When your PDAer becomes the demanding one

Something that gets talked about a lot with PDA is demand avoidance. But there’s something else that goes on, often behind closed doors, that isn’t as widely talked about, understood, or even named. And that is the tendency of a PDAer, when dysregulated and distressed, not just to avoid demands but to become incredibly demanding.

If you are your child’s safe person, the one they feel safe to be authentically themselves with, you are probably very familiar with this.

I notice it very much with my own children. I have one PDAer and one autistic child, and they regulate in very different ways. My autistic child takes themself off and needs time completely alone, enjoying their interests, perhaps gaming, just chilling out. Whereas my PDA child’s nervous system depends upon somebody else’s nervous system to feel safe. They need co-regulation. But this doesn’t simply mean sitting alongside you or having a cuddle – although it can do. What it very often looks like is that child placing constant, non-stop, incessant demands upon their caregiver. If you don’t understand why this is happening, you can barely function. In fact, even when you do understand, it’s still a lot.

I’ve certainly seen it over the past few weeks. We’ve transitioned out of school, all the scaffolding and routine has dropped away, and the demands on me have increased hugely. Lots of dopamine seeking – constant requests for snacks, sweet treats, money for buying things, not being able to wait. I’m being asked to look things up and do all the research – things my child is well able to do themselves by now – but can’t, because they are so dysregulated. In the moment they simply cannot cope. If I don’t do it, to them it feels like a threat, a panic, almost life or death. This has to be done now. I cannot wait.

I understand what’s going on. My nervous system is essentially their external nervous system. They’re borrowing mine as I try to share my calm and meet their requests as much as possible, because creating their own control around their environment helps them feel safer when so much of the structure has fallen away.

But this is a huge amount of invisible labour, on top of everything else, and I need to be able to regulate myself too. That’s a lot for anybody. When you are also PDA as a parent – I identify as an internalised PDAer – it’s another layer again. I really struggle when anybody in my household asks me to do pretty much anything. Strangely, I’m much better with people I’m not as close to. But when it’s my nearest and dearest, my husband or my kids, it’s almost like a personal assault on all of my senses. I have to remind myself they’re not being unreasonable, this is just normal daily family life. Most of the time I can take a breath, talk myself back down, and do the thing. Probably not straight away, and probably not in the way they’ve asked, because even I will take back some control and do some subtle equalising. I’m aware I do it, but it’s part of who I am.

So when my PDA child is distressed and firing constant demands, I feel every single one. Each is a little pinprick, and I feel it build until, by the end of the day, my nervous system is on fire. I become noise sensitive, completely overloaded, my brain foggy, at the point where I can’t cope. That’s when I can easily slip into being snappy, biting back at my closest family, point blank refusing, telling them not now.

So it’s really important that my PDA child and I talk openly and honestly about our capacity, our limited capacity, and how it gets used through the day – and that I set some PDA nervous system friendly boundaries around the demands placed on me. This is much harder with a child who is distressed or in burnout. But it is possible to push back slightly – not by refusing, but by delaying. Acknowledging I’ve heard them, validating their feelings, telling them I will act on it, and explaining what I’m doing in that moment. Sometimes this works. Sometimes they’re not capable of waiting, and that quickly shows me just how distressed and heightened they are, so I can prioritise their de-escalation and regulation.

Really, it’s about finding some kind of balance. We always feel this shift when our routine changes. It’s certainly not perfect, but because we talk openly about our neurodivergence as a family, and try to explain how each of us is triggered and how each of us regulates, it’s much better than becoming frustrated and simply shouting at one another.

As the adult here, I need to be prioritising my own self-regulation right now. This is easily the time I could tell myself I have more demands on me than ever, I’m completely stretched thin, I can’t do anything else, and let myself be pushed further into overwhelm. But what I know I need to do is prioritise even a few minutes here and there to bring myself back down. Because when your PDA child is firing demands at you constantly, you can have all the goodwill in the world, but if you snap, everything unravels.

And I often find this. I get really upset with myself if I’ve been patient all day, kept everything afloat and everyone regulated, and then near the end of the day I run out of capacity and it all goes to shit. I feel so guilty, like it’s all me. But it’s not. It’s because I’m human, having a very human response to an intensely stressful and demanding situation, with a nervous system that’s triggered by demands.

So I’ve been making a point of listening to meditations, taking myself off into another room for some deep breaths, reading even a page and a half of my book. Small ways to keep grounding myself, and to keep showing myself that I matter, that I deserve some time too. Today, while my child was gaming, I did a very quick rush job of painting my toenails, and afterwards I felt like a movie star. Don’t look too close, they’re a bit messy – but it was a tiny way of showing myself I deserve care. And actually, I must do this, because these are the things that build capacity. These are the things that help me show up as the parent I want to be.

I’m never going to go from completely stressed, shoulders up around my ears, to totally zen and horizontal. That’s not realistic, and it won’t fit into my life. But I can take a few moments to bring myself down even 5% calmer than I was five minutes ago. And when the next demand is fired at me, that gives me just enough capacity to take a breath, remind myself not to take it personally, and respond with intention rather than reacting out of survival.

I’d be really interested to know how many of you notice this with your PDAers. Demands are talked about a lot in this community, but how many of your PDAers are actually incredibly demanding? And if they are, what are you doing to help yourself cope, especially if summer is feeling very intense?