Sadness hits me like a ton of bricks; it crushes me, and people do not always understand why.  It’s as though I experience emotions tenfold compared to others.  Regardless of the emotion, whether anger, sadness, or happiness, it slams me and takes control. These emotions are experienced not just for me but for others. If someone is treated unfairly, I often put myself in their shoes and experience the emotions as though it happened to me. This ADHD trait creates much strife in my life, especially for those who do not understand it. 

Last week, while driving home, the weather suddenly changed. To the left, the sky turned dark; to the right, it was still blue, and in the middle, I saw the most vibrant rainbow. Yes, you guessed it, I cried. That rainbow took on meaning for me, and I cried. Others would think, what is wrong with her, but I attach meaning to things, and I am aware it makes no sense. 

As I write this, St. Annes, the church I was married in, my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were married in, burns to the ground in Toronto, and I cannot stop crying.  I have not set foot in this building in a long time yet, but I find myself crushed by the loss of this building, what it signified, and what it gave to the community.  I am sad not just for myself and the prospect of my children being married there but also for losing what it brought to the community. 

I wonder where this empathy, this inability not to take on the feelings of others, comes from. I remember growing up, I was always told, “Treat others the way you want to be treated,” and I think I do, probably to a fault. I know that I have not always been treated the way I know I deserve, and that has stayed with me, hurt me and left scars. Maybe this is the reason, that and the sensitivity dysphoria of my ADHD diagnosis. I am hypersensitive and try to mask it. For me, the teasing or jokes are not funny. They hurt, and my reactions are not always on par with the experience. Let’s be honest. They are never on par.

This struggle creates conflict because other people don’t understand it. They ask why I help certain people, and I respond, “It’s the right thing to do,” and they ask, “Why?”.  Even those closest to me do not always get it.  I try and try to explain, and it just creates frustration for both of us.  It is not something they would do, so it must be wrong.  Maybe there are so many times throughout my life when I wanted people to step in and help me just because, maybe, if I help others, they will think to help someone they wouldn’t usually.  Maybe one person at a time, we can create a world that takes care of each other for no other reason than that it’s the right thing to do. 

I believe that small gestures can change the world; am I naive?  Probably.  I tend to the negative, and when things are good, I panic, waiting for the other shoe to drop because, in my life, the good is generally followed by the bad. I am consciously trying to change this.  Back to the impact of small gestures.  Thank you to the stranger who paid for my coffee in the Starbucks drive-thru the other morning.  This small gesture brought me joy after the passing of disbelief because these things do not generally happen to me.  It also prompted me to pay for the person behind me in hopes that they would start their morning on a positive, feeling that someone, a stranger, thought of them at that moment.  

Thinking of someone, a friend or stranger, and helping them when others do not should not be an action that needs to be explained. This action should come naturally to us all, and the fact that it needs to be explained is a sad reality of the world we live in.  I have decided that going forward, when I help others and am questioned about why, I will respond with, “Why didn’t you help them? Because that response is even more important than why I did.