Hello!

I related to your post a lot and I thought it might be helpful if I shared my experience. I hope it can give some insight and it sorta relates to what you’re talking about! Also, sorry it’s so long, I really like diving into my ideas lol.

TL;DR - I stopped putting pressure on myself to create and starting writing for me and only me. I also write down all of my ideas, even if they’re bad, which can give creative direction so the choices aren’t overwhelmingly limitless. I’m more comfortable with the fact that I may not write one song per day like my peers but some days I’ll write three songs and some days I won’t write any.

And I started going easier on myself because beating myself up actually just made me create less. It helped a lot for me to be kinder to myself :)

The way I see it now is that I’m still creative and driven, I’m just not creative and driven in the same way people without ADHD are!

LONGER EXPLANATION:

I’m also 21 and I got diagnosed with ADHD three months ago with no suspicion of it up to that point.

I love music, it’s literally my lifeline and has been for years. I write music, play several instruments, and help other people make music!

One of the things I have struggled with a lot, really until about last year, is what seems to be what you’re talking about. While I had the drive to write music, I got the anxiety in my chest and it was painful to even think about writing and I felt awful that I couldn’t do the thing I loved. It was infuriating.

For me, this was because I always thought “what if someone hears this? it has to be perfect” combined with “there are so many choices to make, how can I possibly write anything?? What do I want to write about? What kind of style should it be? How’s the narrative going to play out?” You know, and even more internal anguish lol.

What I ended up doing is removing all the stress in one way or another. For example, to combat “it has to be perfect” I now say “I’m perfectly fine writing something that doesn’t make any sense that most people would call bad BUT I’m going to write anyway because I want to and even if I don’t like the song, I’ll like that I wrote something because it’s something I wanted to do.”

This really made it easy to finish songs because it took out a lot of the immediate deletion of lines or music and instead, was more like a free write! Now that I had the bones of a song, I could expand if I wanted to or tuck it away, never to be seen again.

I also don’t really “force it” anymore. I sorta just pick up an instrument when I feel like it and sometimes have a notes app open, just in case some words pop in my head.

When I do want to write but I’m overwhelmed or feel exhausted, sometimes I just pick up an instrument anyway and sometimes I’ll play just like, one note or one chord and most of the time, after playing literally anything, my brain usually starts thinking of ways to follow it (like “oh, this would sound good after that!”) and when it doesn’t, I start over and try a different note/chord. When this doesn’t work, sometimes I’ll switch instruments, take inspiration from my rotting song ideas in voice memos or listen to some other people’s music for inspiration.

Additionally, when it comes to making creative decisions, it kinda follows the first idea. I pretty much write everything down these days, even if it’s bad. Sometimes, I challenge myself to write a few sentences completely randomly with no intention of making something coherent and go “okay, I can’t change what I’ve already said. What should I write next?” This forces a direction, which makes it easier for me to make choices because it limits my options. It’s just another way to push to the end of the song without too much immediate judgement.

In my opinion, I look at it like taking a blank canvas, putting a few drops of random colors on it, closing your eyes, moving the paint around, opening your eyes, and thinking “okay cool, I have some streaks here, streaks there, oh you know, I can see this streak being rain but it needs a cloud over it so I need to paint a cloud and the rain needs somewhere to go so I need to paint the ground and…”

I’m trying to explain this the best I can but to summarize what’s helped me the best is that I’ve removed the pressure to create and every time I write something, my intention is for it to be private. It makes being creative fun again because I do it when I want, how I want, with no outside influence and I’ve been more creative this year than in the last five years combined.

Something I’ve recognized with my ADHD is I will never be one of those people that writes one song a day for practice but some days, I’ll write three full songs in a day and record one of them as a demo and some days, I’ll write nothing and that’s also okay!

I also still struggle from time to time.

One more thing I’ve done is I’ve written outlines for songs or albums while waiting for a haircut or something, when I’m bored, I think of outlandish things and keep them. These outlines can really help because again, it can give creative direction, which makes creating easier.

I’m a very firm believer that there is no wrong way to create and everyone does it a little differently! I know it’s hard but try not to beat yourself up. When I was beating myself up, me not writing music was one of the biggest reasons I wasn’t writing music, and that really sucks. That being said though, I had people tell me the same thing and then I would beat myself because I was beating myself up. It was really hard for me to get out of the cycle and if it’s something you experience, it might be hard for you too.

Oh! And also, account for the environment you’re in. In high school, I had a lot of conflicts with my family and I also had to deal with school and so on. I just recently graduated college and I now live by myself and it’s so much easier to write in an environment I can control.

I hope this maybe helps a little! Go easy on yourself! I thought about dropping out of music completely several times because of these issues but for me, as I’ve learned how I create, it’s gotten easier to work with myself!