PDA fae

Tag: pathological demand avoidance

  • How about writing in a logical order?

    “Introduction paragraph should be the first to be read, and last to be written”

    Gosh how my brain is rankling at that idea, of writing the first paragraph of my essay last. Especially the more my lecturer returns to this idea, the more my brain thinks ‘never needed to do that so far, why would I start now?!’

    The idea was a demand the first time it was mentioned, three or four times later and it’s a definite No. The essay gets written from the beginning, as it will be read! As is sensible!

    I guess I understand why some would find writing an introduction based on stuff that have already written out easier, but for me, an essay plan usually enables me to write an introduction – that is how I know where my essay is going to go.

    It’s a silly point, but this really stood out to me as causing demand anxiety – the statement that the introduction will be written last.

  • Almond butter autonomy.

    It’s never a good start to a day when at 4am, after a night of pain and no sleep, you develop a craving for almond butter on toast… and have no means of having that for breakfast.

    I’m likely going to struggle to eat breakfast at all. My demand capacity is going to be quite a bit lower. It might seem odd, but a large part of that will be due to the loss of autonomy of the choice of what to eat, not pain or sleep deprivation. Of course, I’d probably cope better if my stress cup wasn’t filled by those things – see Tomlin Wilding’s page for information on ‘cups’.

    Odd as it may seem though, the simple lack of the food I actually want for breakfast – and the inability to pop to a shop beforehand to pick it up, or that it wouldn’t be listed on deliveroo groceries, is a problem. I’m already grumpy just thinking about breakfast without my autonomous choice. Nothing else is going to be a good substitute, which is not ideal when pain has already reduced my appetite.

    Sigh. I foresee a taxi ride to the nearest big supermarket today.

  • Article in Asylum Magazine

    I’m lucky enough that I’m shortly to be published in Asylum Magazine, a radical mental health publication. I’ve admired the magazine for years, as I align with their values surrounding psychiatric survivorship and amplifying mad people’s voices.

    The article focuses on the ability of identifying a PDA profile to be highly empowering and neuroaffirming. In it I challenge the perception that PDA is a pathologising unnecessary term that shouldn’t be used to describe Autistic experiences. I explain the benefits that diagnosis has had for me, and how it avoids being labelled with more problematic diagnoses such as borderline personality disorder.

    To find the article, if this interests you, find asylum magazine here.

  • “Just prepping”

    I made a small instagram post about this – the hack of telling myself that I’m not “Doing The Thing”, I’m just “preparing”. It’s something I’ve used a lot throughout life, usually to get myself to study. It started in high school, I would set up my pens, my books, my computer at the kitchen table, often taking quite a lot of time over an exact layout. I’d tend to feel unable to start until things were laid out “just so”, but also that that was all I was going to do – just lay things out.

    Somehow, starting by “getting things set up” reduces the demand anxiety to get the rest of the task done. I think I’ve used this with tidying as well, with setting up llama life, or a pomodoro stream. I wonder if it could be used to effect with cooking, laying out the ingredients and the materials needed, like the dish, frying pan, or chopping board and knife. I imagine that might actually work pretty well.

    It’s strange to me how this is a little hack I came up with years before even having heard of PDA. I guess I have been living my life having to find some ways around the feeling of demand anxiety – a lot of that involved dissociation, which I think I’ve mentioned before I do a lot less now I have acknowledged my demand anxiety.

    It’s good to live a life working with my brain, not against it.

  • Demand cup update.

    Making one of these because recently things have changed at my supported housing in a way that may provide me with more demand capability in life.

    In short, I have been offered a ‘quid pro quo’ of I don’t demand too much of them and they will demand much less of me. As in, I just have to keep telling them I’m alive daily, and nothing else.

    That works for me, I can work with that. I like quid pro quo when it’s not corrupt, so yes, if we’re playing this game I’m happy with it. They’ve also asked me to not tell them what ‘PDAers need’ but what ‘I need’ which, sure I can play that game too. They don’t realise that’s a demand, so they’re gonna hear a lot of ‘I need you to understand that’s a demand’ in the near future.

    But what can they say? They demanded it of me. So I’m happy to become the resident broken record of the scheme for them until they learn how to help, well, PDAers.

    Ridiculous I have to do it this way when I have the diagnosis but, fine sure.

  • Demand free time

    Recently I’ve needed a lot of this. I’ve been dealing with a series of traumaversaries throughout July and August, which has been Very Not Fun, and they obliterated my demand capacity.

    I re-downloaded tiktok, with better knowledge of how to curate a better feed for myself than when I first started with the app back in 2022. It’s now a lot of Autism/ADHD/Trauma recovery content with the occasional pet content (usually cats), and sometimes cleaning/cooking videos. It now feels replenishing to spend a number of hours browsing those videos.

    I find tiktok an ideal way to have demand free time that isn’t ‘understimulating’. Sometimes demand free time does need to be time spent just sitting, maybe with music on, and that can be replenishing in a shorter amount of time. But my ADHD finds that very difficult.. or sometimes there is just a very large amount of demand free time required. In those moments, social media becomes the perfect activity. I can engage in multiple special interests, without being required to expend very much effort at all.

    Of all the things that learning about PDA taught me, demand free time was the most useful, life changing concept I learnt of. I can finally recuperate from life properly, and much much faster. It helps me stave off (and when needed start to recover from) burnout. I now know it is a vital need to empty my demand cup.

  • PDA and agency

    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’.

  • The problem with ‘strategies’..

    for me, at least.. is I need a strategy for remembering that they exist so I can use them!

    I had needed to hoover for a few days, but felt so worn out that I avoided it for about a week. Remembering the approach of setting a five minute alarm made it feel possible – just having to do that small amount and no more. Turns out, that was pretty much all the time I needed to get it all done, so I do wish I’d remembered that one a lot sooner.

    Mostly though, I’m just glad it’s done.

  • This is so true

    Sally Cat’s recent post

    If you’re looking for new PDA resources, Sally Cat’s content is one I can highly recommend.

  • Putting shoes on

    This is a tip I came across in Sensory: Life on the Spectrum (which I will do a review of in due time), that was corroborated by the experience of a PDAer I know online. The comic author, with a PDA profile, said she gets into ‘doing things’ mode by wearing shoes, my friend has to be wearing doing things clothing, like jeans rather than tracksuit bottoms.

    So I thought I’d give it a go, and put shoes on when I’m doing care tasks. It definitely helps to keep the momentum going, and seems to signal ‘this is not rest and relaxation time’. It’s definitely less tempting to curl up on the sofa with them on.

    Another simple trick in the toolbox of adulting with PDA!