Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome?

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Doesn't it say in the wikipedia article it's not going to be mentioned in the DSM-V? Does this mean it isn't valid?

Not trying to cause trouble, just confused.

It hasn't been studied enough to say whether it's valid or not. It might be included in later editions, such as DSM-6, if research supports it's inclusion.

I have never heard of this and don't really understand it after looking at its definition. I doubt it will ever be accepted by mainstream psychologists.

In my experience, pretty much everyone I've met in life is avoidant to some degree, at least more than I am; I am confrontational and direct to an extreme.

Check out my IMDB page!

If PDA isn't a valid psychiatric/neurological diagnosis yet, then why are people self diagnosing themselves with it?

It makes no sense and it further complicates things, I don't believe PDA really exists, if I had a dollar for every invalid psychiatric/neurological disorder I happen to come across on Wiki, I'd be a billionaire.

I read that there's only one place in the whole of the UK that will assess for PDA and the NHS is very reluctant to pay for this. So the majority of people diagnosed with it here will have paid (a lot) for it.

soulreapersenna wrote

Yes I am not convinced about it either, it just sounds to me like some Aspergers symptoms and not others, or a particular way that someone with Aspergers can cope in a world where they are expected to be very social that has occured frequently enough to be given another label.

I think there is something that makes me different from other AS people, whether it's best described by PDA, or by calling myself a Resistant Social Communicator, or whatever. I keep hearing other autistics talk about social accomodations and I think 'yes, but...' - eg 'I want people to be direct, but I don't want them to tell me I've hurt their feelings because I'll freak out about that'. And PDA describes my educational difficulties way better than AS ever did, because I didn't have trouble based on taking things literally or needing routines or whatever, I had trouble because I have much less tolerance for being given commands. And yes, I know no one likes to be told what to do, but I was the only kid getting sent home twice a week for having meltdowns triggered by the teachers trying to force me to do stuff (stuff every other kid was doing).

Ettina
One of the things that has confused us about our daughter is her refusal to get on with jobs within a timescale. At school, the teacher will write something on the board and the class have to copy it into their jotters. My daughter will take ages to get started on this. In fact, the class have finished and she's barely written a word. She's very smart and has lovely writing, no dyspraxia and dyslexia is highly unlikely. I asked her if she could explain what's going on there. She told me that she can see what the teacher has written, can read it and understands what to do to write the same sentence. She doesn't see the need for actually writing it, because of course she can do it (in other words, it's easy, don't ask me to do stuff that my intelligence is way beyond). Have you ever felt like this? I explained that, although she knows she can do it, the teacher needs to see it to know she can do it, but I don't know if she gets that. Could it be an empathy thing? Hopefully you will be able to explain it better to me than she can (she's just 5yrs).

I'm kind of similar, to be honest, although I normally don't talk too much around strangers. Also wondering about PDA.

Is it only recognized in the UK? How would treatment/therapy for PDA differ in the adult context from what would benefit someone with other forms of autism?

As far as I am aware, the key to helping people with PDA traits is to not apply autism-typical things like routines and sameness, because they have the absolute opposite effect, so change and versatility is important and routine avoided. A lot of methods seem to revolve around indirectly confrontational ways of communicating, e.g. not telling someone YOU have to do X but finding ways of communicating the rules without directly confronting the person. There is relatively little about adults though.

You could try contacting people on this website to see if they have suggestions: http://www.pdacontact.org.uk/

Wow, this describes me so well. Most of my meltdowns at school were because someone had tried to tell me what to do.

I have this strange aversion to anything vaguely resembling work. I can't explain or describe it, but I hate it. Everyone around me thinks that I am lazy and a bad person. I'm not, I just can't force myself. The effort required to do so is enormous, and will make me unable to do anything for the rest of the day. People get very angry when they try to get me to do another task and I tell them that I can't because I did the previous thing. The first is defiance. The second is a petty refusal to do anything else after complying the first time. But it's not. It's like they are asking, "Hey, come lift two tons."

Mummy of Peanut, it is an "empathy" thing. She probably doesn't understand that her teacher doesn't know that she can do it. I never did. My teachers knew I was brilliant. They should have known. Eventually (High School) I realized by looking at other kids that didn't know everything (ask me how much trouble I had realizing that other kids couldn't do what I can), that the teachers might have thought I didn't know things either. In reality, they knew. They may not have known that I knew each individual concept, but they knew the probability was incredibly high. I have a reputation as a friggin genius. They just wanted me to work, and not give me an exception. That is all.

I'm not sure if I understand exactly what you mean, but it kind of reminds me of my reactions to math. Many times I got mad when I was given an entire page or pages of the exact same kind of math problem. As far as I was concerned, if I could do 5 of them and get them correct, there was no good reason to make me do the rest of them. I'd proven I knew how already.

My impression has been that this is more of a 'gifted' thing than a PDA thing, although PDA probably enters into how adamant I got about this. Do you think your daughter might be gifted? It can be really frustrating being asked to do things that are too easy for your cognitive level, over and over.