ADHD and Emotional Intensity: What If I’m Not Too Emotional?

“She shouldn't be returning to her singing career if she's going to be that emotional,” my Dad commented gruffly, whilst his daily Nespresso deposited itself into his mug through the whirring noise.

He stood at the end of the kitchen island, his back to us, his polo shirt half untucked from his shorts. My mum sat quietly on a barstool, her face looking blank. Two plates with remnants of scrambled egg and the familiar circle of salt powder left from the salt grinder had been moved aside. A red button lay on the floor in front of the fridge.

I felt flattened. Speechless. It felt like such a weird and unfathomable thing to say. I had a weird mix of confusion and shame running through me.

I'm not often short of words these days, but at that moment I was back to being six.

It was 2015 and the very brilliant and incredibly talented Adele, in her distinctive London accent, made an unapologetically emotional speech whilst performing her first big concert and launching her 25 album after being out of the spotlight for a few years.

Honestly, I find it hard not to cry whenever I hear 'When We Were Young'... for goodness sake, I'm holding back emotion now just thinking of the music.

It was her comeback. She'd felt 'all over the place' after having her son, with several failed attempts before she felt properly able to return to making her beautiful music.

Tears are a regular thing for me. I didn't know then that my reaction to his comment was tied to something I'd spent my whole life trying to manage or conceal.

As a middle aged woman, I've learnt to let them flow in safe company. And even more recently, I've risked letting the judgement come from family members… now that I've learned to embrace my ADHD trait of experiencing incredibly intense emotions.

Jamie Laing's Great Company is a podcast I enjoy from time to time, depending on who he's interviewing. He always ends the interview with eight questions, with one being, “When was the last time you cried?”

I always have an inner giggle to myself because I know I'd have to reply, “What, today?”

Yes, I cry on the daily, and I'm no longer embarrassed to admit that. I'm welling up now just writing about crying.

I feel things so intensely. Yes, that means when I find something sad I can go through a box of tissues watching King Kong (the original) or The Deepest Breath (currently on Netflix).

But equally, the needle swings as much the other way… I notice small things in daily life that make me euphoric, delighted to be alive, in wonderment at my ability to experience the world. And that can move me to tears too (along with those photo memories that can pop up on your phone).

Honestly, it doesn't take much.

I hate it when people say, “Don't cry.” They think they're being helpful. But it's like saying to me, “Don't feel things.”

Why on earth would I want to narrow my band of feeling and experiencing?

An ADHD expert would label it 'emotional dysregulation'... which, frankly, is a label I don't much care for.

Yes, emotions can come fast and intense. Just because someone else might see them as inappropriate or embarrassing, I don't need to.

More often than not, I'm more emotionally permeable than the person sitting next to me, and I'm good with that. In fact, I delight in that.

It took me a long time to embrace this part of myself, being publicly emotional, and realise it was part of my wonderful neurocomplex brain.

And I suspect, like a lot of artists, Adele has a touch of it too.