Encouragement is my PDA anathema

I’ve read far more about PDAers hating praise, and wondered why it doesn’t seem to bother me – a cause of imposter syndrome at times. However, with praise, I can view it as a response to an act, not a request to repeat the act.

Encouragement however, has always led to my digging my heels in to a refusal. I don’t know how I only just realised that, but it was only recently I realised that that was the reason I couldn’t exercise.

When I first learnt about PDA, I identified with every part but couldn’t see the avoidance. I assumed though, correctly, that likely the demand avoidance was there but I was disconnected from it. I used to be very dissociative and this has happened much less since I realised this and attuned to my demand anxiety.

I learnt to fawn, because of responses to my demand avoidance, so that aspect of PDA had become very masked.

However, I have always refused with more intensity the more I am encouraged. That realisation has dispelled any imposter syndrome that I had somehow tricked my assessor.