Sally Cat PDA

This is a massive topic which I plan to return to. In painstakingly unravelling the tangle of my head through stripping away acquired neuroses and ongoing exploration of "fits" for my bundle of remainining traits, I have identified a number of  "neurostrands" coexisting within my brain, which are (in order of discovery and/or diagnosis): Dyslexia Dyspraxia  Dyscalculia  Chronic fatigue syndrome* Delayed sleep phase syndrome Female-pattern autism Autism PDA ADHD  * It is argued by some that CFS is neurologically rooted ( link here ) None of my neurostrands operate in isolation.  Each strand, like cogs in a complex watch mechanism, directly affects every other one. Starting with autism and female-pattern autism: many autistics claim all autism is one and the same.  Female-pattern autism, however, includes the distinctive traits of social mimicry and masking.  It was in fact this female autism traits list that prompted me to seek (and receive) my

My Demand Avoidance appears to operate at a level beneath conscious thought and emotion, so for example, if someone tells me what to do/think/feel/like triggered Demand Avoidance causes me to: Object to this person's directive with the equivalent of, "I do not want to that." Feel negatively about the request and sometimes the person giving it. These Demand Avoidance-generated feelings tend to take the form of irritation, anger, resentment and/or withdrawal: "so and so was really thoughtless in pushing that on me!" Or "I just don't want to know, I am no longer interested in what they have to say." This all goes on subconciously so that my triggered emotions feel natutral.  I think I have been seriously pissed off with people because of my Demand Avoidance many, many times in my life. For example, I was seeing a counsellor a year or two ago and noticed that I had suddenly dissociated myself from what she was saying and was feeling awkwar

I've organised all my graphic memes into a "library" by subject.  Some have been put into more than one section, for example, I've placed memes about anxiety and demand avoidance on both the anxiety and demand avoidance pages. There are around three hundred memes and it was becoming increasingly difficult to find them all, even for myself.  My desktop filing system is far from perfect and this new library should make finding them a lot easier. The next step is for me to caption each one so they can be searched for. In the meantime, here is a list of links to each meme page: Anxiety Autism and PDA Childhood and parenting Control   Co-morbid conditions (Pathological) demand avoidance Diagnosis (including misdiagnosis) Education Emotions (including empathy) Fantasy and role play Hierarchy and rules Impulsiveness Intolerance of uncertainty  Meltdowns Overload and burnout  Quiet space  Relationships Routine    PDA (general) Social mimicry

Pathological Demand Avoidance is a fundamental part of my being.  It's always been with me (I have never been free from it) and its all-pervasive presence is my Normal. In learning about PDA through joining the Facebook Adult PDA Support Network after I came to suspect having PDA three years ago, I was a bit flummoxed when fellow members stated that you know if you've got Demand Avoidance: it's blindingly obvious.  Well, it wasn't obvious to me and still isn't.  I think I've become so enured to Demand Avoidance, like anxiety, that I don't tend to notice it in operation at all. Although hard to detect, my Demand Avoidance is very much pathological : it is hardwired and present regardless of my attitude towards the things it causes me to feel compelled to avoid. In having lived with PDA my whole life, I am accustomed to it.  The challenge for me is being aware of it.  I feel my pathological Demand Avoidance is an automatic, subliminal trig

PDA stands for pathological demand avoidance.  It is classed as an autism spectrum condition.  The autism spectrum is, by contempory definition, much broader than its earlier incarnation that was boundried by the Triad of Impairments , although many people (including professionals) persist in assuming that being on the autism spectrum equates to matching the cliched autistic male profile.  PDA Society say: Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) is now widely recognised as a distinct profile of autism. Individuals with a PDA profile will share similar difficulties to others on the autism spectrum in the following areas: Social Communication Difficulties ​Social Interaction Difficulties Restrictive and Repetitive patterns of behaviour (including sensory seeking or sensory avoiding behaviour) In addition to these points (which, being a PDAer, I may come back to argue with elsewhere in this blogsite!), PDA comprises a cluster of distinctive traits: Hardwired demand a

This, my first post here, is my second actual blog post.  My first ever post was published by Jessica Kinglsey Publishers yesterday (17th May 2018) to coincide with the release of the book I compiled, PDA by PDAers .  Thus inspired, I decided to open a Blogger account (behold!) to continue posting. So having overcome my Demand Avoidance against blog-writing and become a blogger (how I hate labels!) I have excitedly gone into hyper-focus mode and scattily planned this blogsite (is that a word?) in my head.  It will, I have decided, serve several functions: 1) Act as an encyclopedia of PDA (from my perspective) 2) Be a library for my graphic memes.  They are currently only published in full on my Facebook page , which is not searchable. I am planning to organise them by theme in this blogsite to make relevant ones easier to find. 3) Give me a platform in which to opine about PDA in greater detail than the available space on my graphic memes allows.