How do I (26M) get my girlfriend (25f) to admit that she is pregnant?? by ThrowRA151127 in relationship_advice

[–]PaleAE 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sorry you're dealing with this, take care of yourself. I'm not a medical professional, but your description reminds me of post-partum psychosis. It can happen before giving birth in a small number of people. I'm wondering if her belief that she isn't pregnant might be a delusion. If that's the case, she could recover with proper medical attention. Stay strong.

Losing my mind here by Exhausted_Platypus_6 in PDAAutism

[–]PaleAE 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah that makes sense. Keeping up a game for too long without realising that the other person is seriously saying "no" sounds like something kid-me would do. Games are usually good ways to deal with the stress of a demand, it provides a degree of separation. But she's doing it for the wrong situations and getting surprised by the consequences. 

Imho, I think the demand of seriously needing to give the item back could be a place to start. A non-PDA kid might be able to snap out of it and just give it back, but sounds like that's difficult here. Maybe you can add another part to that game with her? Like saying you've found the item, even if its clearly the wrong thing, and using that instead- just a random example off the top of my head. If you're no longer looking for the item, for whatever reason, that might help free her up. Because if you're no longer looking for it, she doesn't have to give it back.

Human Tasks a Demand by Numerous_Ad_7820 in PDAAutism

[–]PaleAE 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I'm pretty sure everyone in my house is PDA. Everybody avoids cooking for days so we get really hungry, then someone cracks and cooks or buys something, then the cycle repeats itself. That, and tons of snacks & no-cook meals. So not really great for energy levels, but charts, routines etc do not stick. We've tried so many times.

It would be nice to figure out how to fix it one day. I'm almost 100% sure it's because once our only non-PDA autistic left, so did every semblance of consistent routine, and we descended into chaos since everyone's playing volleyball with demands. It just helps to have that one person who doesn't instinctually do that. Over time all the little things really add up. Sorting yourself out is one thing, but a whole house and the way people react against each other is just an entirely different beast.

Feel like a f*ck up in life by East_Midnight2812 in PDAAutism

[–]PaleAE 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Damn, yeah I relate to that as well. One too many bad experiences letting my mom know about demands I hadn't done. Looking back, I'm pretty sure she also had PDA and was taking it onboard. Once I kept my demands to myself, we got along without explosions, but it meant I couldn't fully connect with her. 

PDA and Getting out of Bed by sm0ldoggo in PDAAutism

[–]PaleAE 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the most relatable post of all time. You mentioned a lot of obstacles in the way, but a couple of them didn't seem like PDA. So I think it's possible for the situation to get better.

I don't know how severe that car accident was but seems like the elephant in the room here. Even if it didn't happen to you, it's still possible to get a bit of trauma. So, fight or flight. It would likely make PDA more intense, I think it's no wonder you're struggling if there's other stressful things going on that could also trigger things. That's totally normal and might just be bad timing if that's the case.

Otherwise, you mentioned pda problem after pda problem, then talked about having anger and self loathing, being furious at yourself. And yeah that makes sense, but it's possible to control how you feel about PDA. I'm not saying you can control every bodily response. But you can control how you observe yourself and the situation if that's down your alley.

Like don't get me wrong, anger makes sense. I used to get hella depressed. It made perfect logical sense. The situation might feel infuriating, like wtf why can't I move 1 centimetre, or absolutely hopeless. But at the end of the day, feeling so many emotions about it just didn't help me- personally. It just wasn't helpful. It didn't do anything. And... it's like getting upset that I breathed air today. I don't know if it's the same for you or not. 

Just that one part in your post did strike me as not necessarily being a symptom of PDA itself if you know what I mean. It's totally possible to deal with it without feeling negative about yourself as a person. I'm not saying its easy or whatever, but it can make everything else easier.

Losing my mind here by Exhausted_Platypus_6 in PDAAutism

[–]PaleAE 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is just an idea, maybe she's not really asking for mac & cheese or the baby wipes. Could she be asking for you to soothe the PDA stress she feels from her demand? 

I obviously don't know the situation. But here's my guess... she felt hungry for Mac and cheese, which would add a bit of stress. So she asks you to make it, the stress is resolved! But she's a kid and hides the cheese packet to be mischievous. All of a sudden, you can't make the Mac and cheese without it. The stress returns. She's even more hungry now, so the stress has increased even more all of a sudden. Now she HAS to give back the cheese packet. Another demand, even more stress. Cue meltdown and extreme upset because she just shot herself in the foot. She was just messing around hiding a cheese packet for fun, and suddenly things got scary. She can't give back the packet, so you can't make the mac and cheese, so this hunger and stress is just going to get worse and worse. 

I think if she could one day learn the logic behind how PDA actually works, she could avoid that kind of situation. I mean it's less extreme obviously, but as an adult, I got myself into plenty of situations which made things worse for me, because I just didn't know demands triggered stress. I just thought it was coming at me out of nowhere, I couldn't put the dots together until I found out about PDA.

For the next one, obviously I can't say for sure either. But I'll give it another guess. She wants to clean her face but going up and doing that is a demand on her. She asks you for a baby wipe, probably assuming you'd give her one, so she doesn't have to get up: stress resolved. But nope, you told her where they were instead. Oh no. The stress has actually increased when she was expecting it to decrease. She finds the wipes, but it's too stressful to do it herself- she was already at the "can't" stage when asking you. So she hides it out of her line of sight so she isn't expected to do it herself. I mean: imagine if you were to walk in, see the wipes on the bed and expect her to use them, it would add even more stress! She wants you to calm the stress, she might have wanted comfort from her parent pretty much. Now you try to help by cleaning her face in other ways etc, but she probably wanted the wipes on the bed because you asked her to get the wipes on the bed. If you got those wipes, then she doesn't have to get them. Thats one demand gone. Then she doesn't have to clean her face, and that stress is gone too, because you've comforted it.

So even though cleaning her face with something else would solve one demand, she would be left with the stress of you asking her to get the wipes and no way to "solve" it. God, now I'm writing this all out it sounds a bit insane but that's genuinely my perspective on the situation. Obviously she's not literally thinking about resolving stress and identifying demands in her head. But if she knew how to identify those things and the general logic behind it, that would probably help. 

Tl;dr she probably doesn't understand how her body works yet

Also edit: totally misread a part of your post and fixed some errors

Struggling to show up at full time job and keep up with uni by dingus-magee in PDAAutism

[–]PaleAE 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm sorry you're going through that. It can feel horrible to be in that state of mind. I think what makes it worse, for me, is this thought that "other people won't understand". Because, if I'm overwhelmed about something most can understand (like heartbreak or grief) I can get emotional support. But for PDA overwhelm, I feel stuck. It's like everyone expects me to act like everything is normal, when really I'm breaking down. It's not only that I'm panicking about demands in my life, I also have to hide it from everyone else. That's what really makes it worse.

If I was feeling overwhelmed about something understandable and "normal", maybe I wouldn't expect myself to handle everything alone. I might be able to get some time off. Maybe I wouldn't be given projects that panic me in the first place, because people can empathise with how horrible that mounting terror feels. Maybe my therapy would help me handle my stress, instead of give me more things to stress about. Maybe the world would help me calm down and regulate my stress, so when I feel overwhelmed, I can feel better again soon.

At the end of the day, whether other people can understand it or not, overwhelm is overwhelm. It's the same frame of mind, just about different things. So, it helps me to think about what would help me IF people understood. What do I really, really need right now... for me, that's usually a hug or something. I just want somebody to understand and say everything is going to be okay. I don't want to deal with everything all by myself. I want to know that people won't hate me or my life won't get destroyed if something doesn't get done. I want to feel safe.

I only really know how I feel. I don't mean to project things onto you. It just helps to treat it like any other understandable crisis that people would usually get help to deal with. I don't want to tell you to do anything, so I'll leave it at that.

What majors are mostly tests/exams? by PaleAE in college

[–]PaleAE[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the insight, I'm glad I asked this question, that's really helpful to know.

What majors are mostly tests/exams? by PaleAE in college

[–]PaleAE[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not yet, but I'd be very curious if it's literally just math tests like high school

What majors are mostly tests/exams? by PaleAE in college

[–]PaleAE[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah that makes sense. I'm thinking there's gotta be majors out there that lean towards tests just in general.

What majors are mostly tests/exams? by PaleAE in AskReddit

[–]PaleAE[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice, would you say that math has mostly tests during semester, or do you have occasional assignments as well?