Deconstructing PDA:What Lies at The Heart of 'Pathological Demand Avoidance' PDA Part 2

What does it feel like to BE autistic and demand avoidant? What triggers the anxiety, confusion and trauma of PDA? After discussing the presently limited public understanding of PDA, we now shift perspective to a personal story - a journey of discovery to find the true feelings behind this complicated and frustrating barrier to full participation & inclusion in modern life.

#EngageAutism #AutismAcceptance #actuallyautistic

*Lord Lucan (John Bingham) was an English peer who abruptly vanished in 1974 under a dark and mysterious cloud of intrigue & violence. The circumstances of his disappearance and possible whereabouts and/or fate have been the subject of considerable speculation since, and his name - a byword for "doing a vanishing act".

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[ByrdieFae]

"If someone has to ask me to do something, then it feels like I've already failed." ME! THAT IS ME.

[andoryuu]

22:05 - The hardest part of this scenario is being in a situation where you need to explain it. Trying to explain sometimes makes people angrier because they think it's only an excuse and nothing more. Wrestling with it for our benefit is like trying to psychologically trick ourselves.

[Autistamatic]

It's been a loooong time coming, but here's the second video in the PDA series. Obviously things haven't been a bed of roses in the Autistamatic camp for a while, hence the delay, but there's also been some BIG changes recently. I'll explain more in a video in a couple of weeks, but for now, it's great to be back and I hope you all enjoy not only this video, but the many others planned and in production.

EDIT: I'm having trouble getting the uploaded subtitles to work properly for some reason. Until it's solved, please use the auto-generated subs.

[TheRev]

It’s the other side of the equation that has been hardest for me: the entitlement that people above me on the social hierarchy feel to place obligations on me without obligation to themselves.

If I agree to them ahead of time, like agreeing to perform the job duties I’m being paid for, it’s not too bad. But oftentimes, the obligation is to submit to bullying, to go along with an obvious lie, or something equally awful.

My teachers expected me to allow them to embarrass me in front of peers without complaint. My bosses expect me to submit to abuse and act as if I deserve it. The authorities who use their power to abuse the poor and disadvantaged (a group I’m often a part of) then cry foul when you call their behavior what it is.

Most dominance assertions are treated as rights in our world (and what is a right but a claim of obligation against another?) and that state of affairs is what enrages me, and fills me with terror.

[RaunienTheFirst]

I really like the understanding of PDA as "Pervasive/Persistent Drive for Autonomy". That the root cause is a feeling of a lack of autonomy, of being controlled, of your freedom being denied. This really speaks to something that I experience quite frequently: when someone asks me to do something I am already doing or was intending to do, I intensely feel something that I struggle to describe. Anger? Frustration? Close, but not quite. And it's quite different to the feeling of, say, being asked to do something that I think is silly, pointless, or unnecessary. A major component of *that* is frustration and anxiety. Anxiety around potential negative consequences for asking reasonable questions, and frustration at having to do something I don't understand the purpose of or crosses a minor boundary that I have failed to communicate.

Although, I also like your social currency/debt model. I also avoid asking for or giving favours, and now I wonder if the reason is related to why all my bills, where possible, are paid in advance without me even noticing it's left my bank account. Similarly, I try to ensure I pay for my own drinks, and I even feel a spike of anxiety when my brother (rightly) points out that, since I provided transportation to and from the pub, he feels as though he owes me a drink.

[tezzerii]

I'm the father of a pda kid. She was a nightmare, such hard work - altho people outside the family loved her to bits ; it was like she came home, hung up her halo and brought out the horns ! She grew up into a lovely and smart young woman, and got herself diagnosed with autism and pda, and we all began to understand. But the biggest shock as I learned about all this was - she got it from ME !!!

[thewildybeast]

I find that I am unable to carry out the task that I have been asked to do, but I am then able to carry out a task that I have been asked to do previously. It’s as if seeing the new task in front of me, triggers me into understanding how best to go about carrying out the previous task.

[HappyHoney]

You hit it all spot on, good Sir. As a child being constantly corrected and directed may have something to do with it. I have PDA so bad I push back when I tell myself to do things. I still naturally want to push back and not be forced. It's like having your freedom to do as you choose taken away. It takes a lot of effort to overcome, in order to get things done. At least being aware that I'm going to not want to do things I 'need' to do; helps me just accept that it is PDA and that makes it easier to push through anyway.

[eladhen]

I was called lazy so much as a kid... It burned my soul but I just felt that doing what I was asked for was even worse for me...

[aliceangl]

For me, my Mother took advantage of my feelings of obligation first to convince me that not meeting her expectations was a personal failure, then later, she'd use that feeling she fostered and her belief that I "owe her for raising me" to make me feel horrible for turning down any interaction wih her abusive self.

I've long since kicked her out of my life, cut contact wih her and even changed my phone number. I just note it because I find it terrifying how hard she was manipulating me, how much psychological theory she was leveraging against me, and makes me feel more justified in kicking her out of my life.

I have PTSD from her doing this, and it makes working terrifying once you factor in the way my bosses treat me for my autism, often using the same talking points, that Im lazy, faking my meltdowns, throwing tantrums (which is what she called my meltdowns), and other degrading terms... It all reminds me of her and sets off my issues.

[labyrinth_rat]

This has put language to something I’ve dealt with since elementary school. Damn. Thank you so much for your thorough, spirited analysis.

[humanBonsai]

I feel that executive functioning issues are the main underlying cause for my PDA. It is the inability to process the demand and how it can be implemented, and how it will fit into my day which causes me to panic and reject the demand. Give me time to process it and I will commonly get stuck in with enthusiasm

[lorifarmer]

I was talking to my sister about this today! Parts theraphy

To heal the PDA I need to pair it with its opposite part

The pda is formed bc I was forced to give my love, my body or my energy to someone else who "needed" my love (energy)

I had no choices, I was a prisoner

The demand avoidance was bc I knew the truth. Real love is given freely, not forced. Forcing someone to give it to you, makes it into something dark

We fear that dark park inside us bc we know how it feels to be on the receiving end.

We don't want to afflict that pain on others

So we avoid that part of ourselves.

But by leaving the part in the dark, separate from us, we loss out on the good, hidden in the dark. in the dark.

This part can ask for help, this part can say "I need" this part can keep me from taking on things that aren't my responsibility.

By keeping it in the dark, I am daming myself. Just like the world has done to me.

I do not accept that the dark in me is bad. It quiet literally is misunderstood. Just like me.

Janet

So you are saying we can heal and then our bodies won't go into fight/flight mode when we are presented with a demand?

Me

Yes that's what I've was trying to say

Bc we will be able to say no and have the power. That makes it our choice

[aneeha]

This is phenomenal! In my opinion your channel has the best content on autism and related topics.

[Kadaspala]

I'm a 38 year old autistic person who themself has introspected in depth on the complex nuanced nature of my neurodivergence: I still found this to be astoundingly insightful and very helpful in developing an even greater understanding of myself and my relationships.

Thank you so much, this is important work you're doing and I assure you younger and future generations will be thankful -- though not in any sense that implies social obligation ;)

[eubique]

This is a tremendous job of forensic self examination you've done here. Indeed amazing how a judgmental view (which must often be internalised) gets it so upside down, or at least 90 degrees skewed.

[pebblebrookbooks]

You have a new ADHD subscriber!! 🙋🏻‍♀️Great job - thanks for sticking out to complete this one!! I love autistic ppl - y'all have the patience to spell out stuff for us while neurotypicals have already rolled their eyes and already gracefully bounced an hour ago.

[ThatWeirdLady]

This video is so relatable. I remember being like this as a kid. I still am, but I handle it differently now.

[karrenrex]

At 12:00 and on you put to words how I have always experienced socializing and social relationships and why it causes so much distress and anxiety.... I've unpacked much of it, I've known that I perceive relationships as transactional, way more than I'd wish them to be, even in stark contrast with my own moral understanding of friendship, and I've identified triggers in very similar ways to what you describe.... but I'd never until now heard someone else describe the very same experience. This made me realize there's more than just adverse childhood experiences that have shaped this pattern of demand avoidance in my mind, that the core that sits at the root of it is part of my nature and not just trauma, and the trauma has compounded to it rather than create anything out of thin air. And it makes me understand it in a whole new way.... and if before that I felt there is something to so-called PDA that resonates, but I could not quite pinpoint it, nor could I say I wholeheartedly relate to it, now I understand and now it resonates, I found the way it does, and that is one more sore question answered. And for all that, I thank you.

I write this because I know it will matter to you. Because I know what it's like to feel your insight has helped somebody else. Maybe autistics are in a way predisposed to value each other's individual experiences all the more because we feel how starkly unique each perspective is and how starkly unique each struggle. Maybe because of that as well as because of feeling so misunderstood for so long, but finding someone to whom you can so deeply relate, is more than astonishing.

[marysupernova]

While you were away, i found ur channel. And since then, your work has been helping me, and helping me help my son better than i could have without it. Thank you ❤ I'm so grateful to see this new content!