ADHD: Super Bummer or Superpower?
ADHD: Super Bummer or Superpower?
By Colin Scharf
The ADHD med crash hit me about 20 minutes before the start of David Byrne’s recent show at the Orpheum in Minneapolis. By the time my wife Laura and I took our seats, I was irritated with everything and everyone. Crash states are a horrid combination of depression, exhaustion, and intense prickliness—a mood swing best ridden out as far from humanity as possible. Of course, escape is impossible when you’re shoulder to shoulder in a sold-out theater watching a living legend perform numbers spanning his 50 year career.
The crash persisted through the show’s opening songs, which bummed me out because Byrne and the band’s exuberant sound had the entire theater on their feet and dancing—including Laura and me. Soon, Byrne and co. played “Strange Overtones”, followed by “This Must Be the Place”. The crash dissipated. I held Laura close. We swayed and harmonized.
Between numbers, Byrne recounted anecdotes of his NYC life during the pandemic. That frightening and solitary period gave birth to much of his latest album. Now, some five years later, his collection is complete, and the 73-year-old musician is touring again. It gave me a boost of confidence to realize that even the giants among us need time for ideas to take shape and enter the world.
I am not a fast songwriter. At my best, if I work nearly every day, I can complete a song—lyrics and all—in a few weeks. Music comes quick for me, but lyrics can take ages. I’ve had this hangup since I started playing guitar as a teenager. The especially frustrating part is that I’ve also been writing prose and poetry since childhood. Lyrics just seem to exist in their own alternate realm. When I do manage to break through and find some good lines, it’s like my feet are hovering off the ground.
There’s this anecdote about a painting class wherein half of the class works on a single piece for the entire semester, and the other half generates as many paintings as possible. The many pieces group allegedly creates some truly wild and unique paintings because they don’t get hung up on perfection. The anecdote encapsulates one of my worst creative habits: fussing on a single work until I either finish it—or kill it completely.
When Laura went back to school to become a therapist, she began to see connections between some of my habits and ADHD symptoms. Our psychologist friend agreed, and I sought a diagnosis. In 2023, I officially received confirmation for ADHD and began medication. Since then, so much of my approach to life has come into focus. My almost allergic reaction to a “normal” lifestyle—a 9-5 job, being on time, going to bed and waking up early—made so much more sense. I wasn’t crazy, or lazy, or a night owl—I just have ADHD!
The diagnosis also clarified what I’ve dubbed my comparison complex: the occasionally debilitating way in which my mind pits me and my creative ideas against the world and says, in effect, “Try and be this good.”
That’s the super bummer about my ADHD: part of my mind is rented out by an intense critic who holds a PhD in perfection. My song lyrics, for example, have to be “perfect”—whatever that means. There are times when a line that I really like sets a standard for the rest of the song that I simply cannot meet, and the song sits. The closing track on my band Silver Summer’s forthcoming debut LP is an example. I spent almost two years writing it because I just couldn’t get the lyrics right. Thom Yorke recounted a similar frustration with the Anima centerpiece “Dawn Chorus”. He couldn’t get the synthesizers right, but knew that when he did, he’d find his way into the song.
And that’s what I’d consider the superpower of my ADHD: the hyperfocus element that allows me to shut out the world and drive just about any creative project to completion. It’s the drive that has helped me produce dozens of short films and music videos. The drive that landed me commissions to write a pair of Young Adult novels. The drive that helped me organize a number of annual concert series, including a bombastic holiday show featuring my original songs. The drive that helped me scrape together a living as an artist until earlier this year when I was hired as the creative director of a brand new recording studio and performance venue. A friend says I’m scrappy. I say my ADHD has provided me with an innate aversion to conformity.
Like David Byrne’s latest release, my band’s album is also the result of nearly five years of pandemic-stunted work. I received three arts grants to help fund its production and another grant to fund its release, including artwork, vinyl pressing, band website, and PR campaign. I’m proud of every song on the collection and extremely excited for others to hear the music.
But do I regret that it’s taken nearly half a decade to release the music? Certainly. Did we record and then a year later re-record the songs with better microphones? Of course. Is that a symptom of my ADHD? Big time. Am I ultimately satisfied with the final product and already writing the next album? Thankfully, yes.
Perhaps the grandest realization prompted by my ADHD diagnosis is this: I’m doing everything to the best of my abilities, and my comparison complex need only compare itself to the list of complex things I’ve already accomplished. Maybe this song or that song still needs a chorus, but I know I’ll figure it out.
COLIN SCHARF is a musician, writer, filmmaker, audio engineer, event programmer, actor, and occasional model. Originally from Ellicottville, New York, a ski village in the state’s Southern Tier region, Colin hit the road with his first punk band at 15. Punk’s DIY ethos and his rural upbringing encouraged Colin’s creativity, which developed him into a multi-genre artist. In 2007, he moved to Mankato, MN, to complete his MFA in Creative Writing at MSU, Mankato. Since then, he has published poetry, fiction, and two young adult novels; had music syncs with Netflix, Hulu, and other platforms; produced over a dozen short films and music videos; curated a number of concert series highlighting local musicians; started Gold Mine Studios, a recording, video, and live events production studio; received multiple arts grants, including three Minnesota State Arts Board grants; freelanced as a grant writer for Region Nine Economic Development Commission, which led to his nomination for and acceptance to the 2023 Minnesota Young American Leaders Program (MYALP), a partnership between the Itasca Project, the University of Minnesota's Center for Integrative Leadership, and Harvard Business School. Despite this varied output, Colin continues to write, record, and perform music.
At the start of 2025, Colin became Creative Director of Vision Studios, a Mankato-based startup multi-media production center housed in a 155-year-old church, where Colin is the lead audio engineer of Electric Prairie Recordings, a recording studio in the church’s basement; and curator of the Ivy Events Center, located in the church’s sanctuary. His band Silver Summer’s debut full-length Die of Love is set for a June 2026 release.