ADD/ADHD is possible for all types, though there is the option that it manifests itself in different ways. ESFP descrition does sound like ADHD sometimes, but a personality type is not a disorder and you should still be a fully functional individual. When you have ADHD, you might be able to compensate some of the disadvantages it gives you, but being fully functional is not the case.
I am an ESFP who
has ADHD. It sounds similar, but isn't. I'm often unable to follow through even on tasks that I find exciting. My executive functions are limited and sometimes my brain doesn't translate 'I should do XY' into actually
doing XY. Not because I'm lazy and I think 'Meh, I'll do it later', but because I just don't. Hard to explain. I'm also not just inattentive, but hyperactive too. I have restless legs, I fidget 24/4, I am prone to binging when I'm bored, because I just have to keep a steady input of stimuli, or else I switch off and go for an attention holiday to my internal La-La Land. I tend to move my hands ALL the timme and twitch and try to touch everything and though I'll sit in a chair, I just won't stop moving. And when I want to, I can't. If you give me a list of things to do, I will remember the first thing on the list, and if you're lucky, also the last, but that depends on if I was still listening. If I was, I have zero recall for what was in between. If I wasn't, you'll have to bring me back to earth first.
Currently, I'm awaiting results from neurology, EEG exam to see what's the issue with my brain functions. I took Ritalin, but it made me anxious and sometimes paranoid, so I changed to Strattera, which worked magic for me. However, when you spend some time on meds, you tend to put a pink filter on how it was and either think that it 'wasn't as bad as all that without the meds' or on the other side 'the meds aren't really helping at all, I still feel inattentive and not as productive as I imagine healthy people are'. Well, let me tell you how
wrong that is. Both of it. Strattera has a distributor problem here and I was unable to acquire my meds and ran out cold turkey. I forgot just
how much hyperactive and twitchy I was before. I keep moving and calling unrequired attention to myself. I've popped about two meters squared of bubble wrap and that was even
before lunch. I think I must look like a junkie, but the sad bit is, now I remember, that this is not a first or withdrawal, this is who I am and what I always had issues with before I got on meds. And whoever said that you grow out of hyperactivity was wrong! It's not just bouncing off the walls, it's not bad upbringing or misbehaviour. It's the twitching, the restless leg, the perpetual stuffing myself with something to keep myself distracted and it's horrible. It made me remember why I went on the pills, because so far today I've done maybe one hour's worth of work and that's six hours into working hours.
My luck is, that the inattention I am able to hide from people quite efficiently, because I am intelligent enough to put two and two together even without the amount of detail that was disclosed and that I can make exact logical leaps to arrive to the right conclusion without having to hear all the source information. And maybe being ESFP does help, because I am a master of improvisation. Where I should be able to present or do something based on diligent prep and practice, I just wing it! And it works.
The downside is, that I have trouble looking professional in a job that requires professional behaviour and I look infantile, because I won't stop twitching even in meetings and I have to occupy my hands either by drawing, or tearing up paper into little pieces of paper and even smaller pieces of paper until they're positively tiny and then I do something else with the tiny grains of paper.
Anyway, stopping my rant right here, because like this no one will ever hear it. Will go switch to texting hyperactively somewhere else to distribute it into survivable levels for others, before I become too obnoxious.
Whoever feels like reacting to this, please feel free. I need stimuli and something to respond to and obviously, I'm not getting anything normal done today, or until I can get my hands on more Strattera
