Down the Rabbit Hole of ADHD

Last updated on: August 10, 2026 at 8:22 am by Sherry Antonetti

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Down the Rabbit Hole of ADHD 2026-08-10T08:22:54-04:00 Sherry Antonetti

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It’s not diagnosed but anyone who ever spent more than fifteen minutes with me, probably would guess she’s got Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or (ADHD).

(Adults encountering me and thinking, yep, even before it was a known thing, she’s got it).

When I first learned about this condition, I did think, “Me, me, me, me, me, me, and yeah, that’s me too.” because I used the checklist they have for this condition and I could tick almost all the boxes. But since I’d managed twenty-two years without knowing at that point, I just kept going. Who’s got time for that? I thought.

My mother likened me to the energizer bunny and it’s not wrong. Having a conversation with me I suspect was exhausting at times. My excited discussion and thought process being like watching twenty-one energizer rabbits hopping in different directions, each manifesting a different thought or plan that I had in the moment. Gradually, I learned to endstop myself before the army of randomness took over, though sometimes those rabbits still do.

When one son and one daughter were diagnosed with ADHD in second and third grade respectively, we provided supports (therapy, physical exercise, lists, reminders and for a time, medication). I read up a bit on how it manifested so I could recognize components and adjust. What I didn’t do, was keep reading up.

Both kids being high flyers who had friends, time passed. We were coping and moving, so ergo, it was good. I know, both from my writing and from my life, I’ve often been reactive rather than proactive in my parenting style. The goal was just keep going, and we did, but that meant not seeing how the condition creates other layers, other difficulties, which because they don’t directly affect the family dynamics, didn’t get addressed in the way they could have been which might have made it easier for both of them and who knows, maybe me too.

With my youngest, I have learned that ADHD has an internal component which means parents should put on the “Is this the result of ADHD?” lens when looking at a problem or an anxiety. I’ve always known that all behavior is communication. What I did not know until I began doing a deeper dive into ADHD, was how much spinning the ADHD brain does to get out of situations, to distract from problems, and how much energy that takes from being able to be present –and that’s even with having it myself.

The rabbit brain doesn’t understand, this isn’t how others think, because even surrounded by others, it doesn’t know what’s different, only that it is. I can’t tell you how often as a child, teen, young adult, middle aged adult, older adult, present adult, I felt like everyone else got it and I didn’t. However, being stubborn, I’d tell them to just “wait and see,” because I knew there was more to me than my confusion with social norms or life in general revealed.

Being present, being reactive to others, takes a lot from the individual who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder –who hyper focuses and as such, finds themselves empty by the midpoint of the day.

The alternative is day dreaming/drifting which psychologically pulls the person into an ocean of thoughts like a rip current, until reality and other people pull them back into everyday life. Ten children makes it seem like that wouldn’t be a problem, staying grounded intellectually and socially on the shoreline, but the ADHD brain wants/seeks to drift.

I used to joke, having ten kids meant no one could see my ADHD because the world chalked all disorganization, lateness, or forgetfulness up to the numbers, not my brain. Sheer volume and numbers excused it, but did not explain it. I know even now, I can lose hours in an instant and live and die by the list. My days rush together until I feel like I can’t breathe when I don’t make sure there is still time factored into the schedule, some something that lets me be still.

Reading, writing, exercising, prayer, drums, piano, art, all these things are ways of allowing the part that needs the hyper focus and the silence, to channel the ADHD riptide into something healthy that lets the time be spent. It is a coping mechanism I didn’t realize until I saw it in my own youngest daughter doing the same thing, and turned the lens of understanding of ADHD on myself.

As I said, my brain falls into ADHD riptide thinking. The rule of thumb if one ever gets caught in a rip tide is to relax, float, and angle towards the shore. (Easier said than done). Sometimes it gives me insomnia (like now), and lets me wander down the writing rabbit holes until I have an understanding even if I don’t have an answer. However, I realize, I’ve been doing that with all those methods all my life.

Corralling the twenty-one stray thoughts on a daily basis so as to not interrupt others, or to complete whatever the task at hand is, I was reminded of my favorite childhood book, “The Country Bunny.” She had twenty-one children, and at one point, illustrates her ability to become the fifth Easter Bunny by having all of them scatter. She dashes off and brings them all back…

to prove, she’s more than capable.

And I’m thinking, “Me too.”

What’s more, when I use the methods –the lists, the factored in time for stillness, the internal dialogue with myself about how to order and attack whatever it is, I realize, we need to stop calling it ADHD, and call it something less pejorative.

It’s not a disorder, it’s a differing order. It’s not attention deficit, it’s a way of thinking that is attention diving, between the external world and the interior, which plunges easily into imaginative thought straight from reality and back again. When the interior and exterior coordinate, it’s like a super power —the hyper focus, the creativity, the structural planning, all of it. Because of it, I can fly!

I have seen those three of my children fly as well, and now that I’ve gathered all of my thoughts into one basket, I’m hoping, I can go back to sleep –or make a list for what needs to happen today. (And yes, I’ll put nap on the list too). May have to go buy some gold shoes.