It’s a specific kind of hell to live with Pathological Demand Avoidance, when you want to be productive.
When you have PDA, anything your brain sees as a demand triggers a survival mechanism, you go for fight, flight or freeze mode. The brain wants you to avoid that demand at any costs, and demands can be as simple as getting out of bed, switching tasks or even doing something you absolutely love… yet as soon as it becomes a demand, it gives a major anxiety attack, it feels like you can’t breathe properly, you freeze and it interrupts the entire flow of your day. For me, even if going to sleep feels like a demand, I get anxiety from trying to sleep, and take more time to fall asleep.
I’ve stopped studying things I really enjoy because my parents kept pushing on their topics and made me see them as a demand. I never watch or read recommendations from people if they keep asking me. And nothing of that is being difficult, spoiled or a brat.
It’s a kind of feeling that people whom don’t have PDA usually can’t understand. It gives a kind of sense of dread to push through, and it makes the daily life be really hard and often unproductive.
As I’m trying to build better and healthier habits, I know part of that means pushing through something until it becomes a habit, so it becomes automatic, and that’s really hard as tasks become demands. I often try using self care apps that remember me of what I have to do, in a non aggressive way, that allows me to not freeze, but I’d argue PDA is very debilitating.
And when I consider my case… having multiple disabilities and comorbidities related to the disabilities, make everything harder! Despite the hashtags I added, it’s not only AuDHD; I’m also legally blind and physically disabled. I don’t require a wheelchair, even if it would be very acommodating sometimes, but I live in a lot of chronic pain absolutely everywhere in my body, and have very loose ligaments, so it’s easy to get hurt, and my interoception is messed up, and that makes me not know I’m hurt sometimes. So not only do I have to adapt demands to something that doesn’t trigger my brain, but also I need days when my pain isn’t so bad.
Yesterday was a great day in the pain sense, it was still present but mild, so I got to organise a lot around my house. It felt so good, and helped me on not getting so tired. But that doesn’t last long, I woke up in a lot of pain today, so if I had to do physical tasks today, it would be an immense amount of suffering… and why would that be related to living with PDA, you might ask. But that has a lot to do with PDA, as bad pain days make it that my body and brain trigger survival mechanisms even more often, and it’s even harder to basically function.
I wanted to talk about it since it’s on my mind at the moment, and also to put it out there, because I’m sure many people with PDA might be judged as spoiled or bratty for not acting and completing tasks. Know that you are seen, even if that’s only a stranger on the internet, you’re not spoiled, you’re not a brat, you just need that the habits and tasks you have, don’t become demands, so you can keep doing them naturally.
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