Pathological Demand Avoidance, Better Known As- Ride 'em Cowboy; Ride Until The Wheels Fall Off; You'll Still Never Be Right
"Caught in a bad romance" - Lady Gaga
Pathological Demand Avoidance, or PDA as it is commonly known in neurodiverse circles is the persistent avoidance of demands. PDA is accepted in the UK as a distinct diagnosis that is a co-morbidity on the autism spectrum. The US has yet to accept it as a distinct diagnosis. When I asked my daughter’s therapist about why this is, he explained PDA isn’t considered something separate because its trigger is anxiety and anxiety is already a well established issue in neurodiversity and since autism is in and of itself already a spectrum, it stands to reason the intensity of anxiety levels would also be a spectrum as well.
That’s all well and good and makes logical sense unless you actually have to live with it. I’m convinced that Dante missed this unique circle of hell - one that stands completely alone.
Throughout the years, as PDA is becoming more widely known, it has gone through a bit of a public relations makeover as these things often do when pathological is one of the words used in the labeling of the condition. It doesn’t exactly squeal squishmallow cute vibes. Some refer to this condition as Persistent Demand Avoidance to unhitch the stigma that pathological conjures in the minds of others. The latest incantation to give it a more unicorn magical thinking kind of vibe is renaming it as Persistent Demand Autonomy and in its best Sally Field’s, “You really, really like me!” impression, gives the illusion that it’s ‘not really that bad all things considered’, it’s good!? and ‘all’ someone wants is autonomy and who doesn’t want autonomy in their lives? Yeah, I’m going to call bullshit on that and I’m going to tell you exactly what I tell my daughter, “You need to learn to manage this because make no mistake about it, it will absolutely, positively destroy your life. No if, ands, or buts about it. There’s a period at the end of that sentence, not a comma.” Unlike her father, who is the opposite and is absolutely determined to ride it until the wheels fall off, I want to save her from that wreckage.
It’s a horrible scene to watch, seeing yet another PDA boxcar containing someone’s life slam into the concrete wall of reality. I’ve seen it happen with my parents, my husband’s parents and even among strangers I’ve never met in person that I connect with on community support boards. The stories all read like greek tragedies; morality tales rich in symbolism as the foulness of PDA taints every single part of someone’s life weaving a legacy of a tattered tapestry that tells a story of sadness and palpable grief. PDA is insidious because it doesn’t just ruin the life of the person who struggles with it, with a Medusa like curse if you cast your eyes upon it, it also ruins the lives of those in the person’s inner circle. Its damage is a pathogen on the soul.
PDA is terminal.
Do nothing and ignore it and you might as well just start getting your affairs in order now. It’s not worth me trying to find a more dignified way to say this next part - do nothing and your life is going to suck.
There is a slice within the neurodiverse advocacy community, and part of their front facing missive seems to be creating new naming conventions that have a ‘Squirrel!’ type deflection vibe as a way to lessen the brutal reality of something’s impact. I’m a tireless advocate about reducing stigma and barriers but do so without guile. I’m a straight shooter with deadly accurate aim because I say the things that others don’t like to hear. Doesn’t make them any less true though and I’m also not going to stop saying them. I’m more than willing to ride this train alone if I have to so shunning me won’t work and absolutely will not, under any circumstances, compromise the integrity of my messaging. Sure, I’ll bide my time for a larger goal like being in a loveless marriage with someone who I’m pretty sure doesn’t even like me let alone love me for the sake of getting my children properly launched; but no matter how much he tries to silence the truth with his berating presence simply because the truth hurts, so does the ruining of one’s life becoming a predetermined outcome as a result of someone’s self-entitled pathological selfishness. Oops, just like Britney Spears, there I go; I did it again spewing truths from a barbed tongue, with a touch of forked, that hits directly straight at the heart of the matter. I will die on the hill of the principled last stand while waving my flag imprinted with my coat of arms, my heraldic symbols being the Grinch and a middle finger.
The problem I have with the dilution of terminology to fit a particular agenda driven portrayal, even if coming from a place with the best of intentions is it doesn’t offer the full truth and without that verity, you’re hampered from being able to fix the issue. I don’t understand performative problem solving; either you’re trying to solve the problem or you’re not. If you don’t want to that’s fine, just own it.
The irony is not lost on me that performative problem solving and an unwillingness to admit to it is like the kabuki theatre version of PDA. I love irony, especially deep irony. For instance, the saying “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result” has been attributed to Einstein. Einstein, who is accepted even by scholars that he would most likely be diagnosed as autistic if alive today said that. I’m going to spell this one out using very clear, declarative language because when I explained this to my husband he just stared blankly at me. Rigid thinking and the insistence of doing something the exact same way every single time and then getting frustrated that the desired result doesn’t occur is a very common occurrence for those on the spectrum. Still with me? Good. Einstein was autistic which most likely means that at a minimum, he possessed some flavor of those traits and an autistic said that doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result was cheese sliding off the cracker crazy. If even Einstein thought that doing the same thing over and over again was crazy when results irrefutably showed that something wasn’t working, then why not pivot and try something different?
PDA is the very definition of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
I’m going to put a pause bar here to let that one sink in for a minute. Go take a bathroom break and get some snacks if you need to. I know for a fact that my husband’s cpu is still processing that one and it’s looking more and more like the spinning wheel of death and time for a cold reboot.
I’m not exaggerating, I’m not being hyperbolic, I’m not even trying to scare you, I’m simply telling you the unvarnished truth and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is not your ally. No one, and I do mean no one, is doing someone any favors by not telling them real truth about PDA.
So what exactly is PDA? I’m going to go with pathological demand avoidance because that is a more accurate descriptor of what it is at its core; a lizard brain response to a threat. What’s essential to understanding this dysfunction is that all demands are treated as threats to the brain whether it’s having to do a major research project or something as benign as asking to take out the trash.
Immature defenses created by emotional dysregulation from non-existent skills with regard to learning emotional intelligence such as empathy are what triggers the lizard brain to alight. It’s sort of like a crouching tiger-hidden dragon situation; two masters fighting to the death. In this case, it is a fight to the death between the two masters of avoidance - executive function and low emotional intelligence. The tiger of lagging executive function immediately activates the flight/fight/freeze/fawn response and all logical processing stops while the hidden dragon, the pandora’s box of emotions and feelings activates the maladaptive reactive response. In other words, there is absolutely no fucking way on God’s green earth that demand is going to be fulfilled. When I say they would rather die than fulfill it, I’m not being overly dramatic, I’m calmly stating facts. It’s akin to addiction behavior.
Someone can be addicted to either a substance or a behavior. PDA is a behavioral addiction in my opinion. All addictions activate the pleasure centers of the brain with a hit of dopamine. The ‘fix’ that provides the dopamine hit in the case of PDA is the behavior of avoidance. It is the reward for holding ground, or maintaining control over one’s environment and forcing the demander to retreat or give up, no matter how unreasonable, unfeasible or unrealistic a stance held by the PDA person. The avoider will do anything, and I mean literally anything, to avoid that demand the same as someone addicted will experience physical discomfort if they do not have access to a particular substance or behavior and will go to extreme lengths to satisfy the body’s craving for their drug of choice.
Everyone misunderstands where focus should be directed and waste time and energy focusing on the responses given to a request instead of focusing on the avoidant behavior as the actual problem. If it were the responses that were the problematic behavior, then it mostly would be the result of lagging executive function skills and easy enough to teach the skills to break through the log jam by breaking each step down into small bits until you can identify the stuck point and redirect from there. The fact that the problem is the behavior of avoidance, it doesn’t matter what solution is presented, the answer is always going to be the same. It’s like using the word to define itself - the immovable morass of avoidance, so deeply rooted it’s one layer above the earth’s molten core.
So what exactly causes it? There seems to be a confluence of factors, the usual suspects of bio-social theory: inborn temperament, environmental factors, family of origin and so forth.
I’ve been reading on various platforms that there is currently ongoing research to suggest that the type of anxiety experienced by those who are neurodiverse is different than what theoreticians have previously described as anxiety. There is some suspicion that some on the spectrum might have a more highly-sensitive central nervous system that experiences sensory input more intensely when compared to the neurotypical population. Combining a hair-triggered central nervous system in an invalidating environment sets the stage to understanding the fertilizer for developing PDA. But that’s where my sympathies end with regard to grace for those who struggle with PDA because what comes after is wholly up to them to manage; no ifs, ands or buts about it. Just because you have a predisposition towards something does not mean it’s a fait accompli or that you do not bear the responsibility for managing something that psychologically harms others.
The biggest takeaway that I get from the research I did for this piece is the risk of an entitlement attitude developing as a coping mechanism due to lack of educational scaffolding and therapeutic interventions. Anything that is even perceived as being a demand automatically kicks off this chain reaction stemming from a deeply ingrained, hair triggered immature defense response created for the sole purpose of protecting the person with PDA from the ‘threat’ of ‘demands’.
Entitlement is frequently seen as a trait of narcissistic personality disorder but when it comes to autism, what often looks like narcissism is actually more closely aligned with egocentricity and is more highly nuanced than the blanket ‘everyone is a narcissist’ that is all over social media right now.
The two biggest factors from the research papers I read with regard to understanding PDA is a deep rooted insecurity drives the person to seek autonomy, i.e. control, and develop a strong sense of entitlement due to lack of connection with others and never properly learning emotional intelligence. Research has shown that autonomy is positively related to entitlement, and is unrelated to narcissism. Entitlement reflects a complex mix of needs for both dependence and independence.
Someone who is entitled has this toxic cycle of developing an unrealistic set of expectations in their mind and a need for constant reassurances in the form of recognition, rewards and compensation. They are heavily co-dependent on others for their day to day needs and are at higher risk for major depressive disorder (MDD) and/or generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) due to frequent cycling of feeling they deserve special rewards and then being disappointed when not acknowledged. They are their most reactive when something threatens the curated image they have of themselves in their mind being at odds with someone else having a different impression. In other words, they care a lot about others think of them.
It’s all coming from a place of maladaption and in the real world, no one would put up with it for a second longer than they have to unless they have no choice. It is a highly toxic coping strategy that destroys everything it touches. Everyone can wave me off all they want while doing the Kumbaya, scarf waving, fairy dust sprinkling, nymph dance in the woods telling me I’m wrong and that PDA is nothing more than a mere foible because all someone desires is autonomy, and to that I’m going to say merde ça because you’re objectively wrong.
The world does not owe anyone unconditional acceptance.
PDA has stolen everything from me that I valued, that I had hoped to establish, that I dreamed about pursuing and even took the things that required much blood, sweat, tears and sheer will to achieve.
People on the spectrum with PDA have failed relationships for a reason. Contrary to what I’ve heard from far too many inexperienced therapists who will tell the non PDA person to try and be even more understanding than they already are being and to accept that this is the best that person can do, to please turn in your licenses at the end of the day because you’re not just giving uninformed advice, you’re an enabler making things worse for the real victim and the last time I checked, mental health professionals were bound by a similar code of ethics to do no harm.
Here’s where I’m going to lean alllllllll the way into the fact that I’m also autistic and am going to embrace my tendency to being as blunt as a club while giving zero fucks of how it’s received because it’s not just some prognostication from a mechanical clairvoyant but a well informed stance based on a deep understanding of human nature and the misfortunate of having a lived experience with it: if you’ve lived under its pernicious and baneful influence as long as I have, put a cap and gown on it and cue up Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance March No. 1 and give it a diploma already because it is the magna cum laude of destruction. PDA should at least be a contender for a spot on the Geneva convention’s list of war crimes. Lest anyone think I’m being dramatic, all I’m going to say to that is you clearly have never lived with it because if you know, you know. Living with it is like being a bug trapped in a jar with the sun beating down, desperate to escape but there is none. You struggle a bit until you resign yourself to your fate, eventually succumbing.
My husband is the embodiment of what PDA looks like and the wreckage it causes.
My husband grew up being told by his equally PDA father that they were special because they were highly intelligent and then everyone stood in the doorway looking for their red carpet to be unfurled in front of them. Except, none of them had the social and executive function skills to go along with that high IQ and there was lots of disappointment from the expectation gap of what they wanted versus how the world responded to their lack of reliability when it came to doing the things asked of them, as well as their rigid behavior patterns and poor social skills. Insecurity festered into entitlement as a way to self-soothe the discomfort from the emotional upset they didn’t know how to manage. My husband was taught to just ignore those pesky feelings by hiding his head in the sand and eventually they would go away. Right there was the incubation for the hell that was eventually hatched that has been the last 20 plus years of being married to someone so emotionally stunted and unavailable that there was no boundary of disrespect or opprobrium towards me he wasn’t willing to cross to stay in control. Twenty years I’ll never get back. It didn’t matter whether he was right or wrong, just so long as he won. That’s what PDA is about - the addiction to winning; the addiction to keeping that control no matter how wrong he is proven, until the bitter end. His family laughs about their ‘quirk’ of being so toxically stubborn like it’s a good trait. The rest of the world sees it differently and the great frustration I’ve seen his family and mine endure by their lack of success in certain areas says otherwise.
When his anxiety would outpace his personal expectation gap, he would go into what is known as defense mode which is part of the PDA profile where the person is easily activated and always scanning for threats. He would protect himself by stonewalling or just being unavailable so as to avoid anything being asked of him, just like he was taught growing up; completely abandoning me then blaming me for our lack of connection. This personal discomfort over the years, calcified into pure contempt for me because the fact that I had an ask in the first place is what made him feel ‘feelings’ so it’s my fault he felt bad about himself. I became his personal voodoo doll for every uncomfortable emotion he ever felt; I was a convenient emotional leeching field for every unresolved negative emotion that was never compassionately validated for him since birth.
He continues to refuse to acknowledge the existence of this dysfunctional pattern, still refusing to apologize for anything or acknowledge any wrong doing in how he has shown up in our relationship for the last two decades. Instead, he continues to psychobabble me about focusing on enforcing his boundaries while still trying to skirt away from the discomfort of any wrongdoings on his part. The psychobabble part is laughable. I have a degree in psychology from a top ten university. Just sit down already and take a seat with your psychobabble and while you’re at it, take your DARVO and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. To quote Cher from Clueless because he is, “As if”; as if I don’t see what he’s trying to do.
He claims he’s working on finding himself because he has been forced to have to compromise too much. Oh really, and those eggshells I’ve been walking on for the last 20 years, what about those? I guess he hasn’t noticed them strewn about like petals on a wedding aisle because he’s too focused on his moodiness (that controls the emotional temperature of the household by the way) being my fault. Those eggshells are starting to feel like walking on a bed of nails.
He’s not working on finding himself; he’s still striving for that autonomy he should have learned as a kid and is confusing aggression as agency. Marinated in entitlement for so long, he still can’t connect the dots that he still lacks the skills in self-advocacy and still wants the easy PDA win by instead coercively controlling his ‘environment’, which is really just a euphemism for controlling me. I’m still waiting for the part where his therapy starts to work on something other than this delusion that he’s working on being the best him he can be (which is failing miserably because he’s the same self-entitled brat he’s always been). He is still trying to get to this place where he is the ruler of his own personal kingdom of entitlement. His hubristic refusal to grow up and own his shitty treatment of me and make amends for it has started to calcify my anger into pure hate. That’s how miserable it is to live with PDA and to watch everything you valued about yourself and your dreams be dismantled right in front of you like it’s an ‘Everything for a dollar’ estate sale because to live this is to slowly die a little bit more each day.
I’m not a perfect person and never claimed to be, but have always genuinely strived to do better towards the best version of myself I can because I want to leave the world better than I found it. I don’t have issues communicating nor do I have issues connecting what I’m feeling or understanding why I’m feeling it. He does. That was the kindling that eventually got us to this point, but he would rather run away; sniveling instead of manning the fuck up, continuing to refuse to take any responsibility or fixing the damage by offering sincere apologies. That is a classic example of pathological demand avoidance. He’s been back from his divorce sojourn for 7 months now and not a single “I’m sorry” has been said. Not a single piece of introspection or lesson learned has been offered.
Whenever I would confront him about his less than favorable behaviors with regard to how I’ve been treated over the years, the answer I always get back makes me feel like I’m standing in front of the burning bush with God replying, “I am who I am”. My husband says that a lot, essentially telling me to suck it up because he can’t do better. Still entitled, and he’s going to ride that entitlement until the wheels come off. I’m going to put a pin in that one right now - it’s not a can’t, it’s won’t do better. He’s refusing to say sorry on purpose, determined that I won’t win because he’s right and no one gets to tell him what do - classic PDA mentality. Except, by objective standards, he will always be wrong. Always.
What is the secret to successfully managing PDA? Radically accepting and acknowledging it is a problematic and destructive communication pattern that taints all interpersonal communications; and, in order to fix it, understand the metacognition that calls upon skills of self-awareness and getting the right kind of help if you struggle in that area. You are absolutely doomed to fail and fail spectacularly if you aren’t honest with yourself about the realities of PDA. A person is judged not just by their actions but by their non-actions too; non action is as deliberate a choice as action. If the behaviors are creating a problem then fix them. It’s not someone else’s fault that a project didn’t get done because you were resentful about being tasked with it and as a result a long desired promotion was given to the person who was reliable and able to complete the task. It’s not someone else’s fault that your spouse is upset because you are a poor communicator; it’s yours for not seeking out help.
Your deliberate actions are a reflection of your character and it is up to you to decide how society will judge you. I do not want to be judged and found wanting and that is one of my guiding principles.
My daughter works with a therapist who is also a skilled executive function coach. She is taught the balance of positive self-advocacy and not putting the blame on others for her failure of not speaking up or managing the consequences of her choices, and I reinforce this model continuously so she doesn’t end up like her father and ride this doomed path straight into the abyss.
My husband is so determined to be right versus correct when it comes to me that he’s going to end up like Eddie Willers at the end of Atlas Shrugged, when eventually this train stops running and he finds himself stranded in the middle of nowhere.
Succinct. I truly enjoyed this read. The inability to recognize the detrimental effects of PDA, or even its presence in their behavior and the expectation that others conform - (“that’s the way I am.”)
seems inexcusable.
I can only attribute this to the mind blindness that also accompanies ASD behaviors. They will never see it, or understand its implication on all their relationships.
It forces the neurotypical to be extremely self aware, self advocating, unyielding and detached, in order not to feel yourself become disassembled before your very eyes.
Thank you for your research and insight.
Do you still love him?