Can ADHD Be A Superpower?

A short recollection of my longest partner.

I’m having a hard time choosing a form for my creative explorations. I have ADHD, which can be a blessing and a curse. There’s the obvious societal awareness that this ailment has the ability to scatter your focus in a million different ways. A less realized trait of ADHD is that it also gives you the ability to obsessively focus on something that you actually like to do. It is a superpower, but you have to handle it with care.

I heard it put best when a doctor was talking about ADHD as a dis-regulation of the attention mechanism in the brain leading to abnormal focus, in both directions, hyper-focus and scattered inattention. It’s this ability to really get obsessive about things that can make people who do have ADHD go all in. But the other side of this coin is less helpful. That tarnished underside of the coin represents how hard it is to stay locked in once your focus drifts.

In my experience of ADHD, I go super deep on a topic, then the interest kind of gets replaced by the next slightly more compelling idea that comes into focus. Ultimately, I’m grateful for this. Maybe only because it’s healthier to look at it this way. ADHD has allowed me to enjoy a lot of things in my life. But I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to be someone who could stay focused on an idea long enough to achieve excellence.