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Examples of PDA in an adult?

Kit McDaydream

Can anyone give me some real life examples of PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance)?

for example would a person pretend to be deaf to avoid having to speak in public?
pretend to be more autistic to avoid family pressures to be normal, get married, have kids etc?

Pretend or exaggerate physical symptoms so they never had to take a job? 

Is this the type of thing that is meant by PDA or am I thinking too literally thinking they mean they'd avoid all activities to such extremes? 

If not can someone give me any real life examples of what is meant by a 'pathological desire to avoid everything'?  Could the person do things they like if no-one was watching? or if they lived alone so had no-one making daily demands of them? 

  • in reply to Deleted User

    Thanks. I had found Riko's blog which was like reading my own experience of childhood particuarly her explanation of fantasy and role play.

    https://dragonriko.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/fantasy-and-role-play/

    However there doesn't seem to be a lot of exact descriptions on the kinds of things people would fantasize about.  For me particuarly is 'creating persona's to deal with life'. I've struggled with separating this from 'social masking' or whether I had a mental illness such as multiple personality disorder on top of the autism?. I have a strong instinct to dissociate easily from situations and people and return to fantasy/switch persona's quickly to protect the 'original self'

    I do have an official diagnosis of autism and the psychologist did say they believed it was autism and not Asperger's syndrome but this was done many years ago, before even the age of internet when there was not even as much awareness that females may present different to males, let alone PDA existing and being part of the spectrum.

    I've only become aware of the existence of PDA recently after my 'autistic symptoms' seem to have intensified again to childhood levels since hitting my late forties/early fifties. It seems the menopause can cause this, but researching led me to come across PDA when trying to find an explanation for my intense use of fantasy and persona's/alters with very different personalities and abilities.

  • Hi Kit,

    If you have a look at the PDA section of the NAS website - https://www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/pda.aspx - it explains what PDA is and typical features someone with PDA might display. In terms of real-life examples, if you scroll towards the bottom of the page, there are a series of blogs and vlogs recommended from people with PDA talking or writing about their own experiences, which sounds like it might be helpful to you?

    Hope this is of some help,

    Ross - mod