When nowhere is safe

I’ve mentioned a couple of times now that I tend to resort to ‘fawning’ in response to external demands from other people. What does that mean exactly?

Harry Thompson offers a good explanation.

In his post, he describes the situation where the child is safe at home to retain control through demand avoidance. That wasn’t my situation. My parents went to greater lengths to force compliance than my school did (and my primary school teachers went far enough), including the use of violence.

As a result, I’m an adult PDAer who doesn’t feel like I now meet the criteria of being skilled in social approaches to avoid demands. These never worked for me as a child, every adult I was in contact with would force compliance through abusive methods. So now, I don’t feel like these social methods ‘work’, nor do I usually feel safe to attempt to demand avoid. Instead, I learnt to fawn for control in all situations.

Edited 8/3/23: I no longer recommend Harry Thompson as a resource.