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August 18
What would it be like if you could see music as colors dancing in front of your eyes? For Justine Glaser, that's just a normal Tuesday.
Justine is a creative force who doesn't just hear music, she sees it. Diagnosed with ADHD at age 3 and born with synesthesia, a rare neurological trait where sound shows up as color, Justine has always experienced the world differently. Instead of masking these traits, she's made them her superpower. As the founder of Blue Midnight Music and Colors by Midnight, she creates work that's bold, multi-sensory, and completely original.
Diagnosed so young that her babysitter lost weight chasing her around, Justine's childhood was marked by curiosity, creativity, and, unfortunately, relentless bullying from ages 8 to 16. She calls the K-12 system "broken" for her neurodivergent brain, but everything changed when she left traditional school behind. Art school became her sanctuary, where her project-based learning style finally made sense.
In this conversation, Justine and Tracy dive deep into how synesthesia shapes creativity, why she believes color comes from "an inherent sense of self," and how she creates personalized color palettes by listening to people's voices. They talk about performing as an alter ego named Blue Midnight, why ADHD makes it easier (not harder) to blend multiple disciplines, and how she's learned to honor her need for breaks and nature to stay creative.
Justine's journey from a bullied kid drawing on people's houses to a multi-disciplinary artist proves that what makes you different isn't something to fix—it's your greatest gift.
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"Everything I thought was just 'me'—the creativity, the curiosity, the way I see color when I hear sound. It wasn't a flaw to fix. It was my brain's unique way of experiencing the world."
- Justine Glaser
"Color comes from our inherent sense of self. It's like a second skin because it's all about where it comes from which is our inherent sense of self."
- Justine Glaser
"You're not too much because you're navigating a system that gives too little."
- Justine Glaser
"I think telling people to narrow down, telling people to focus, I think that's kind of a myth. I think it's a myth to keep people in capitalism."
- Justine Glaser
"What I want ADHD women to know is that the opportunities are endless if you focus on your strengths."
- Justine Glaser
"Don't change for anybody. Don't change. Because what you're in right now is temporary, and that's the other thing too—you're not too much.""
- Justine Glaser
"ADHD makes me think outside the box. I don’t think I’d have come up with those lyrics if I didn’t have ADHD, because I’m just throwing words around in my head until something clicks."
- Justine Glaser
- Justine was diagnosed with ADHD at age 3 after hyperactive behaviors like repeatedly running out of the house and drawing on someone's house as her "first canvas," with her psychiatrist mother likely spotting the signs early.
- She showed intense curiosity as a child, always asking "why" when given instructions—not from opposition, but from genuine desire to understand the reasoning behind requests.
- Bullying from other girls began at age 8, targeting her neurodivergent traits like wearing blue daily and spacing out in class, continuing until age 16 and eventually leading to a complex PTSD diagnosis.
- Justine calls K-12 "very broken" for her, struggling with forgotten homework, drawing on tests, and inattentiveness, while bullies could identify her neurodivergent traits "in 28 seconds."
- After high school, life "instantly got better"—she attended musical theater school, then fashion design school, where project-based learning suited her brain better than traditional academics.
- She began composing music at age 12, inspired by her jazz pianist grandfather, and started performing seriously in college at bars and open mic nights.
[00:40:00 - 01:00:00] Synesthesia and Multi-Disciplinary Success
- Justine explains her synesthesia (chromesthesia) where sounds automatically trigger colors—every piano note appears as specific colors, making composing music like "painting a landscape."
- She describes ADHD as making multi-disciplinary work easier, providing hyper-focus, big-picture thinking, and outside-the-box creativity that helps her break rules in both music and color work.
- Now works across music, fashion, color theory, and visual art, believing opportunities are "endless" when focusing on ADHD strengths rather than trying to narrow down to one field.
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