arlenedeangelis/

Facebook

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Tweets by AADeAngelis

Thankyou for reading!

Learning to Love Yourself with Wednesday

Bianca: “You’re lucky”

Wednesday: “Do tell.”

Bianca: “You don’t care what people think of you.”

Photo taken from Netflix

I mentioned in a previous post that I don’t have much luck with guys. I actually don’t have much luck with people in general. At least that’s what I can’t get myself to stop thinking all the time.

“That person thinks I’m weird”, I would often tell a family member.

“Why do you think that?”, they would often ask, reminding me that what I’m think is not fact.

“People tend to be selfish and are mostly thinking about themselves”, my therapist would always remind me.

No matter how hard I try to keep what I’m told in mind, it’s often hard for me not to think about what’s others are thinking about me. While watching “Wednesday”, what stuck out to to me was how different I am from the titular character. She genuinely doesn’t care about what people think about her. I care a bit too much about what people think about me. Some professionals who analyzed the show think Wednesday might have autism. This might be why she has so much trouble showing her emotions. I, on the other hand, have borderline personality disorder and often have trouble keeping my emotions in check.

What really caught my attention about Wednesday, however, is that she knows she’s different and accepts that. Her viral dance sequence shows this most. She’s confident and not afraid to be herself. What I love most is that though there are some scenes when she sometimes feels insecure and afraid of being alone and eventually allows friends to have a little influence on her, none of this changes who she is at her core. Wednesday will allows be Wednesday, and through the rough patches, her friends start to accept this. They don’t try to change her. Instead, the relationship that Wednesday has with her friends is reciprocal, especially with her best friend Enid. Wednesday starts the series feeling she is better off alone, and Enid starts the series feeling insecure. The series ends with Wednesday fully accepting Enid’s friendship and Enid gaining confidence.

Watching Wednesday really put into perspective for me how hard it can be to feel different from others, but how easy it can feel to be ok with that when you are comfortable with yourself and have people around you who accept you for who you are. I am definitely still a work in progress, but I am learning to love myself, and when people tell me they love me the way I am, I am learning to believe them.

My Hair Journey: How I Fell in Love with my Hair

Growing up, I had a love-hate relationship with my hair. I am a woman of African descent, and people with African roots generally have what we call “kinky” or “coily” hair. I used to love when my mother would style my hair in beautiful braids, and the compliments I would get about them. However, I hated how hard it was for me to style my hair myself. My hair was unruly and difficult to deal with, or at least that’s what I thought.

I had my hair relaxed for the first time when I was still a small child. It was for a wedding. I was still very young, but I was old enough to remember that when I looked in the mirror, I thought I never looked more beautiful. I felt more beautiful too. I also felt like my hair was much more manageable. I didn’t get another relaxer put into my hair again until my late teens, but I continued to straighten my hair with flat irons. In other words, through heat. My hair started to become very damaged from all the heat and chemicals, and I eventually decided to do a “big chop”, or cut off the damaged, relaxed parts of my hair. In the end, I was left with a bit of a buzz cut. As my hair started to grow back, I took the time to learn how to properly take care of my hair and style it.

Many Black women around the world are forgoing the flat iron and relaxers, opting to wear our hair in its natural state instead. A natural hair movement is taking place, and many influencers and companies that sell hair care products have been benefitting from it. Many natural hairstyling videos have been popping up on YouTube to teach black women who choose to go natural how to care for their hair, as well as how to style it. Companies that have been creating haircare products geared towards black women are gaining attention. In fact, in the recent years, there has been a decline in hair relaxer sales. In light of this, some haircare companies that have been previously focused on selling hair straightening products are jumping on the natural hair movement bandwagon.

The movement is not meant to discourage black women from getting relaxers, but rather to encourage each other to feel beautiful and confident regardless of how we choose to wear our hair. I believe there is a lesson every woman can take away from the natural hair movement: you are beautiful just the way you are. It doesn’t matter what our hair texture or skin color might be. We are all queens. After all, diversity is beautiful. Gone are the days when I thought of my hair as unattractive. When I cut my hair, I wasn’t sure I would want to stay natural. Then I looked in the mirror, and thought I never looked more beautiful.

Happy Valentine’s Day to Me!

Picture taken from Pixabay

I never really had much luck with guys and dating. I’ve even had the word “ugly” thrown at me several times. If you’re told something enough times, you start to believe it.

I started believing I must be too ugly and unattractive for any guy to date me, or even want to. I continued thinking that even after becoming an adult and guys started showing interest in me. Too stuck in my low self-esteem, it’s sometimes actually hard for my to even notice when a guy is showing interest in me. My siblings always make fun of me for being a little air-headed sometimes.

Due to my struggles with my self esteem, however, I haven’t really been interested in starting a relationship anyway recently. I’m happily single and working on self-love. I truly believe there is some truth to the saying that no one can love you better than you love yourself. People are going treat you the way you treat yourself, so treat yourself well.

I’m slowly unlearning what I’ve been told many times. I am beautiful, and dear reader, so are you. So this upcoming Valentine’s Day, especially to my single brothers and sisters out there, celebrate your love for yourself. Happy Valentine’s Day, and I’ll see you in the next post!

Turner Syndrome and My Mental Health: A Second Helping

In a previous post, I mentioned that I have a condition called Turner Syndrome. For those unfamiliar with the condition, it is a genetic disorder when a girl is born with one of her X chromosomes partially or fully missing (boys generally have an x and y chromosome, while girls generally have two X chromosomes).

The biggest issues with Turner Syndrome is that many girls with the condition are generally infertile, and can’t go through puberty on their own. They usually need hormone replacements. Turner Syndrome can lead to a host of other complications as well. Those complications can include problems with the heart, kidneys, bones, and thyroid gland. Complications vary from girl to girl. Each girl’s experience with the condition varies, and their symptoms can range from mild to severe.

Girls with Turner syndrome can be diagnosed at any stage in life (before birth, at birth, during infancy, during their teenage, or during their adult years). Generally, the more severe the symptoms, the earlier a girl with Turner syndrome will be diagnosed. Most fetuses with the condition actually have symptoms that are so severe they never make it to term. Turner syndrome is a rare disorder that occurs in around 1 in 2,000 to 2,500 live female births. Around 99 of pregnancies where the fetus has Turner syndrome end in miscarriage.

I suppose that makes me a bit of a miracle baby, or so I like to think at times. I struggled with low self esteem growing up. I always saw nothing but my flaws, and the bullying and I went through during my time in school didn’t help. There was also the fact that I had disabilities and was very dependent on my family. I felt like a burden to them. No matter how hard I tried, I could never fully shake off those feelings, and I hated that. There would be times when someone would say or do something that would make me happy, or I would be doing an activity that would make me happy, but by the time I look around I’m back to feeling low. There would also be times when there was a reason I was down, and other times when I just couldn’t explain why I was feeling depressed. When I was a teen, I kept thinking that one day I will let those feelings go when I finally became an adult. I am now a fully grown adult, and still struggle a bit with these issues. I have learned that what I was going through was not just a phase, or something that I was easily going to get through.

Thankfully, I have a very supportive family. My family has been incredibly patient with me, and extremely supportive. To me, they have been like my therapists. They listen to my concerns, and even encourage me to open up. They never make me feel ashamed of my concerns or feelings when I do share them, and they never make me feel ashamed of my struggles. They also never make me feel like a burden. They are always making sure that I know I’m loved, and that I have a purpose and place in my family and in the world. Considering that I was blessed to be a part of the small one percent of fetuses so h Turner Syndrome to make it to term, I can’t help but to feel they are right.

My mental health journey is still ongoing. I’m still finding myself, still growing. I’m still struggling with my self esteem. I don’t know why I was part of that small 1 percent, but I do know that I am willing to continue fighting through this crazy journey called “life” to find out. After all, if there is one thing I know, it’s this: we are all here for a reason.

Note: My inspiration for this post was fellow blogger and disability advocate Amanda Gene, who is also very lucky to be alive today. Give her blog visit and read her story here.