It’s been a hell of a long time since I gave blood; probably 20 years, for one reason or another. Pregnancy, tattoos, training for marathons, medication, and other unhinged reasons kept my red cells inside my veins for a long time. My blood group is O-, meaning the vampires love me, and the NHS too because it’s this blood group that’s used in emergency situations. The fact that it’s compatible with all the other blood types seems fitting; I’m a ‘people person’ after all; I rub along well with most types. I’ll even find a way to be quite nice to people I dislike. I’m not here for conflict; too lazy for aggro. So when the NHS put out an amber alert for donations a few weeks ago, I jumped onto blood.co.uk to grab my spot in the donation chair.

It was the end of a heatwave, and the fans were set at warp speed inside the local football club. Rows of recliner chairs lined up like some sort of dystopian cinema. Music blasted from a boom-box on the floor. It took me a full 24 hours to realise why the music was playing so loud; private conversations behind makeshift cubicles. No one needed to hear whether we’d had anal sex with a drug addict, or had injected heroin recently. Although it might have made for an interesting evening.

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I slumped in the plastic chair, low-level anxiety building as I drank my compulsory pint of pre-donation water. The upbeat pop music changed tempo; “Memory” from the Lloyd-Webber musical ‘Cats’ bled from the speakers. Elaine Page’s glass-like vocals filled the stuffy room with the haunting melody that surely every person over the age of 40 must know.

And that’s when it happened.

Within a split second of those opening bars, I could feel the emotions rising; tears threatened to spill and the lump in my throat grew taught, urgent. I shifted in my seat and took out my phone in a bid to distract myself from the impending meltdown. I might have succeeded had there been any signal at all. Running out of options, I leapt up from the chair and headed to the toilet. Movement always helps to calm me when I feel trapped by emotion.

I’m an auDHD empath and synesthete, whose emotions lie dangerously close to the surface. Sometimes it feels like I wear them visibly, like a second skin. I’ve never met anyone else with synesthesia, though I have met plenty of neurodivergent people. They’re my crowd. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon where stimulation of one sense triggers involuntary experiences in another. For example, some people might ‘taste’ colours, others might feel sounds.

I have a weird thing where I see days of the week as colours. Monday is yellow, Tuesday is blue, Wednesday is red and so on. The thing about synesthesia is it’s completely involuntary. Less than a millisecond passes between someone saying the word Saturday and me seeing the colour brown. Sunday is black, in case you were wondering.

When it comes to music, I don’t just hear, I feel it — intensely, viscerally.

Now I appreciate that a lot of people that don’t have synesthesia can be deeply moved by music. But for me as a synesthete, the reaction is crazy strong, I literally have no control over it. Logically I know the emotional trigger is buried in my pysche. It’s an association bubbling its way to the surface. I sobbed my way through ‘Winner Takes It All’ at the ABBA Voyage concert a couple of years ago. I knew it would floor me, and I tried to be prepared for it, but it didn’t make one iota of difference. You see, that song was playing on the car radio as I drove, aged 19, to the hospital to be with my dying mum.

“The gods may throw a dice
Their minds as cold as ice
And someone way down here
Loses someone dear”

F*CK. Even writing those words has hot tears prickling behind my eyes.

And so, the lovely Elaine (Paige) upended me out of nowhere. Bless her. A song from 1981 that clung to my soul and refused to let go. It was my mum’s favourite.

Just to lighten the mood, this strange, uncontrolled intensity can also work in the opposite way – I feel the most intense, dopamine-induced euphoria listening to dance music. It’s why I loved my Ibiza clubbing days so much. I didn’t need drugs or drink to get me high; the thumping repetition of a heavy bassline, sprinkled with layers of soaring piano and string arrangements would be enough to keep me vibing non-stop till dawn.

It’s no wonder that synesthetes can be moved to tears by music — we’re literally experiencing it on multiple sensory levels, all at the same time. When a simple melody triggers a cascade of sensations that are overwhelming emotionally, it’s an orgasmic intensity that’s hard to put into words.

Neurodivergent people often process sensory input differently from neurotypicals. Sights and sounds can feel amplified, and music is no exception. Those of us short on dopamine can be more easily affected; ND brains often respond more intensely to patterns, rhythms, and emotional cues in music. If you want some science, it’s a phenomenon researchers call emotional lability, where rapid shifts in mood are triggered by external stimuli. I use music as my dopamine tank. Since menopause has further robbed me of what little dopamine I had access to in the first place, I need music in my life more than ever.

I’ll be the one on a long-haul flight, soothed into slumber by eardrum-splitting House music. It’s what helped me revise for school and university exams, while classmates pored over books in silence. I’ve written my first fiction novel – Fragments of Her – to the sound of techo in my ears.

I’d say it’s a gift and a curse in equal measure. The latter for sure when it turns up unannounced, dealing its left hook with a force that’s enough to floor me in seconds.

Pass the tissues, please.