for me it is: like constantly living in a dream-"bubble", a haze of thoughts, associations and emotions that somehow shields me from the real world. It is really hard to follow a single thread of thought for any period because it gets sidetracked all the time.
It is impossible to follow a conversation without spacing out all the time. Same for paying attention in class. In meetings I experience physical discomfort, like being asphyxiated, because I cannot dream away somehow.
Things that really interest me can cause me to hyperfocus: a state that is like becoming one with the subject matter, losing sense of time and environment. When someone disturbs that, I experience enormous discomfort and have great trouble dislodging myself.
I am totally non-hyper, but slow, sluggish, dreamy.

In relationships my girlfriends get frustrated because they don't have the idea that we are on the same planet. I forget things all the time, dream away, withdraw. On the other hand, I miss a certain playfulness and the ability to share the emotions that I experience with them.

At work my performance is irregular. I can do very well at times, but very bad at others. I am very creative en can be enormously productive at times, and on the other hand, make loads of careless mistakes, procrastinate and dream away at other times.

I feel very empathic towards people that I love, but am totally shy in groups. Certain aspects of me feel very childlike, immature - like how I relate to others, playfulness, sense of wonder, how I experience emotions, cognitive tempo and of course, attention. Other aspects - like sense of justice / morality and IQ feel normally developed.

I also experience low-level social anxiety. All this has been there since early childhood. Still, altogether I experience myself as quite a happy person :)

Some aspects improve on meds: attention, anxiety, the sense of that dream-bubble. The real world and my dream-state seem to merge, and the real world thus feels closer and much more like I am a part of it.
I still need to experience other effects - I have only been taking them a couple of weeks. Another strong effect is that everything seems much more clear. Other people refer to this as like wearing eyeglasses. That is exactly how it is. I can see further, plan ahead. This is completely new. The meds do not make me high, super energetic or such. They do give me a sense of calmness and peace. So - I am still a bit sluggish and dreamy, but I can at least control the dreaminess better!

hope this helps,
luthien

Although I consider myself inattentive, I always include 'H' with ADHD because I figure my mind is the hyper one even if I'm not physically hyperactive.

For me, activities that require a lot of mental concentration/focus are very draining. A lot of the times, I felt sluggish. It's like trying to run in waist high mud. No matter how hard you try.

*using part of a little story that was read to me a lot when i was a child* it feels like i have an upstairs and a downstairs, being positionally correct, what i refer to as upstairs would be my thought center and downstairs would be the part of me thats grounded to reality. I think using upstairs, completely segregated and then thats pretty much it, if i can be bothered to go all the way down those stairs i might do but only if theres interesting company i.e. a scientific breakthrough that shows blah blah blah (but in an interesting way with a cool picture). If i were to depict it more acurrately I would say when I'm using the upstairs it feels like heat is forming from my temples traveling to the center of my mind, then to the forward center point of my mind, then if i am to use the information it has to travel from front center across the top of my mind to the back center argh, actually take that back, if i concentrate on taking it all the way back and down the back of my mind i start getting a headache, ok, from forward center then seep into the center of my mind up to top center then back to front center, so it kind of forms a loop.


.....I think i diagram would be much easier to get the point across, but anyways as I was saying the 'upstairs' seems to relate to what your saying as the bubble, the thing is a lot of the time if i figure out what ever I'm trying to figure out upstairs I can't be bothered to go downstairs to show everybody so i just move on to the next thing, as a result I figure stuff out but pretty much forget it afterwards and don't see the point of telling other people what I figured out.

Concerning energy levels, mine is extremely low, I always have a song going through my head which usually keeps me focused on what I'm doing, I also tap a lot to the tune thats playing in my head, just a habit I've picked up I guess, my mums side of the family are extremely musical, I'm also reasonably musical, I'm pretty much living in a daze, as I'm writing this I'm speaking in my mind what I want to type just before I type it, if my typing overtakes my inner voice I get mixed up and go completely off track, I seem to have two visual images one is reality and the other is a vague shadowy picture that is my inner image, I love shutting my eyes and create swirls of colours (I DID spell colours right, english spelling (damn auto spell *grumbles like Muttley* )) and it seems that when theres music playing the swirls of colours coinside with the music, it's truly beautiful to see, I think the fact that I consider it facinating makes me zone out a lot in day to day things.

(please note theres an extremely annoying ceiling light behind me that is just ever so slightly dimming and brightening, at first I thought I was too hyped up on caffine and that the shaky shadows were due to that but it's actually the bulb, you would think that something that annoying would be dealt with straight away, it's kinda making my feel disorientated.

side note: need to switch to decaf now.

ANYWAYS, I also seem to be pretty apathetic, my gf hates it, especially whens shes angry because she tries to provoke a reaction of hurt or anger from me and instead I display total indifference, I seem to have to act out my emotions with what seems reasonable at the time, (although I've stated this a few times in other posts, I'll state it again) I also seem to echo others emotions as well, and I've noticed I seem to have started learning how to display anger from my gf because after a while of something frustrating me I suddenly see an internal image of my gf yelling at me and I re-enact that. I think the reason that I'm so apathetic is because my emotions are just way too filtered, and as such feeling joyous seems fake because I've thought it over first (if you understand that).

I'm quite a sensitive person, I was pretty strong when I was a kid and as such hurt a few people by accident, especially since I studied martial arts, I've accidently thrown a friend of my over my shoulder when he tried to scare me (which he completely succeeded but, I think I shocked him a bit too, luckily he wasn't that hurt), I think that is thing that has forced me to develop this filter thing because I felt terrible, truly terrible when I realized what I'd done, once when a mate had annoyed me for a couple of hours straight and tried to pretend hit me I kinda snapped for an instant, dodged and hit him on the nose, I felt so bad about it I went into an asthma attack, I was devestated that I had done such a thing to a friend.

Also my upbringing was to be pretty much sat in front of the TV when my Nan babysat me which was about 5 hours a day and all most of the weekend, I wasn't allowed to play with friends when my Nan was looking after me, just sit and watch TV, I'm wondering if that could of contributed, that the reason that I'm so emotionless is due to me not playing and socializing alot and did not develop my emotions very well.

but....anyways, I'm gonna go now since I've just realized this "brief note" has turned out to be a 300 book of which I'm planning to title "pointless ramblings - the forgotten art!", the publishing date hasn't been set yet due to lack of financing but donations are welcome and if you act now you receive a free T-shirt that says "Beware: Rambling Master (Run why you still can!!!!).


Enjoy you day :)


Dx

I'm actually at the point where I want panera to cut off the free wifi just so I can carry on with the stat sheet I was doing, even though I would hate it if they did.

I have inattentive and I have such a hard reading these long posts let alone writing one..lol
No offense meant just kind of envious I guess..

Sorry, I was extremely hyped up on caffeine.

I would still appreciate any inattentive metaphors or things that have happened to you that is a prime example of what you go through on a daily basis, also if anyone wishes to do a comparison of ADHD vs ADD.....that would be interesting to read.

Lee..there's thread on that started by Marytza, I just discovered tonight..
It's really easy to see the comparisons..
I think it's in general add..
adhd v add it's called ;-) or something like that

http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47246

I was close

I have ADD that is primarily innatentive. That said there are times for sure that I feel "driven" as far as my thought process goes.

The most prominent symptom for me is motivation (or lack of) or some might say severe proctrastination. Hard to describe at times. I can easily waste hours trying to jump start my day. I'm in sloth motion most of the time until it comes to the 11th hour and I'm back up against a wall. Then I just kick into high gear. Some of my most productive work is done at the last minute.

Sometimes I wish I was just a little bit hyper more energetic. I know I could get loads of things done.

@ swede63: I do the exact same thing! I work for hours trying to get some assignment done and it's only till the night before or even the day it's due that I sudden click and get it all done.

@Tracy H.: I just finished replying to that thread: http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47246&page=2

it's a tiny bit on the long side, but I broke every bit down thats on the caparison table. :)

Where do I begin........


:D