Hello Wall - Hormonal Heart Poetry

  Memoir Blast — Love Love — The Moment Everything Tilted When I first saw Rich, I was sitting at the garden table in my mum’s garden. He came through the side gate. He flicked his hair and sniffed — that little signature move he always had. My brother walked in before him, and then Rich followed, and I thought: Oh my God. There is the man of my literal dreams. What a beautiful boy. We were twenty. Courtney was on my lap. And I think I actually fell off the chair — ironically — literally bowled over. Forgot myself in that moment. Fun fact: my metal‑by‑religion‑to‑be husband was wearing a Deacon Blue top (not metal), even though my brother had just joined his metal band, so I was discombobulated on many levels. He flicked his hair back again and gave me a smile that always weakened me. And that was love. Young love. Dream‑love. Instant‑love. My hormonal blueprint clicked into place like it had been waiting for him. And in the words of Twilight , he imprinted on me. I don’t really r...

Intro — Girls on a Train Life always seemed to happen when I was travelling. Trains, platforms, doorways, cafés — places where you’re meant to just pass through, but somehow I never just passed through. Things happened. People collided with me, or revealed themselves, or broke, or cried, or tried something they shouldn’t. And I was always there — a girl on a train, a girl in a doorway, a girl in a café — noticing, reacting, protecting, absorbing. These are just some of them. Memoir Blast — Girls on a Train 1) The Man on the Stockholm Train I was on a Swedish train with my daughter, eight years old, hyper‑vigilant like me, ND like me. The carriage was full, except for one man — the only man — who told me I looked attractive in my red dress. I thought he was odd, but harmless. Until I looked again. Until I realised what he was doing. Until the rage hit my throat but I swallowed it because my daughter was right there. ND balance Rage or leave! I got us off the train without alerting he...

  Memoir Blast — The Deck‑Chair Collapse I was eighteen, heavily pregnant with Courtney, still a young girl really, and I sat down on one of those old‑fashioned deck chairs — the canvas kind. The fabric tore. I fell straight through. Stuck in the frame, caught in the mechanics, unable to move. My dad, Paul, and my brothers all three had to lift me together, pull me out carefully, piece by piece. I was mortified. Mortified at the beach. (The beaching - becoming stuck, bulbous) Mortified at the body I thought I had become. I was young, beautiful, full of life — but society had already taught me the wrong math: chair breaks = I’m huge stuck = I’m too big pregnant = don’t move, protect the baby needing help = I’m less than They lifted me gently because I was precious cargo. But all I felt was shame for breaking a chair. Hearing the comments, the looks, the tone — society had shamed me long before the canvas tore. Heavy bones. Busty — what a reference. Bigger. Tall, taller. Even my shoe...

  INTRO T here are stories that don’t arrive in a straight line. They come in fragments — a field, a room, a label — each one carrying a different part of the truth. None of them are the whole story, but together they reveal the shape of a life lived under pressure, adaptation, and quiet resilience. These pieces are written from the outside looking in, because sometimes distance is the only way to see clearly. They are not confessions. They are observations. A way of mapping what happened, how it felt, and how she finally found the language for it. 1. “The Field, the Fence, and the Girl Who Carried the Backpack” Blog‑post intro idea: A moment that looked ordinary from the outside but was actually the beginning of the end — the day you realised you were carrying more than snacks and suncream. You were carrying the marriage. Draft blog‑post / chapter seed: I used to think that marriage was a shared weight, something carried between two people. But the truth arrived quietly, in a wild...

  INTRO There are stories that don’t arrive in a straight line. They come in fragments — a field, a room, a label — each one carrying a different part of the truth. None of them are the whole story, but together they reveal the shape of a life lived under pressure, adaptation, and quiet resilience. These pieces are written from the outside looking in, because sometimes distance is the only way to see clearly. They are not confessions. They are observations. A way of mapping what happened, how it felt, and how she finally found the language for it. 2. “Purgatory Rooms: The Spaces We Build to Avoid Ourselves” Blog‑post intro idea: A piece about the house, the room, the clutter, and the way ND brains turn physical space into emotional pressure. A chapter about how you learned that the room wasn’t the problem — the avoidance was. Draft blog‑post / chapter seed: There are rooms we live in, and rooms we survive in. I didn’t know the difference until I found myself trapped inside one — a ...

  INTRO There are stories that don’t arrive in a straight line. They come in fragments — a field, a room, a label — each one carrying a different part of the truth. None of them are the whole story, but together they reveal the shape of a life lived under pressure, adaptation, and quiet resilience. These pieces are written from the outside looking in, because sometimes distance is the only way to see clearly. They are not confessions. They are observations. A way of mapping what happened, how it felt, and how she finally found the language for it. “The Field, the Room, and the Door That Finally Opened” She didn’t realise the story began in a field. It looked ordinary enough — a carved wooden fence, a backpack slung over one shoulder, the kind of day that should have been nothing more than a walk. But he ran ahead, searching for something he couldn’t name, and she stayed behind, carrying everything that kept the day functioning. Snacks, water, emotional labour. The invisible load. F...

  The Glass Coffin: Understanding the Metaphor She didn’t draw the image. She found it — a simple Miffy –style illustration of Snow White lying in a glass coffin. A childlike picture, flat colours, clean lines, nothing dramatic. She kept it without knowing why. Only later did she understand that she had recognised herself in it long before she had language for the feeling. The glass coffin wasn’t a fairy‑tale sleep. It was fragility. It was containment. It was the perfect metaphor for a girl who had survived childhood trauma not by becoming stronger, but by becoming careful. She thought she would grow bigger, rise up, become a bear. But trauma doesn’t make children fierce. It makes them adaptive. It teaches them to hold everything together for everyone else. It teaches them to stay small so they don’t get hurt again. The glass case showed what she couldn’t see at the time: she didn’t have much to function with. She protected what little she had. And when life hit her, she didn’t cr...

  1. SHARDS Short poem She didn’t crack, she shattered. A fall so quiet the pieces made more noise than the breaking. Meaning Shards are the parts of her that split under pressure — not because she was weak, but because she had been holding too much for too long. Childhood trauma made her adaptive, not strong. ND wiring made her sensitive, not fragile. Perimenopause removed the hormonal scaffolding that had been holding everything together. The shattering wasn’t failure; it was revelation. The shards showed where the pressure had been, what hit her, and how thin the glass really was. 2. THE LIGHTHOUSE Short poem She walked the long curve around the lighthouse, and only at the far side did she see the storm she’d already survived. Meaning The lighthouse is clarity — the moment she finally saw her life from the outside. For decades everything was clouded: trauma masked, ND wiring hidden, hormones compensating. She thought she was coping. She thought she was strong. She thought she wa...

  INTRO There are stories that don’t arrive in a straight line. They come in fragments — a field, a room, a label — each one carrying a different part of the truth. None of them are the whole story, but together they reveal the shape of a life lived under pressure, adaptation, and quiet resilience. These pieces are written from the outside looking in, because sometimes distance is the only way to see clearly. They are not confessions. They are observations. A way of mapping what happened, how it felt, and how she finally found the language for it. 3. “The Label That Unlocked the Door” Blog‑post intro idea: A chapter about diagnosis, clarity, anger, forgiveness, and the moment you finally understood your own wiring — not as failure, but as truth. Draft blog‑post / chapter seed: For years, I thought I was broken in ways I couldn’t explain. I thought I was too much, too loud, too fast, too scattered, too emotional, too everything. I thought the cracks were my fault. But the label — th...

  PART TWO — WHAT I DID UNTIL I DIDN’T (UNTIL I BURNT OUT)  Doing full time art in every available hour around employment Sweden → Newlook → Curiosity Shop → Charity Years → Burnout 2008–2013 (Age 35–40) — Return from Sweden → Newlook, Round Two When I came back from Sweden, I went straight back into Newlook for another five years. The first time I’d been on an eight hour contract;( 20 staff to run the shop )  the second time I was technically zero hour ( 10 staff to run the shop ) but doing twenty hours spread across the week, that constantly changed to keep us employed in one place because you could fulfill two contracts (that was always subject to change) finally minimum wage (law)  - stretched thin over maximum emotional labor, Zero hours are now lucky long gone.  My last pay day the government had juts made all work places pay into a pension, and the first time.  In my previous term - the 1st five years was £450 shares payout or keep -...

  PART ONE — What I Did Until I Didn’t A personal‑essay timeline by Alison (born 1973) 1973 — Born into a world where girls worked early and often I didn’t “start working young.” I started working as a child, because that’s what girls did — we helped, we earned, we filled the gaps adults left open. Timeline Graphic Caption — What I Did Until I Didn’t A life built on work that began in childhood: gardening at eight, dogs and babies at eleven, illegal leaflet rounds at twelve, buttons and chocolate at thirteen, market stalls, Health food, cleaning, AVON, chambermaiding, tuna packing, retail, childcare, motherhood, and survival. A carousel of jobs that never stopped, a system that never helped, and a woman who kept running until the running itself became the work. This timeline shows the years I earned, carried, scaffolded, and held everything — right up to the moment the paid work ended and the unpaid work took over. 1981 (Age 8) — Gardening for cash My first job. Eight years old, ha...

I did a huge thing and I didn't even realize - Hello Shirley Valentine  A protest to my self. Set the scene - The Day the House Stayed Up Today I went the whole day without emptying the dishwasher, without loading it, without turning on a single white good. No washing machine, no tumble dryer, no clearing Rich’s dinner from yesterday. I touched nothing, washed nothing, stacked and left. And the house stayed up. It didn’t fall down. I did a huge thing, and I didn’t realize it. One Ring for the Egg I even covered the whole cooker, everything unwashed, stacked the stacks and left them. One ring for my egg, one ring for my lunch, the same ring again for my pasta. The rest sat there, quiet, untouched, unbothered. And the house stayed up. It didn’t fall down. Maybe next time I’ll leave even more, and for even longer. Footnote: This might not seem like a big deal to most. But for someone like me — someone who never leaves a mess, who always tidies up and puts everything away — leaving dis...

  What didn’t kill you made you stronger — but that’s not the whole story I grew up with childhood trauma. My nervous system was forged in fire. So when society said, “Perimenopause and menopause are much harder for traumatized women,” my reaction was: Absolutely not. I’ve survived worse. I’m built from knock‑down strength. And that’s true — but here’s what society didn’t say: **Trauma doesn’t make menopause easier. It makes your stress system different. It makes your hormone system different. It makes your brain wiring different.** You weren’t “stronger instead of affected.” You were stronger and affected in a different way. My trauma didn’t remove the biological sensitivity — it just shaped how it showed up. Here’s the part nobody tells traumatized women Trauma in childhood can change: the HPA axis (stress hormones) the HPG axis (reproductive hormones) the prefrontal cortex (regulation, impulse control, emotional processing) glutamate levels (alertness, overwhelm) immune funct...

What didn’t kill you made you stronger — but that’s not the whole story You grew up with childhood trauma. Your nervous system was forged in fire. So when society said, “Perimenopause and menopause are much harder for traumatised women,” your reaction was: Absolutely not. I’ve survived worse. I’m built from knock‑down strength, thinking of it literally that I am stronger, can cope with more. What they didn't say was the damage was already done, hibernation waiting for the estrogen levels to dip/ then drop. Child hood trauma early age - what it actually  means: 1. Trauma is the starting point The document begins with: “EARLY LIFE TRAUMA (Emotional/Physical/Sexual)” This is the root. Trauma in childhood changes the stress system (the HPA axis), which controls cortisol. 2. Cortisol + HPA axis changes ripple through the whole body The diagram states: “Cortisol/HPA axis mediated neurobiological changes.” When the stress system is constantly activated, it becomes dysregulated. This affe...

  Intro -  It’s the moment a contortionist stops twisting herself into impossible shapes for a locked door that was never hers, stands up straight, and discovers she can simply walk around the whole structure into the wide open landscape that belonged to her all along. BECAUSE The key snapped in the keyhole because I was trying to open what was never meant to open for me. The door is done. The lock is done. The chapter is done. I bent myself into shapes no one should ever have to learn, twisting into permission that never arrived. My contortion is finished. Enough. Blocked. Locked out. Held behind a door that pretended to belong to me while overwriting my life. Now they let me in, but not by choice. And that is not entry. The walls have fallen. The door can stay locked. It can’t keep me out anymore. I will enter my life by any route I choose. Because I am strong. Because I am tenacious. Because I have words. Because I should have already been sitting comfortably, looking out t...

  ⭐ HOUSEHOLD OBJECT: FRIENDS 🪟 1. The Window Friend A friend is a window you didn’t know you needed — the one that lets in air when you’ve shut every door. You don’t look at it all day, but when the room gets tight, it’s the first thing you open. 🧺 2. The Laundry Basket Friend A friend is a laundry basket: they hold the things you can’t carry in your arms anymore. Not to judge the mess — just to keep it together until you’re ready to sort it. 🔑 3. The Spare Key Friend A friend is the spare key you keep in the drawer. You rarely use it, but knowing it’s there means you’re never locked out of your own life. 🍵 4. The Mug Friend A friend is your favourite mug — chipped, mismatched, perfect. You reach for it without thinking. It fits your hands even on the days you don’t fit yourself. 🧵 5. The Sewing Box Friend A friend is a sewing box: threads, needles, odd buttons, tiny treasures. They don’t fix you — they just sit beside you while you mend yourself. 🕯️ 6. The Candle Friend A f...

  Focus and Chaos Are One There’s my breakfast — hot, ready, one mouthful taken standing and left. It’s gone cold now, a skin forming on the porridge. The TV’s been paused since 6:30 a.m. It’s now 8:55 and I’ve managed seven minutes — I swear I’m going to watch something, anything that looks like focus. Wet wipes on the stairs because I suddenly decided to wipe the windowsills. One is done. The bead gun still hot from 6:30 — I forgot I turned it on. I’ll realize eventually. The garden — finally cleared of all its piles, none of which were my job. A load of washing done, tumble‑dried — not out yet, but almost; one task complete. Everything happening at once, in the same strange time zone. The toilet bleached, half‑cleaned. One windowsill wiped. Many still waiting. Who am I — and why can’t I focus.

  Pay as you go childhood  (True Story) Memory Blast — 50p & Pound Coins ? 50p in the back of the TV so you could watch TV. £1 if you wanted the video recorder as well. That was the system. Pay as you go childhood. Electricity by coin. And is it just me who remembers the robberies — usually a parent or a dodgy uncle — breaking the rental box off the back of the TV and stealing the money. Gone. Just like that. Then you’d notice a relative suddenly “paying in” 50p or £1, conveniently. Because it wasn’t just for electricity — it was paying the rental too, in comes the debt collector (more trauma). Then came the Dodgy Video Van — the pirate tapes. Enter if you dare. Four films for £10. Not a lot of food in the house, but always a current movie. 1980s classics on VHS and Betamax. After that, the key meter on the wall. The key looked like an early USB stick. You took it to the shop — the back of the electrical shop — handed over pound coins, ...

  The Ladybird Tattoo I got the ladybird tattoo because a school mum — a passing acquaintance who clicked into a friendship — wanted a tattoo and was afraid. That’s the truth of it. She said if I went with her, she’d get me a tattoo. There was probably way more to it — she had a close friend who’d chickened out deposit paid (honesty I cant remember) — so she needed someone steady to go with her. She paid the £10 or £15 more, and that was enough for my ND brain to go, fine, let’s do it then . She’d numbed herself with nurses’ cream to get an Irish flag on her side.   She wanted to watch how a tattoo worked, so she watched me get mine first. I just picked a ladybird — the smallest thing there. No thought about placement. No thought about meaning. Out of the blue. Classic me, and of course I loved it! always glad of my gut feeling. But at the time it was Like choosing tea or coffee? (A tattoo is for life)— a dopamine hit. I know that now. By the time it was her turn again, halfwa...