PDA Day/Week/Month/Year
Striving for Awareness and Acceptance of Pathological Demand Avoidance
Today is PDA Day, and the start of PDA week. An extra chance to talk about PDA and try to help others understand what it is.
I spent many years sharing our experiences to try to do just that. I also hoped that my sharing might help other families facing some of the same challenges from people who had no clue what it was like to live with PDA. I’ve been struggling to find new words to write about PDA lately but I’ve realised there is still a lot of information on my blog that could help others, so now might be a good time to take a new look at old posts and share some more!
I thought I would start by resharing the post of mine that has been read the most. It's called Ten things you need to know about Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). Here's the ten things in short, but it's best to read the detail behind these (see link to my full post below)
1. Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) is a profile of autism
2. PDA can overlap with other autism profiles
3. PDA Individuals have extremely high anxiety levels
4. Both direct and indirect demands cause anxiety
5. Behaviour which challenges can be a panic attack
6. PDA is NOT the same as ODD, Attachment Disorder or Conduct Disorder
7. Typical parenting strategies are NOT generally successful with PDA
8. Lots of people have demand avoidance; this is not PDA
9. Using the right language is key
10. PDA Children grow up to be PDA adults
11.....
OK, I know I said ten... but I needed to add one more. Our daughter has the PDA profile and she is witty, affectionate, charming, sociable, chatty and creative, with a great imagination. She, and many others with PDA, deserve to be better understood. I believe that society can change, but only if we are educated so that we know how to help.
The full blog post can be found here: Ten things you need to know about Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA)
If you’re a long-time, ‘old’ reader and you’ve seen all these posts before, it would still very much help if you could ‘like’ or interact with any that you see me publish on Facebook or Instagram in the coming days. That will help the information be seen by even more people!
Book reviews
I’ve reviewed many books since starting my blog - lots on PDA but also on other topics such as autism more generally, ADHD, ARFID and more.
For PDA books, see my post Books about the Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) profile of autism
and for other reviews, browse this link: All Book Reviews
PDA Society new website
The PDA Society has always been the first place I signpost other families to - their website is full of helpful information. A completely refreshed, rebranded website has been launched today with clearer links - let them know what you think of it!
Question Time
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, please get in touch via stephstwogirls@gmail.com or reply to this email.
