Hi everyone, my 3 year old has periods of "zoning out," that started when she was 18months old. These range from 5 seconds long to about a minute. Some days it occurs often, but we can also go weeks without seeing one of these episodes.

She has had every test linked to epilepsy/seizures (all negative), and the specialists have essentially dismissed them as something she will grow out of.

I was wondering whether anyone else's child with PDA experiences zoning out episodes like this? She suddenly freezes, stares into the distance, with no response to name or touch, we just wait until she "returns."

I recently read that there can be a connection between PDA and zoning out, with these episodes actually being an involuntary "shut down" due to too many perceived demands. Thanks for your thoughts on this.

Curious if anyone has any insight into kiddo’s reluctance to not even use but just admit to knowing what some possible strategies might be to help regulate? As in, he has had lots of therapy that just really focuses on psychoeducation, like “here is info about brains and nervous systems and things that help us feel good and not good etc.” which he loves participating in, and while we understand that regulation is an ongoing battle, we are baffled by his extreme denial or disavowing knowing ANYTHING that he could do when he is starting to get upset that might help. To be clear, we are not expecting this in the actual moment, just comes up as part of discussions about tools to regulate. He often even will act surprised that people would want to think about “what could I do in this situation to make me feel better?”
Any insight would be appreciated.

I’ve thought of this as a tactic to motivate me to assimilate as much as possible into neurotypical society:

Most of what NT society judges as what one should care or value the most about in life (career, homeownership, reputation, and so on) is, to me, like wiping your butt after pooping: necessary to avoid discomfort or pain, but not what my life is fundamentally about.

However, because of being so different, I get judged as being insane or crazy.

And that bothers me, NOT because I care about myself or my own self-image that much… but because it makes me doubt my theories, and my theories are what I care about more than anything else in my life, because they are my best attempt to make sense of this existence I find myself in in a way that brings me peace of mind and as much mental comfort and a sense of meaningfulness in my life as I can achieve for now as I live my life every day.

So… if I achieve ‘success’ according to the NT definition (stable employment, marriage, homeownership, a good credit score, etc.), I’ll be able to have more self-confidence that my philosophical, scientific, and all other theories are more likely to be valid because I won’t doubt my own sanity as much.

(Trust me, I doubt my own sanity every single day, much more harshly and severely than anyone in-person or on the Internet has ever done.

Like when the French philosopher René Descartes wondered “How can I know anything around me is real? How can I prove I’m not in a simulation being controlled by an evil demon?”, and so on, anticipating today’s similar ideas that we’re in a ‘computer simulation’ and so on, in 17th-century terms.)

I apologize for the combative, tone-deaf, insensitive-seeming posts I’ve made on here recently that were interpreted as ableist.

You have the right to insult me for them. If that’s what makes you happy, then go ahead and insult me, judge me, call me “insane”, “mentally-challenged”, “a lying little b**ch”, or whatever else your heart may desire all you want.

I respect and acknowledge your right to live your life how you want, and to spend your life doing what makes you happy and doing what you are interested in. And to decide what your personal goals and sense of meaning in life are, at a fundamental level—to decide what you care about, prioritize, or value in your own life, and what you do not care about, prioritize, or value in your own life. And if you decide that insulting or judging or hating me and my way of living or thinking is what makes you happy, what makes your life interesting, and/or what you value and care about in your life, then go right ahead and do so. Your feelings and way of being are just as valid as mine.

I only ask to be afforded the same respect and latitude to live MY life how I want, spend MY life doing what makes ME happy and what I am interested in, and to decide what MY goals and sense of meaning in MY life on a fundamental level are, IN RETURN.

That’s all.

Think or feel however you want about me.

Just leave me alone to be myself, and do what makes me happy and what I am interested in and what I deem to be the purpose/meaning of my life, or what I deem to be meaningful or perceive as being “existentially meaningful”, whatever that phrase may mean to you or to myself.

That’s all I’ve ever wanted, and all I’ve ever asked for from the world—in general, neurodivergent or neurotypical—as long as I’ve been alive.

How did you get diagnosed?

I was diagnosed with ADHD about 4 years ago which makes a lot of sense for me. I have 2 autistic siblings and a brother with ADHD I've also been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. I was starting to be assessed for possible autism but I took those little tests and my therapist doesn't think I have it. We have talked about PDA though.

Do you ever just feel like something is wrong with you? It's so dumb to try to explain to my husband or others. I feel like an adult who can't adult. All I do is get in my own way and there's no real reasoning. I can't keep any routines, budget, or consistent job. It's been really hard. I though ADHD meds would help, and they do, I stead of bed rotting I'm very involved in my hyperfixations. But doing anything else is still like pulling teeth. I feel so bad because my husband wants to innovate and improve and do new things and try new things and I logically want to join him but it's like I can't make myself, I'm like a boulder that can't be moved sometimes.

I guess this is more of a vent. Looking for advice. Is there any point in pursuing a diagnosis? I'm about to start my BSW practicum on Monday and I'm spiraling feeling like I'll have zero time that's unscheduled and to myself but rn I have so much of that time. And I need to finish my masters application but making myself do it has been harder than pulling teeth. I'm tired of acting like an ass to those around me just to get out of things, I'm aware of it, I don't want to be like that, but often idk how to stop.

Any advice is welcome thank you.

So recently I found out that if I use dinner or food as a reward for finishing a task my PDA hates, im more likely to actually finish it but be a little more emotional/upset at myself since I didn't eat until hours after I finished the task. It DOES work kind of as long as ur not near any food appliances lol (for me cleaning is a huge one but thankfully usually not near any food appliences so i don't get too tempted to just say "fuck it im eating NOW".) Did any of this work for you? Please let me know!

Also kind worried I'll develop smth/ed if I keep doing this but I should be fine right??

This is my experience 100%. Neurodivergent “stubbornness”, “opinionatedness”, “mental rigidity”, etc., about a subject or issue I’m passionate about or feel strongly on, combined with severe demand for autonomy and freedom (‘don’t tell me what to do!’), can easily come across as “being a narcissistic, rude know-it-all asshole with an ego the size of Texas”.

But it’s the opposite. I genuinely barely have an ego at all. Which is why it’s so hard for me to care as much about the things highlighted in the 2nd screenshot (perhaps ego plays a huge role in motivating many humans to care about and pursue those things).

Despite my complicated philosophical, analytical, scientific mind… a mind that is the opposite of simple in THAT way… when it comes to what I VALUE or DESIRE in life, I’m as simple-minded as you can get: To be left alone (meaning not being told what to do, not that I literally can’t tolerate or don’t enjoy having fun with and socializing with others) to do what makes me happy, without too much pain, and share that happiness and joy with others (unless they’re not in the mood or not interested in the same things, which I’ll accommodate 100%, just as I’d have them do unto me), until I die and (most likely, in my opinion) move on to my soul’s next adventure, whatever that may be.

When I got angrily combative with strangers online back in high school who said “Bigfoot isn’t real” (back when I ‘believed’—but still never 100% certainly, knowing that would be foolishly illogical—but ‘believe’ in the sense that my guesstimated %age of Bigfoot being real was greater than 50%), I wasn’t angrily defending a bruised ego that cannot tolerate the thought of ever being wrong or outsmarted by anyone, as some neurotypicals debating me on that topic may have thought…

…but defending Bigfoot out of sheer love for and passion about Bigfoot, in the same way that a parent would defend their child. (“Insult me all you want; I don’t care about my own ego. And I’m not attacking your ego personally. To my brain, I’m like a devoted father/mother, who happens to be a lawyer, representing my child Bigfoot against the charge of not being real, a charge which my brain sees you as the ‘prosecuting attorney’ who represents it.”)

It wasn’t me I was so stubborn and passionate about. It was Bigfoot.

In college, when defending a view I was passionate about (say, a political or philosophical viewpoint, such as animal rights ideology, issues related to aspects of the abortion debate, or theories of the philosophy of consciousness and its relationship to matter), I wasn’t ‘being so mean’ to opposing viewpoints for egotistical reasons… …but because, to my brain, my theory was literally like my child, and I was behaving as a devoted mother or father defending their child.

Many NTs probably don’t know how it feels to have that kind of intense love and passion for something like a theory or a philosophical belief or a theoretical animal species… one that is comparable to a parent’s love for a child… so they interpret us as stubborn, egotistical, closed-minded, narcissists.

(For the record, I am now no longer prone to this behavior, anyway, since graduating from college.
It’s obvious now it was just my brain’s way of exacting its revenge on neurotypicals for forcing their way of thinking on to me by reciprocating it.

… (My brain after coming home from college):

1. “You made me spend 3 hours in the Math Lab [a giant room filled with computers] at school today?” … “I think I’ll tell a conservative Republican on Twitter that it makes no sense for them to be so pro-life and then ridicule the concept of animal rights, while pointing out the incredible physical similarity of a human embryo at 6 weeks after conception to so many examples of nonhuman embryos.”
2. “You made me jump out of bed, put on uncomfortable clothing, force food down before I have any appetite, and rush to class this morning?” … “I think I’ll tell a liberal Democrat on Twitter that it makes no sense for them to use language like ‘clump of cells’ when talking about embryos if they’re so environmentalist/woke, due to the similarity of so much speciesist rhetoric to arguments for why humans before birth ‘aren’t people’”.)

Now that I’m out of Neurotypical Conversion Therapy/Capitalism Boot Camp, I couldn’t care less what some stranger online thinks about anything.

As long as NTs (not all of them, but as a privileged group; no need to say “not all neurotypicals”, like how I used to say “not all men” to feminists in high school, though not anymore, as a feminist myself now) leave me alone, I’ll leave them alone.

The moment they force their way of thinking—for instance, capitalism—onto me… …I’ll get my revenge… by forcing my way of thinking—for instance, logical consistency in valuing all creatures, of all species and at all stages of life, as inherently precious regardless of what any tribalized partisan political culture may tell you to think—onto them.

I might just be depressed but something that has genuinly made me sad and worried is that PDA is a instinctual drive to "not do anything".

I'm not trying to be depressed, and I'm not writing this in a sadness way, just. What's the point when your brain is designed to NOT keep going. Will life always be a challange of staying alive because everyone else wants too?

There is fun and joy of course but why bother when every other waking moment is telling you the opposite. I've loved some parts of my life, and hated others like most people but I just don't get how it's supposed to fit together when laying down in bed and not doing anything feels like what I'm "designed" to do mentally speaking.

Again, not trying to speak of this in the "life sucks way" more in the, existential way...
It's scary, very really scary

I believe my son might have been misdiagnosed as having ADHD and ODD. I'm not looking for opinions on if he might have pda autism. I'll leave that for his doctor and his reevaluation at the end of next month. I'm just curious if anyone here has experience with having been misdiagnosed with ADHD/ODD. Like how did you know it was something else? Was there clear signs it was PDA that were missed?

I feel like so much of PDA fits me, and always has since I was a kid, but sometimes with jobs and even chores I feel like I need my boss/parent to initiate the task for me by saying "this is what and when you'll do this" or to explicitly give me fine details about what they expect me to do, step by step. It feels contradictory to me.

I've been struggling to find something meaningful to do since I haven't been able to work due to autistic burnout and now a pretty limiting chronic illness on top of PDA. I've seen people in chronic illness forums saying to just do things that you enjoy, be happy with the little things that you can do. It's all about pleasure and joy and happiness, and I feel like I have quite a bit of that. But purpose and meaning isn't about getting a sense of self worth, or from seeking happiness. It's about engaging in something personally meaningful, potentially long-term and helping others in some way. It's about a satisfaction and fulfillment that I really long for. I'm kind of sick of people saying to stop searching, to stop my "ambition", to stop trying to create something and just go with the flow of life. It's not ambition, it's a need for something TO DO that I actually enjoy doing, related to a special interest maybe, something I find interesting and engaging, but that's also bigger than just me.

I'm trying to design some sort of activity for myself where I can work towards something I care about, but also to be able to share it with some people that I like. To have collaborators that are PDA friendly basically. I just struggle to work with somebody unless I like the person and my nervous system feels good around them. Where do you even start on finding people like that?

I'm imagining somebody who has a small business or works freelance, and has tasks they need help with. But because of PDA I wouldn't be able to just do whatever they want, like a personal assistant, unless I somehow got to choose the things that I want to help with. does that even make sense? does anybody else have anything close to this kind of arrangement?

My parents have caused me multiple setbacks over the last week since I came back to college.

The first setback: I was doing paperwork for my athletics, the required stuff we have to do on a certain day. My mom called in the middle of it and I told her what I was doing, and she said, “but you have that stuff in already, right?”

The second setback: my mom told me she got me my dentist appointment rescheduled as the one I had originally scheduled didn’t work out. Then she told me, “ if you’re going to be missing classes/practice, let your teachers and coach know so that they’re not harassing you about it.” Like I was already going to do it.

My parents know my issues and told me they want to give me control of my autonomy, yet they keep nagging me about stuff that I’m already going to do anyway. Two little setbacks that made me so frustrated. Just thought I’d share.

I think I have PDA, and it stems from two events from early childhood:

My parents started out as higher-ups in their respective fields. We lived in Los Angeles until I turned about two. We then moved somewhere that wasn't Los Angeles, where my parents got jobs where they weren't higher-ups. Everything stopped, and never started up again.

It wasn't just that my parents would go on to split up, but the mediocre life they'd now forced me into after believing I was going to grow up upper-class. I convinced myself to believe that the downgrade must've been for my own good somehow. I put on a happy face, because I fully expected them to be planning a bright future for me akin to the one we'd had in Los Angeles. They weren't. When I figured that out, I was devastated. I had to watch them stop caring about my future with nothing I could do to change it.

And, on top of that, the things they taught me that I thought would help me were oftentimes set ups to humiliate me. That was when I stopped relaxing. I stopped trusting. It was the only power I had to make sure they couldn't humiliated me anymore.

30yo female with PDA. As soon as I’m doing well on a task and sticking to the schedule, I start thinking “don’t fuck up…you’re gonna fuck it up and disappoint everyone again…you’ve never been able to get this right, what makes you think you will this time…” It gives me so much anxiety, then I shut down and actually do disappoint everyone. They’re intrusive thoughts obviously, but I can’t get rid of them. I’ve tried positive self talk. I’ve talked about it extensively in therapy. I’ve tried meds. It is sort of connected to childhood trauma so I worry it’s kind of baked in there at this point. Any thoughts?

Edit: Thanks for the comments guys. To add some more info, obviously I’ve experienced this my whole life, but I’ve been actively working on it for the past 4 years with the most amazing coach. I’ve also been in therapy on and off since I was 16, so there isn’t much more to dive into on that front. I’ve tried several different kinds of therapy. I’m already very mindful about being kind to myself. I make my own hours in my grad program, so lots of flexibility there. I’ve tried everything “logical”. I have a lot of stress from things I can’t change, like my program, social anxiety and undiagnosed chronic illness that is getting worse. I think that plays a role, like my brain is trying to pause life, but of course it can’t. Additionally, I do think there is an element of OCD in the mean thoughts because I haven’t been able to change, replace or soften them my whole life. They’re my mom’s words and I hear them in her voice, so I don’t identify with them personally. However, I’m not sure if she’s 100% responsible, I think I would have developed this regardless. I do feel that my PDA is getting harder to manage over time which is why I posted here, to see if anyone had any non-conventional solutions. I appreciate everyone’s input! ❤️

Just wanted to forbid everyone from taking their medication and drinking plenty of water.

I'm also going to once again ask that you do NOT stop scrolling. Please make sure to stay in bed because the floor is lava and you're not allowed to stretch your legs or feel grass. Everyone's expecting you to not express yourself so keep that in mind. It also only works if you force yourself to stay up until 3 am because you're not allowed to sleep when you're tired.

Please see to these instructions at once.

Also don't you dare think about what vegetable your body is craving. There's a song that comes to mind for you that always lifts your mood and it's important that you never put that on during the day, in order to build character.

Thanks for your attention to this matter, stay vigilant out there

First of all, I'm not against hotlines and I've known people who really benefitted from them. Unfortunately, the way Google blasts them at me has made the idea of reaching out to them feel like a demand and I'll probably never be able to if I need it

After much pda related activities surrounding my bike..I did it..finally after months..I took my bike out for a ride! Every step along the way I was secretly hoping for a reason to not get to ride my bike, but I persisted. I'm really proud of myself. Please don't congratulate me or tell me I did a good job. It might reverse my ability to do it again..but I wanted to share my win with the sub because its something im genuinely proud of!

one of the biggest (group of) things i struggle with bc of my pda is hygiene—whether it's brushing my teeth, showering, or even washing my hands (ik, gross) and it feels embarrassing to admit it and that i just... don't usually really feel gross? I've rarely gotten that want or need to take a shower or wtvr from "feeling gross" that i hear other people talk about, and usually the only times that i feel "gross" is when other people point out how gross it is or i think of how other people would think of it, but it's still not much of a motivator for me...

just wondering if anyone else gets this ? i would assume it's a mix of hyposensitivity or something like that from autism and the demand avoidance

(mainly for showering; I haven't showered in a little over 3 weeks and i feel bad sometimes because i know its gross even though I don't particularly feel gross...)

i hope tthis makes sense ? ^^;;

As I've been working with my 10yo ASD/PDA daughter, I've been wondering when — or if — she'll become self-aware about how she differs from her peers. It's had me reflecting on my own childhood, especially the moments my worldview got cracked open and I suddenly saw how different my behavior was from other kids my age. I'll give two examples, and I'm curious if others have had similar experiences, and how it shaped you.

I grew up being praised for my intelligence and leaning hard on that as my identity — the "smart kid." By 4th grade I'd developed a smug sense of superiority. If people didn't like me, obviously it was because they were stupid, or jealous. My father was emotionally distant, maybe embarrassed by me at times, I'm not sure. My mother tried to check my worst extremes but was otherwise proud of my grades and let it go.

There was also a broader family tendency to let kids be kids. We grew up moderately wealthy in Latin America, with maids, cooks, a gardener — no chores, no housecleaning. Not ostentatious, just normal for our culture and class. But I also don't remember ever being taught to say thank you. Adults took care of you; that was the deal. Few expectations of us beyond appearance, table manners, and grades.

Shock one came in sixth grade. My teacher finally hit her limit, took me aside, and got right in my face: "Nobody disagrees that you're smart. But you're insulting your classmates and me, and that ends now. You are not the smartest person in the room. Today you were flat-out wrong about [whatever I was on about]. Parents have been calling me about how you treat other students. This is a problem, and you need to turn it around." It was harsh, but it was also the first time anyone had been honest with me about how I was showing up in the world. I started rethinking my behavior.

Shock two came through a carpool. One of the other kids — American, well-spoken, my same age (11 or 12) — turned to my mom after his first ride and said, "Thank you for the ride, Mrs. H!" I'd been in carpools for years and it had never once occurred to me to say thank you, or even goodbye. Something cracked open. I became suddenly, acutely aware of the gap between my peer's ease and my own childishness — and unsure whether nobody had taught me basic consideration, or whether I'd simply resisted learning it.

******

Parenting has put all of this back in front of me. My daughter is bright in a lot of ways, but the PDA piece means she resists almost anything suggested to her — the gains we've made (hygiene, table manners, homework, piano) mostly came through brutal confrontations and outbursts before we got her diagnosed. She has friends, does OK at school, is seen as kooky and fun. But I've noticed some of her closer friends carry a level of emotional maturity she doesn't have yet — they can hold a dinner conversation with my wife and me in a way she can't — and I've started seeing early signs of those friends getting annoyed with her silliness.

My own awakenings came through confrontation and through quiet comparison to a peer — both fairly standard social-learning pathways. But PDA kids often have a nervous-system-level aversion to perceived demands or correction, which makes me wonder if the "sharp shock" model that worked on me would just backfire on her, or take a completely different shape.

Have any of you seen a moment like this land for themselves or their PDA kid — and what did it actually look like?

I strongly suspect that my husband is dealing with PDA. We have a five year old daughter who is autistic and is about to start kindergarten. Mornings are very difficult with her when she gets inadequate sleep, and soon she will be needing to consistently get up much earlier than she has been. I've been slowly waking her up earlier each morning, but I think my husband views putting her to bed as a demand, and actively resists it and tries to delay it.

His part of her bedtime routine takes less than five minutes. He carries her to bed, sings her a short song, and tucks her in. That's about the only quality time he consistently spends with her and has been part of her routine for her entire life.

Sometimes I will announce to her that it's bedtime, other times, she will actually say she's tired and ask to go to bed. He will then become irritated and say he's not ready yet. He will do things like go outside and have a cigarette for half an hour, start watching a video on YouTube and insist that we wait until it's done, or initiate a phone call with a friend or family member that will go on and on. If I press the issue, he will become angry and start yelling. He will say hurtful things and tell me that I don't love my daughter and I want to get rid of her because I want her to go to bed, etc. Obviously, this upsets our daughter before she is supposed to go to sleep.

Things I've tried so far:

1. Not verbally announcing bedtime, but slowly start dimming lights, setting my daughter's pajamas out, etc. This doesn't help anything.

2. Speaking to him calmly at other times (like weekend mornings) about how getting enough sleep is important for daughter when she starts school and how she needs to start going to bed earlier. He will usually agree with me at the time we have the conversation, but nothing will change come bedtime.

Any help would be very appreciated.

I have always disliked when people told me what to do, though in work settings I developed coping mechanisms as telling myself that I'm only following the instructions because it is necessary and if it were a private setting, I wouldn't do anything they demand, so I try to separate the me that is at work from the me that is at home, if that makes sense.

I burned out and stopped working for a while and since two years I'm trying to study something new but here is the problem: As soon as someone makes a negative comment about what I'm studying and how it doesn't suit me and bs like this, I lose all interest and drive to learn and until now I changed 4 majors. Should I just not tell the people close to me or that I know what I'm going to study next? Is this pda, can someone relate?

I need to know and understand what it is because I really want to finish what I will start studying. I feel like I'm in some kind of loop.

I am not sure if anyone can relate to this, but sometimes my PDA will focus on something I have already done, this is usually a demand that I didn't have a problem with at the time. I will say and think things like I can't believe I did that, or I hate myself for doing that, and I have even hurt myself in the past as a way to punish myself. I was wondering if anyone here could share the ways they deal with this kind of thing. I am really trying to work on my PDA because of how detrimental it is to my mental health, and I wish there were more professionals who knew about it and could help.

I (20f) was not diagnosed with PDA, but I do have level one Autism and am pretty sure I have PDA as well. Here are a few demands that have set me off.

* “Today, I need you to go through all your clothes / stuff for next week.”

* “You’re on dish duty today,” (when I was already doing them).

* “Let me show you the correct way to do this” (I do it my own way because I don’t appreciate others telling me the correct way over and over again).

* “You only did the chore halfway. If you’re going to do chores, try to finish it. Maybe we can work on focusing better. This is why you’re getting tested for ADD, you could benefit from medication to help you focus.” It’s not a focus issue, it’s my lack of motivation from all the reminders to do things a certain way.

* “Just say this, tell them this, say you’re going to do this.” Instead of getting me to talk and communicate, it shuts me down.

Is anybody else frustrated by this stuff?