Attention, Focus, and the ADHD Flight Response

Attention and Safety

Lately, it feels like none of us can really focus. One minute we’re in a conversation, the next we’re checking our phones without even realizing it. The world is noisy, fast, overstimulating, and somehow still emotionally flat.

Our attention spans aren’t what they used to be, but maybe that’s not just about screens. Maybe it’s about how much we’re being asked to hold, all the time. Constant input, constant pressure, not enough space to feel or rest.

And then there are people who’ve always felt this way. Who’ve never been able to focus unless something sparks real interest. Who get overwhelmed in silence, or zone out mid-conversation, or need a million tabs open just to get through the day.

This is where ADHD comes in. Not as a diagnosis, but as a pattern. A nervous system trying to survive a world that doesn’t know how to slow down, and never really felt safe to begin with.

ADHD and the Flight Response

ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, yet the name itself is misleading. It’s not a lack of attention, it’s disorganized attention. Gabor Mate suggests it’s a trauma response.

You can hyperfocus on what stimulates you (be it nuclear physics or painting for hours) but completely dissociate from tasks that feel mundane or emotionally void. Eating healthy, for example, might require Einstein-level planning, and yet your inner Einstein refuses to show up when it's time to grocery shop or cook something nourishing.

There’s the easily recognizable, physically hyperactive version. Someone constantly moving, talking, shifting. This is the outward expression of a nervous system in fight mode. Visible, kinetic, and reactive.

But then there’s the quiet version of ADHD, the more internalized one. The flight mode. The overthinker who lives in the mind to avoid the heart. This person often appears unusually calm on the outside, but inside, they’re in constant motion. Presence feels dangerous. The ground is too emotionally charged.

It’s the child who lets go of the balloon instead of holding it, because holding it would mean staying, and staying would mean feeling.

Feet on the Ground

So here’s the core question:

Why is it so hard for this person to stay present?

Why the constant urge to fly, to move, to escape, through raves, spiritual practices, or relentless productivity?

The answer lies in childhood.

In our very early life we don’t experience the world through logic, we live through the heart. Trauma research tells us that our emotional brains begin to develop long before the cognitive regions, starting from the womb. That’s why babies, starting from the pregnancy, need near-constant emotional attunement. When that attunement is missing the child learns not to feel, but to think.

They begin to intellectualize safety. The world becomes something to analyze, scan, and predict. Not something to rest into.

What we call ADHD is often a heart in exile, seeking safety in thinking because feeling no longer feels safe.

So What’s the Solution?

The growing number of children with attention challenges isn’t just about screen time. It’s about the emotional unavailability of their environments. As Pierre Bourdieu might put it, the child’s early emotional world forms part of their habitus: a deep, embodied pattern of perceiving and responding to life, shaped by the conditions they grow up in.

It’s not always the parents’ fault. Capitalism, war, migration, and generational trauma all shape this habitus. In many societies, emotional disconnection isn’t personal, it’s structural. It’s part of the cultural fabric, inherited like language, often without awareness.

Is it reversible? Not always.

Does it need to be fixed? No.

Does it need to be healed? Yes.

Because ADHD is not a disease. It’s a condition that carries both challenges and gifts. People with ADHD often think in nonlinear, innovative ways. They care deeply, feel intensely. These are the minds and hearts we need to shape a more human future, one that values presence over performance, and depth over conformity.

Fixing vs. Healing

We don’t need to fix the ADHD person. We need to fix the environments that demand conformity and suppress diversity in how we think, feel, and exist. And that conversation goes beyond neurodivergence. It includes anyone who doesn’t fit into what the world calls “typical.”

But if you have ADHD, that means your heart needs healing.

You may not have received the presence or attunement you needed. But now, as an adult, you can begin to offer it to yourself.

In my recent experience, I understood fixing happens in the mind, healing happens in the heart.

And it’s not always straightforward. Hearts heal in connection.