PDA + trauma = ?

When I started this blog, I wanted to share the perspective of a PDAer living with complex trauma. One of the key ways that affects my PDA presentation is that I only barely meet the criteria of using ‘socially skilled avoidance’. Because it never worked. It was never safe to try. Or people would push me so hard, I’d rocket up the triangle shown by the PDA society here.

I’ve mentioned before here that I learnt to fawn for control, everywhere. It’s hard to know where the balance lies when it comes to healing the trauma response, unmasking, and being healthy. My therapist emphasises choice – choosing to engage or avoid, freely, rather than reacting out of trauma or PDA related nervous system activation. This feels to me to related to a drive for autonomy, which always makes a lot of sense to me. I think it would take a life with a lot of autonomy to be able to respond from choice, rather than PDA.

I don’t know if with time I’ll start to discover and learn the more socially skilled avoidance approaches. It still seems to me that faced with those, most people apply force, even to a fellow adult. NTs are big on compliance, for sure.

I suspect that I will remain a PDAer that uses outright refusal as a simple way to set boundaries.