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   Dave the Nomad 🇨🇦 :autism: (dave@autisticnomad.social)'s status on Thursday, 22-May-2025 11:05:42 JST Dave the Nomad 🇨🇦 :autism:

   @actuallyautistic

   Folks who experience PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance):

   What does PDA feel like to you?

   And a follow-up question: What kind of parents did you have? How did they communicate responsibilities and chores to you?

   Quite often, when someone suggests something to me - like "we should do X" - even if X is something I might normally enjoy - I feel tense, and there's this "ugggggh" knee-jerk reaction in my head. An instant resistance to doing the thing.

   I was mulling it over this morning, and it occurred to me that my parents were very authoritarian. "When I say jump, you say how high" was a common refrain in my childhood household.

   I often didn't have a choice and was guilted and forced into doing things I didn't want to do. Not in abusive ways, but... for example, I often didn't want to go to my grandma's house for holidays, which I now realize was because it was incredibly overstimulating. She lived in a small house, and they would cram 30+ people in there. The noises, the smells, having to interact with aunts and uncles... I just didn't want to go. But I didn't have a choice.

   So I learned early on that when something is "asked" of me, I don't have a choice.

   I wonder if PDA - for me, or for others, or in general - comes from childhood experiences like that, where we are conditioned to deeply believe we don't have a choice. So when things are suggested or requested of us, it triggers that sense of dread that we _have_ to do something and don't have a choice about it.

   #ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent #AuDHD #ADHD

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     Miakoda (hellomiakoda@pdx.social)'s status on Thursday, 22-May-2025 11:05:41 JST Miakoda

     in reply to

     @dave @actuallyautistic
     For me, it's an intense aggrivation. It feels a lot.like the aggrivation when I'm exhausted, sleepy, and so ready for bed, and I'm about to get in but find I now have to wash bedding cause my cat decided to piss all over my bedding.
     It's intense, and can trigger meltdown, especially if I was focused on something.
     If it's paired with threats, it'll make me strongly dislike or hate that person - and there isn't much that can prevent or reverse that result.

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     Miakoda (hellomiakoda@pdx.social)'s status on Thursday, 22-May-2025 11:08:08 JST Miakoda

     in reply to

     @dave @actuallyautistic How my parent were - abusive. My mother firmly believes that anything that isn't "productive" (including resting, recovering, or enjoying abything in life) is a waste of time and lazy.
     My mother would also deliverately trigger and escelate and prolong meltdowns. There's a lot of trauma in there. People pleasing traits and PDA traits clash in to misery.