05/28/2026
PDA vs Demand Avoidance
Whenever I post about PDA, a lot of people identify with the experience of demand avoidance.
I want to be cautious that you do not misunderstand PDA as simply a tendency to avoid demands.
Demand avoidance is something everyone experiences. PDA is SO MUCH MORE than that.
My PDA neurotype is not a behavior - it's a type of genetic brain wiring like Autism or ADHD. It's been with me my whole life, it's part of my DNA. While it's frequently extremely frustrating to have to sort out what my body really needs to feel autonomous, I wouldn't change my PDA neurotype for anything because that would fundamentally change who I am.
PDA is not a behavior, and beyond that it's also not a medical condition. PDA is a neurotype or neurological identity.
Noteably, PDAers experience all sorts of stress response to demands, not just avoidance. Sometimes PDAers avoid demands, but other times we have aggressive fight responses to demands. Some PDAers fawn and compulsively comply which feels like being hijacked by your own body.
In addition to autonomy-based stress responses to demands, PDAers have other traits too: more tendency towards fantasy and make-believe than other Autistics, creative thinking, resistance to hierarchy, sense of humor, highly social (possibly masking), uses social strategies as part of avoidance (distraction, pretend, role-play).
I made this chart last year to help explain the differences between PDA and non-PDA demand avoidance.
For PDAers this is not an either/or, we experience both sides. These two columns co-exist for PDAers. A person with the PDA neurotype can experience many different kinds of demand avoidance.
But not everyone who is demand avoidant is PDA. People can be severely demand avoidant and not be PDA! The difference is the reason for the avoidance.
Loss of capacity due to burnout, depression, shutdown, or chronic illness are the most common reasons for non-PDA demand avoidance, both internal and external.
Most common question: Can you have both? Yes. I am genetically PDA, and I also experience regular demand avoidance from fight/flight/freeze states, moral OCD, dopamine depletion, exhaustion, & burnout.
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