I Want to Talk About P.D.A

Image is a person sitting with their head on their knees, covering their face with their arms. Heading reads, “I want to talk about P.D.A”

I want to talk about P.D.A - in fact, ALL I want to talk about is P.D.A... and, if you have a PDA'er in your life, I am willing to bet it is all you want to talk about at times, as well. Let me introduce you, if you haven't been well acquainted yet.

PDA stands for Pathological Demand Avoidance, and many PDA'ers truly hate the term and prefer 'Pervasive/Persistent Demand for Autonomy'.

It is a strong, anxious threat response to demands (real, perceived, and even internal demands) that can be absolutely debilitating. PDA is a disability profile that often exists as a sub-profile of autistic folks. Meaning: many autistic folks are PDA'ers.

Many autistic folks have such strong, debilitating threat response reaction to any perceived demands, that they have disabling reactions to even internal demands like needing to use the toilet, for example. Let alone explicit outward demands like being told it is time to turn off their device or clean their room, come to the dinner table or put their boots on.

It is so much more than that though.
If you know, you know.
If you live with it, you know.
If PDA is moving about in your home, you REALLY know.
If PDA is challenging a student in your classroom, you know.

In Canada (and many places), PDA is not recognized as a disability nor is it diagnosable, because it has not been included in the DSM-5. It is diagnosable (some places) elsewhere in the world though, and is recognized for example in the UK as a disability.

In Ontario in particular, we are terrible at accommodating Autistic folks. Like - the worst. There is no polite way of putting it. Our support services are waitlisted by years.

We do not recognize that there are multiple profiles of autistic folks and in failing to do so, we fail to treat Autistic PDA'ers as if they are different from non-PDA'ers and we see the consequence in suicide rates and violence rates in the autistic community.

Ontario public school boards are ABA-therapy informed in practice, and ABA therapy is notoriously harmful particularly to PDA autistic profile folks. The consequences to these autistic folks and to the people around them speak for themselves.

I read a post in a Canadian PDA parenting thread about a parent desperate because their child attempted suicide this month. A child, not even yet a teenager.

PDA'ers are at extremely high risk of suicide. Nearly 10 times the risk of non-autistic folks. Nearly all PDA'ers are chronically feeling suicidal. Nearly all of them are chronically suffering autistic burnout.

PDA'ers are hard to spot and underdiagnosed because they are the autistic folks who are typically: verbal, social, humourous, and high-masking - until they burnout.

Every traditional way that we are taught to treat, discipline, educate, and communicate with autistic children here is meant to cater to ONE type of autistic person. With ONE profile of autistic child.

It leaves no room for the nuance and fluidity with which a PDA'er needs to be treated, educated, communicated with, or how to best help them to learn to structure and discipline their own lives to meet their goals.

So yeah... all I want to talk about is PDA...
Because no one here in Canada is listening, even though those of us who know are SCREAMING about it, trying to be heard, before one more fucking kid tries to un-alive themselves because these experts THINK that doing the same things over and over to the same group of people, when it is clearly not working with most of them, is still better than listening to us. WAKE UP, PDA IS A THING AND YOU ARE DOING IT ALL WRONG.