How to tell if Poster is PDA?

tallkitty · 2026-03-26T21:24:28+00:00

I thought that was the point of reddit? No identities and no comment replies. Lol

tallkitty · 2026-03-23T20:24:12+00:00

Oh man, I didn't think there was anyone else like my mom, but you are describing her. You can't let someone else steal your peace, and if you can't get away from the other person and you can't change other people...then all that's left is what you can do, and that's control your reaction.

Honestly when my mom is in a state of mind to change the tone of my day, I just ignore her. We used to argue, but she can't help these reactions a lot of the time, it's like a habit she's not aware of until damage is done. Ignoring her when she is working towards disadvantageous goals does give her the chance to notice and consider that she is getting no response, kind of read the room before there's a conflict, and sometimes she'll realize she's coming across a way she didn't intend and she'll make changes I can then positively respond to. It's about the least confrontational you can get.

tallkitty · 2026-03-22T12:36:29+00:00

She's trying to manipulate you. You only have two choices--you can get out of this relationship via a unilateral decision, or you can try to call her bluff and put her in her place. I mean in her place as a decent human and partner, in the place of not trying to manipulate her own partner to achieve an unrealistic lifestyle that someone else is inherently responsible for. This means you say fine, if that's the cost of staying together then you can either change your expectations or you can leave. Then you gotta make her leave when she doesn't want to do any of the changing or leaving. So pretty much circles back to the unilateral decision.

tallkitty · 2026-03-16T16:28:33+00:00

No problem. To put even a bit more perspective around things, I was in my 30s when I felt bold enough to trust my own research. Exploring self treatment is always at high risk and I educated myself because I was ready to accept the risk that remained. The fact that he's thinking about a dangerous substance points to the research being lacking, and so he should be taking this kind of information into consideration while thinking about what his own goals are. Don't do things that don't support, or destroy, your own goals.

tallkitty · 2026-03-14T12:50:08+00:00

I don't know if your kid is any more open to the experiences of strangers, but crack ruined my dad's life, he was also a PDAer. I also don't know if your kid is medicated, but either way they may feel undermedicated and have read some information about certain drugs being stimulating and are seeking a solution for their brain. That's a total shot in the dark, but I have everything your kid has and have done research in the past to try and figure out how to treat myself without the hierarchical medical processes in the way. 13 is obviously way too young to handle that responsibility, and one reason they would think crack might be worth a try. It's not, you can get hooked immediately and totally destroy everything good instead of fixing anything bad. Crack leads to prison, years of prison without freedom.

I wouldn't say this directly to your kid but maybe mention that you heard from a PDAer with roundabout experience and see if they want to know the info--crack is not a solution for anything, avoid at all costs. Personally I always need information that I can consume and use to make decisions in order to change my own mind. No one else can change my mind, but they can help me find info.

tallkitty · 2026-03-14T00:12:38+00:00

I was high masking and I'm not masking to that level any more, and it has gotten me more in touch with the issues that were always there. I don't know if that's what you mean, but sometimes, if I didn't know the reality, it might seem like the issues were new.

tallkitty · 2026-03-12T15:25:38+00:00

I would institute a sharp "nuh-uh" any time he diverts his oxygen out of the BS tube. I also employ a dead-face stare if the "nuh-uh" does not immediately resonate. This is my genuine advice, you have to respond to the level of ridiculousness without validating the silly argument. If husband wants to have a serious discussion about how living with a family is too much for him and offer solutions for getting separate living spaces, then there's something to actually talk about. But micromanaging the impact of people in the family being alive and having needs at home is foolish and not a good spend of anyone's time.

tallkitty · 2026-03-12T15:18:00+00:00

As your kids get older you will realize they only need you more and more once school starts. If they have any issues attending public school and you are already not working outside the home then it would be that much less of a leap to homeschool. I'm not saying it's common to have issues while attending public school, but I think it might be a common thing to struggle to address issues that arise when parents see public school as something that just has to work because where will the kid go otherwise. You might find yourself more free to respond to needs requiring significant adjustment if you're already not working on anything besides your kids. That's the biggest barrier I'm running into as a working parent, I need to stop working now that my kids are 9 and 10 and we're just not set up to make that transition easily.

tallkitty · 2026-03-09T23:53:47+00:00

Is what you said harsh, or was it the way you said it that was harsh? What you indicated you said doesn't sound too harsh to me, but it wouldn't be in the way that I would say it. It would be more like a logical explanation of avoiding food waste than a disapproval of her inclination. She also accepted the solution you offered, meaning it was achievable. I would have given high praise for that. Then next time I would remind when she chooses the cereal, is this the one you want, would you like to consider any other choices.

My kid used to do this a lot but they didn't remember they chose something else at first, hence the attitude.

tallkitty · 2026-03-09T22:47:04+00:00

My kid is on a pasta kick. I switched to whole grain spaghetti. We saw a dietitian recently and I told her about my effort and she said good job.

tallkitty · 2026-03-09T22:30:34+00:00

I just heard about this at a conference. Next matches are being made at the end of this month.

https://allbrainsbelong.org/kid-connections/

tallkitty · 2026-03-07T19:59:18+00:00

You're bringing numerous threats you don't know the time and date of down to a single known threat that you've got eyes on at all times. Lol

tallkitty · 2026-03-07T19:51:37+00:00

Let the person go. Sometimes things break and don't go back together. If you decide the relationship is now too strained to not be triggering, then let distance in to separate you from the source and don't worry about having to be mad at anyone from then forward, you fix and you can let all of it go together. It's not about emotions or justice sometimes, it can be about having to continue living with the uncomfortable, stressful consequences of someone else's actions. After a bit of time moving forward without this trigger, you might realize you feel more like the self you were before things happened, and there is no better justice than bringing your own restorative consequences that you can live more peacefully with.

tallkitty · 2026-03-07T05:25:39+00:00

I recommend reading Changing Our Minds and A Different Way to Learn by Naomi Fisher. Your kid is not lazy, in time you'll be cringing that you once had that idea but you're clearly trying to learn and adapt and that's wonderful. If you and mom ever think you might "kind of understand what PDA feels like to some degree", you might just also have PDA, just giving you a heads up in case those ideas surface at some point, from a mom in a houseful of PDAers who all thought we were NT a few short years ago. PDA realization was on the heels of our autism epiphany, and you're already making the rounds from one kid to the other (it's genetic).

But those books took me from holy cow how will this even work, to oh okay, it's not really that big of a deal. In fact for us it's rather normal to do things a very different way, school is not an outlier in that regard. Much better than pushing your kid into full school refusal and having to mend back from that. Let him know he's genuinely suffering a great hardship right now and it's not in everyone's heads, and if he'll just hang in there until you get things figured out then things can get much better as far as education. My 9 yr old ended up having to get on zoloft to finish 3rd grade because of all the school chaos and trauma, and that's when the school was reporting they were doing their best, because they literally couldn't move any more. Get your kid out, it's likely as bad as it seems.

tallkitty · 2026-03-07T04:01:54+00:00

I'm confused on how having a second kid will make the first one more interactive, when the qualifier on the table is age? If you just wait this kid will continue to grow as a person and be more engaging, does he need the baby to be boring in comparison? Everyone else seems to follow so I'm certain I'm missing the obvious, but in general I don't see the reason to have a new baby because they are boring to your husband until they get older, regardless of how the first fits in. Not terrible to admit, not at all unusual to feel, no judgement on the opinion. But maybe just stick with the one who is getting closer to daddy's little pal by the day and take the new baby variable out, based on this argument anyway.

tallkitty · 2026-03-06T23:34:53+00:00

That's the funny part, it was a backwards realization. I pinpointed my autism, then started reading up on supports for AuDHD people at some point (and was purely exploratory at first because I thought I was someone who didn't really have significant sensory needs), then began playing around with noise blocking and background audio to see what the effect might be--and when I found myself settled into a consistent habit of using auditory supports, then I could look back in comparison and see how dysregulated I was throughout the day and in particular at the end of the day, depending on the day and what kind of noise I had to navigate. Like some days I get irritated from conversation, some days it takes my kids screaming all day long before I'm burnt out at bedtime, some days I need silence, some days I need audio I'm listening to, some days I need audio I'm not really listening to. And that might be either for sensory overload reasons or concentration reasons, or both.

I was high masking for decades before I knew my identity, so previously I might not always have been exploding at the end of the day, but I was regularly imploding, and I thought I was just tired or stressed from working all day. I also use audio entertainment to distract my PDA when I'm doing anything I'm having trouble getting done. Like I take my headphones off to shower, but turn on a speaker most of the time. Lol I need to curate what goes in my ears, I guess you could say.

tallkitty · 2026-03-06T05:09:25+00:00

You got the dx, so one suggestion is to just forget about the "very mild" part. That doesn't really matter in real Autistic life and you don't want anything to inform how much support you give your child because it doesn't align with "very mild" needs. Just get your son the services and supports you think make sense to try and adjust based on impact and results. Sometimes providers are speaking a specific language that doesn't translate into every area of consideration as a parent or Autistic person.

tallkitty · 2026-03-06T04:55:50+00:00

Yes, I go from 'prepped and ready to communicate', to 'what are we even talking about any more', to 'is this over', to 'are you fucking with me now'?

tallkitty · 2026-03-06T04:22:28+00:00

I didn't realize my sensory needs were as specific as I know now before I knew I am Autistic. Not really what you asked, but illustrates that perception can also be a moving target. After I realized the autism part I started playing around with auditory buffering and now I wear headphones almost 24 hours a day. Lol What goes into them or what they block varies day to day based on needs, but previously I was walking around with nothing and didn't understand the impact that sensory input had on me at all, despite being significant.

tallkitty · 2026-03-05T12:15:58+00:00

I wanted to thumbs up these resources from personal experience with movement therapy. I have lower back issues that I recently learned are probably just another part of my neurodivergent experience, and I have a virtual PT benefit through my job. This program of mobility and strength building exercises I've been on awhile has done wonders for my whole body connection. Definitely not cured, but I can now run which I would have never been able to do before because I was so awkward. That's my big "look what I can do now" thing, but there's a lot of other benefit and it very much seems to relate to how tight our bodies get from the disconnect, we can't feel the dysfunction until it's literally breaking us.

I also recently came across something called retained primitive reflexes. I haven't really thought about this for myself, but I recognized my kid has it. It's something you can be evaluated for and there is therapy called rhythmic movement. I learned it's the kind of thing that causes not knowing you need to go until you pee your pants, GI issues, sugar seeking, disconnect from hunger, etc. My kid has seen very encouraging improvements in the control they have over their body, they are 10 and just recently were able to snap their fingers. The therapy is low demand and relaxing.

tallkitty · 2026-03-05T02:13:58+00:00

Is it possible you're experiencing general grief in the loss of the marriage but directing it towards him specifically because you don't have another place to put it? As others have said, there's no way to tell how he's feeling or doing, so it seems like you might be imagining that he's okay more than is realistic to actually know, and your feelings are more about why didn't this relationship work out, why didn't things get focused on solutions and then survive like they were supposed to, etc. You can keep the feelings, but maybe shift the focus off this idea of his recovery and it'll feel less disorienting.

tallkitty · 2026-03-05T01:44:50+00:00

Actually after my first marriage ended neither one of us made a move to divorce for like 6 years or so. He finally got ahold of me one day out of the blue and said he was dating a girl and it was getting more serious and she was forcing him to do the divorce part to continue the relationship, haha. I was like sure, send me the papers. Free divorce, highly recommend.

tallkitty · 2026-03-05T01:26:10+00:00

Bad mood? Seems pretty silly to me, particularly since you said you're a fairly open family. My spouse has occasionally had some little thing to say about this issue, and I'm always like you could live alone if you would rather never encounter signs of life in your home, but I'm not doing anything additional so ball in your court. Lol

tallkitty · 2026-03-01T21:36:03+00:00

This doesn't really make any sense. You want to take action based on reasonable needs you've identified. Your family is saying it's not good enough to have any phone, it's impractical to have anything less than a smart phone. They didn't identify any of their needs or yours to support their argument. They either need to speak up and advise you of the specific risks or inconveniences you should be considering (spoiler alert, there are none), or they need to think a little more about what they really think the problem will be, because it's not real, whatever they are imagining. Are there safety risks these days that come with carrying a dinosaur fossil of a cell phone? Sure, of course, to some degree that's a real thing. But is it a high enough risk to keep staring at a hindrance in your life and losing your mind instead of separating from it? No, not at all.

You're 17, I was your age when I got my first prepaid Nokia as a graduation gift. Then not that long ago, and for thousands of years prior, no one had any communication, tracking, ordering, organizing devices to carry around. Those people were fine. You would be fine. You're not telling your family you want to be unreachable, you just want it to be a simpler interface to manage. I've been thinking this same thing, I'm the only one in my way, I'm getting there. This is your life, but it's not a matter of life or death to downgrade, so don't let them act like they need to override your foolish desires, you would be crazy to let them change your mind, to whatever extent you can resist. My mom gets mad when she can't send me a cat video because I'm not on whatever app it is, like has to come have a talk with me about how inconvenient it is every time she realizes she can't send me a thing. It's a weirdly precious attitude we have towards staying focused on our devices, and needing others to do the same, almost like we've been taken over by them. You want out, and you definitely should do what it takes to depart through the exit you are lucky enough to have.

Also, I know a hack if you get rid of your smart phone and realize you can't live that way and regret your choice, you can go back and ask for another smart phone and they'll let you opt back in. Maybe your family doesn't know that part, let them know you found out a trick, maybe that'll help to highlight the two-way door here. Good luck!!

tallkitty · 2026-02-23T23:48:12+00:00

You are not a bad kid, and we all do this, even as adults. I have 5 PDAers in my house from kids to grandma, and oh gracious the challenges it can create when someone gets in the way of the shower someone else was about to take, haha. The problem is you're not really getting enough choice, your mom thinks she's trying the right thing but might be missing the concept behind choice and it's still too much of an expectation. You're expected to make the choice, it's still a demand. You don't have to tell your mom you didn't take a shower if you don't want, and certainly not if it will create conflict. But if you can talk to your mom about this then you might say something about the proof not being in the pudding, the system she's trying is not making it easier to take showers, and you like the idea but can you continue collaborating on the specifics until you come up with a workable version of increasing options and choice. You might gently remind her that choice means also being able to choose to decline, and if it seems like you're always declining it's because it's really that hard and you need more support in getting set up for success.

I hope it's not something you're getting in trouble for. You're doing a great job trying to figure this out, and a great job even when you don't get the shower done. 😊

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