5 Signs of Inattentive ADHD (ADD)

You might hear of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), but what about ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)? Inattentive ADHD or ADD can be associated with the student who stares at the window and unwittingly ignores the work in front of them. It is a term used to describe a neurological condition with symptoms of inattention, distractibility, and poor working memory. To help you learn more about the less-talked-about type, here are a few signs of inattentive ADHD.

Disclaimer. This video is for educational purposes. Do not attempt to self-diagnose using this. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the symptoms discussed in this video, please reach out to a licensed medical health professional.

Writer: Sara Del Villar
Script Editor: Isadora Ho
Script Manager: Kelly Soong
VO: Amanda Silvera
Animator: Aury
YouTube Manager: Cindy Cheong

Resources:

[CindyPsychgo]

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Psych2go's mission is to create awareness on a daily basis about all mental health and psychology topics. Hopefully, starting the difficult conversation topic will encourage those in need of help to seek out the help they deserve. Our videos haven't been seen lately due to the algorithm. This has impacted our budget and production. We need your help to make our content more visible by sharing this with all the people you know who might find our videos helpful. To continue to create these amazing digestible content. We need your constant help to share our videos. Let's start a dialogue and encourage those in need of help to seek the help they need. Thank you! p.s we do read your comments 😉

[Omna]

1- Daydreaming/Easily Distracted
2- Quickly Bored
3- Does not pay close attention/careless
4- Forgets Routine Chores
5- Avoids tasks that require focus

[vincentsissom]

One of the core aspects of ADD, ADHD, and ADID is the that you are able to focus on things that interest you to the ignorance of the world. Most people think that ADHD just means you lack focus, which is not the truth. Being able to focus on things that interest you is strangely easy for people with ADD. Just wanted to bring this up, since it's overlooked as signs in this line.

[PhyloDT]

I don't remember licensing the rights to my life story to these people

[insaniitea]

My fiancé, who has inattentive ADHD, sent me this and said it made him cry because it validated so many of the struggles he’s had over the years, and he had no idea it was because of his ADHD. He’s also struggled to get proper accommodations because for a long time, it wasn’t seen as a valid disorder because he’s just not hyperactive. So thank you sincerely for making this video, and for helping someone feel seen.

[umbra]

As someone with ADHD there's tons of things that aren't usually mentioned:
- being sensitive to sounds, smells and lights;
- constant thoughts in your mind: you start to do something and then during actually doing it you get distracted by side quests;
- you start lots of things but actually never finish one of them;
- you loose your phone in your own bedroom, almost get the kitchen on 🔥, loose the bus card, your keys... Yeah everything;
- your can get overstimulated by external and internal stuff and you get so confused that you wanna cry, be alone and without anyone touching you.
- you overfocus on something and forget to eat and drink, or even hold not to go to the bathroom because your on flow time;
- someone talking to you: you zone out. Then you comeback. - ah yes totally agree. 🤣;
- forgets everyones birthday, important stuff unless you get it somewhere you can actually track;
- important test tomorrow.. please brain 🥹 focus this one time. 🧠: No;
- do you remember that one time...? ... 🐟 no.. but the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

[hollalaland]

It's so rare to see people informing on ADD and as someone who has it I REALLY appreciate you guys doing this!!!

[kristenmoon]

This is absolutely spot on. I’m 100% the inattentive add type. Always have been and it gets viewed as being lazy by most people unfortunately. In fact this video took me about 12 minutes to get through because I randomly started daydreaming through the video and had to go back to find my place. The chores being broken down is a HUGE thing for me as well. Neurotypical people will look at a kitchen and just clean it. I physically can’t bring myself to do that. I have to divide up the work like ( left stove countertop, 15 min break, right stove countertop, 15 min break, stove top, 15 min break, sweep/ mop floors, 15 min break, gather trash and take out, 15 min break, do dishes, 15 min break, etc. It’s the only way I can function and even then I fall behind and get overwhelmed super easily. It’s only gotten worse as I’ve gotten older too. It’s really hard to deal with it and most people gloss over the ADD diagnosis as if it’s something minor when it really does affect virtually every aspect of our lives in a major way. Getting others to understand that isn’t easy, so for that I say thank you for this video <3.

[Jennifer-bwku]

Psilocybin saved my life. I was addicted to heroin for 15 years and after Psilocybin treatment I will be 3 years clean in September. I have zero cravings. This is something that truly needs to be more broadly used in addiction treatment.

[arcanesiren]

As someone who has ADD, it can be difficult living with it, especially when people don't and can't understand why we act the way we do. Here are some other things about ADD people don't even know about:

1. We remind ourselves about something we have to do, but then (raspberry) we forget all about it a minute later.
2. We often can't finish what we started. For me, I would have an intense burst of focus for a few days to a week; then, I lose it and end up not finishing any projects or get distracted with something else
3. We can't cope with stress well. Indeed, we get stressed so easily because we're prone to be overwhelmed and even overstimulated. Sometimes it's too much that one would have an emotional outburst.
4. Mood swings, low frustration intolerance, anger issues. I'm not sure if anger especially and ADD/ADHD are intertwined, but in my case, this is a big one for me. One minute, I can be upbeat; next minute, I can be sad. It's frustrating as hell.
5. People with ADD/ADHD may have poor planning, and can't follow directions. Especially for me, it's difficult to even follow a map.

[danielhofirek]

As someone who is currently being diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, this "type" of ADHD is mostly me. It's very difficult to deal with things when you just can't bring your mind and body to do them and one of the reasons is you being easyly distracted or you just starting to unintentionally daydream the whole time

[elizabethwilliams]

Psychedelics are just an exceptional mental health breakthrough. It's quite fascinating how effective they are against depression and anxiety. Saved my life.

[rpm]

I was “diagnosed” with inattentive ADHD when I was young but my doctors never knew hardly anything about it and never told me much about it. This video felt so good to watch seeing how there is so much more information about this. I feel like I now understand myself a lot more knowing some of these things aren’t my fault why I am the way I am. It made me feel so validated to finally know something about this after being on this earth for 21 years.

[TheCharlieBrown]

Just been recently diagnosed with ADHD. And I’m usually the quiet person. So naturally people didn’t believe when I said that I think I have it. I had read that ADHD can appear to be anxiety and/or depression. I noticed that a good amount of people in my family have ADHD. So I began to wonder if my anxiety and depression was actually ADHD. Also I must mention that my anti-anxiety medication was not working. But since I’ve been prescribed ADHD medication and a mood stabilizer, I’m now in a much better place mentally. I’m finally able to push myself to go back to school.

[slasher]

As someone with officially diagnosed ADD, one of the most helpful things I do to try and keep me on task and help keep me from forgetting important things I need to do is setting alarms and reminders for _everything_ and doing my best to try to keep a consistent schedule. Pretty much everything I need to do is set to a time with an alarm and reminder attached. Feed pets, wash dishes, take my meds, etc...

[Jesus_is_Lord]

Tip: if to-do lists don’t work for you try making a list of completed tasks aka a “done list”. You’ll feel good when you complete the task and get to put it on your list of done tasks. Or try a hybrid of sorts, set up like a pros and cons list. Put on one side what you need to do, then once completed put a check mark next to it or transfer it to the done side of the list. That way you don’t just get overwhelmed by all the tasks, you’ll be able to see what is done and what still needs to be done. I did this in high school. We worked a lot on google classroom and so I’d pin tabs of all my assignments and try to order then by due date so I knew what needed to focus on the most. Then as I worked I could turn in the assignments and the close the pinned tab and move on to the next assignment. It also helped me gauge when to take breaks better. It was also easier to re-read the assignment details and make sure on doing it right. This helped especially for English essays that had details about topic, length and format.

[xy]

As a person diagnosed with ADD I can infact confirm that this video hit home way to hard. Its true. I have been strugling since i went to pre-school. Test, daily tasks made me cry, develop depression. To this day i'm taking medication for both the depression and ADD. Aint easy

[faithfulb]

As a person with ADHD I appreciate the increase in this kind of content :)

[ZimVader-]

I haven't been diagnosed yet, but my boyfriend, who has ADHD, told me to get checked because he recognized the signs. This entire video is very accurate to me. I'm currently looking into a therapist to help me get an official diagnosis.
Thank you.

[Rckle]

I've been struggling with these symptoms my entire life and didn't think about the fact that it may be something like this until last year. I've done countless hours of research when I'm in some sort of hyperfocus spell- and everything leads to it, things are finally clicking. I brought it up to my mom and the only thing she said was "if you had that, your teachers would've said something" but in actuality, I never get noticed because I'm "the quiet kid" I always sit in the back, behind everyone. My grades are a D average for Christs sake. None of the teachers ever ask if I'm having trouble, they just get angry because I don't understand things or turn in work late. I even brought my suspicions up with my school counselor (I was seeing her for my depression issues) and made it clear that I wasn't trying to self diagnose and she said "okay, but you could also research symptoms of cancer and you could have the symptoms, it doesn't necessarily mean you have cancer. So be careful with self diagnosing-" like- I understand where you're coming from but at the same time- I feel like this is a serious conversation- who knows, maybe I am in the wrong for doing research and having suspicions -

Sorry this got too long, thank you for listening, have a great day!