It strikes me that PDA impairs agency.
When we respond to ‘you should’ or hunger or really wanting to do something with a hard no.. we have lost our agency.
I feel this might actually be more central than autonomy seeking, as not all PDAers claim to experience a drive for autonomy. Responding to expectation with avoidance however, always affects our agency.
Interestingly, realising this.. makes me feel controlled. For example, I have been reacting to encouragement to exercise with a hard No, you can’t make me. I.e. I’m being a typical PDAer. But I’m also being a PDAer who is being controlled.
My therapist stated that a healthy PDAer acts from choice and at the time I wasn’t convinced. Thinking about agency makes that make sense though: avoiding is being just as controlled as complying, just in the opposite direction.
So I suppose the work is to learn to respond to encouragement with ‘I will do it if I want to’ rather than ‘You can’t make me’.
PDA fae 