Notices by Dave the Nomad 🇨🇦 :autism: (dave@autisticnomad.social)

@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

@hellomiakoda What about The Rock? 😃

@hellomiakoda That's the long form of "Nazi" I'm pretty sure

This about sums up the current state of affairs.

@badnetmask It wound up being an accidental Mk 1 conveyor belt between my coal miner and the truck station that was bottlenecking the coal... replaced that with a Mk 2 and it's all good now 😂

I haven't yet unlocked any of those things you mentioned. Literally just got coal generators, tractors, and the first set of steel items.

My coal burning power plant keeps running out of coal and shutting down the whole grid.

I have multiple self driving tractors shipping coal from the mine to the power plant, but there's a bottleneck in the logistics there somewhere that I haven't quite figured out yet.

Thinking I may need to build an auxiliary power grid that runs the critical infrastructure that the power plant depends on.

Even troubleshooting this game is fun 😂

#Satisfactory

@m

Totally unrelated to the context of this thread, but related to PDA and something on my mind lately:

How PDA manifests for me is that almost every time someone is like "hey we should do X" my brain immediately cringes and there's this physical "ugh, nope" feeling that goes through my body.

Even if it's something I normally like doing!

@hellomiakoda

@hmm_cook Again a timely post :D

I've been thinking a lot about and experiencing some pretty extreme energy fluctuations. I'm working on understanding why, and how to smooth them out.

I'm curious: what level of fluctuations are you talking about? Hourly, daily, weekly... all of the above?

Is there a level in which it is reasonable to expect less fluctuations?

@hmm_cook Intentionally working on this over the last 18 months has drastically changed my life. I feel like my lifestyle and my energy is so much more sustainable and steady, instead of a rollercoaster of high energy excitement and low energy deep burnout.

#ActuallyAutistic

@actuallyautistic Let's talk emotional dysregulation.

What does it mean for you? How does it manifest in your life?

I've been searching for relatable content around this subject, and I've had a hard time finding anything. Most articles - including ones from neurodivergent and neuroaffirming sources that I could find - talk about what it is and what it means, but not how it feels or what it looks like in reality.

What are some examples of it in your life?

If you have any resources on the subject you're able to share, that would be appreciated too!

#ActuallyAutistic

@actuallyautistic What got me thinking about this was watching a show where a married couple were in a heated argument, then all of a sudden one cracked a joke and relieved the tension and all was fine.

You see that a lot in movies and TV shows. The most obvious trope being when a heated argument turns into passionate intimacy.

Is that fiction? Can people (Allistics, NTs, anyone) really turn their emotions on a dime like that? 🤔

@Pawpower That blows my mind. I relate completely to you - when things get heated, I'm usually either fleeing or shutting down. And I'm so overwhelmed with emotions, and so upset, I can't even fathom being able to control those feelings and flip them on a whim.

I need to go be alone to calm myself down.