Most people are familiar with ADD or ADHD as being "that kid who's bouncing off the walls and getting into EVERYthing," and then the adult that comes from that kid.
The Inattentive version of ADD-- which has been with me since I was a little kid-- is the exact opposite. This describes the people who just can't concentrate because they site there, trying to do something, and then simply "drift away" to La La Land... they are the kids who were always described as "daydreamers" and came home with report cards that said something like "nice and polite, but needs to apply himself more."
Which is basically bullshit.
"Know thyself" is really important, when it comes to living a conscious life. And "knowing" means paying enough attention to understand the difference between "personality" and "condition" and to be able to ascertain-- with some degree of certainly-- where one ends, and the other begins.
We talk a lot about Nines "zoning out." That has always been an issue of mine... but people with Inattentive ADD also "zone out." So to really understand the dynamic, we must examine the nature of the zoning out.
When I look back at my history, a lot of time I find that I am zoning out because I just can't stay focused on the task. My brain-- literally-- goes "foggy" when I try to really focus, and I end up looking at birds outside my window. There's no Nine-ish "avoidance" involved... looking out the window doesn't have anything to do with "distracting myself" from what is important. In those cases, it's basically a brain chemistry thing... people with inattentive ADD have issues with the neurotransmitters in their brain sending the "wrong" message to our bodies. Normally, when you sit down to focus on a task, your body releases neurotransmitters that give you a bit of a "lift" and a "jolt" to allow you to be extra focused and awake. That's NOT what happens, for me. I sit down, get about 10 minutes into the task... and my neurotransmitters send a "message" to my brain and body that amounts to "Dude! You haven't SLEPT in six days!" and all I want to do is fall asleep... when I need to concentrate the most.
When you are "zoning out, as a Nine" the process is quite different, because there's an active (or at least subconscious) "avoidance" of what matters; of what is important. It's the zoning out (for example) I experience when I play endless Facebook games as a means of not getting around to paying my bills. I am "aware" of the bills, and it "feels like SUCH a hassle" to get them all organized, and then there's the "futility factor" of knowing I can't afford to pay all of them, so that will make me "feel bad about myself" which I am also trying to avoid. And-- irrationally-- I am avoiding looking at my bills, in some (false) hope that "if I can't SEE them, they are not really there."
As you can see (I hope!), there's a very different underlying cognitive process between one "kind" of zoning out and the other. And sometimes the two can co-exist, adding an additional wrinkle of complication. For example, in the "bills" example, I may manage to "ramp myself up" to face my bills (overcoming the Nine "laziness"), but then "zone out" while trying to DO my bills (the ADD sets in)... even though I have overcome the cognitive resistance.
All I can advise-- from where I am sitting-- is ""know all you can" because it really does matter to fully understand "what" affects us. Fortunately, the deeper study of the enneagram teaches us some fairly rigorous self-inquiry, allowing us to get to the bottom of these "mysteries."
"Know Thyself!"
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