Enneagram Nines and Attention Deficit

This summer, I brought up ADHD in my Instagram stories and was surprised by the response of my Enneagram Nine community.

SO many Nines have wondered for years if they have an attention deficit, but most of them are not outwardly impulsive or fidgety like you see in classic cases of ADHD, so they (or their parents) have never looked into it.

In my IG Stories, I listed 13 ADHD symptoms and asked people to count up how many they have noticed. Here are the 13 most common difficulties:

• Feeling restless

• Putting off or not finishing projects

• Mood swings

• Getting easily stressed

• Finding it hard to listen when someone else is talking

• Struggling to remember or follow directions

• Having so many thoughts that it's hard to follow just one

• Being disorganized

• Poor sense of time

• Trouble knowing what to do first

• Not being able to multitask

• Trouble staying focused and on task

• Impulsivity- blurting things out that you later regret, for example

How many of them do you experience regularly?

Here are the results of my poll:

Of the 13 difficulties listed,

36% of the respondents experience 10-13 of them regularly.

39% experience 6-9 of them regularly, and

25% experience 5 or less of them regularly.

So 75% of the Nines who took part in the poll say that they experience at least half of the difficulties of ADHD.

There is a lot of crossover between Enneagram 9 traits (which are due to personality) and ADHD (which is due to brain wiring.)

How do you know whether or not to get tested?

First, take time to check in and listen to your inner knowing. You will know if you need more help than what education and proper diet can help with right now.

As you become more emotionally healthy, many of the symptoms/Nine traits (whichever they are!) will not be such a problem. I teach my clients tools that help with all of it in The Bold Nine Academy. You may also consider therapy. There are lots of resources out there.