Lauren Brown works for PDA North America. She understands neurodivergence from all sides as a proudly late-diagnosed PDA AuDHDer living with OCD, mother to two amazing PDA AuDHD kiddos, spouse to an AUDHDer, and a Sib (sibling of someone with a disability). She’s passionate about providing warm and safe support to those journeying for answers that may empower them, their loved ones or clients to move through the world in a way that feels true to themselves
PDA North America is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that has supports and resources for Pathological Demand Avoidance/ Pervasive Drive for Autonomy. We provide resources for families, professionals and PDA individuals. Please consider a donation to allow us to better support PDA individuals.
Connection, information, and autonomy create safety in a dysregulated world.
When I look back on my life and think about what I needed as a kid, as well as what caught me from hitting the pavement (because, let’s face it, I definitely fell off the cliff), I think it was these three things:
- Connection to relationally safe people
- Information about who I was, how I operate, and what I need
- The autonomy to be or choose for myself
I like to think of them as a “Triangle of Support.”
When I think of them in my mind, I think of my dysregulated self, like a pro wrestler, internally smashing and crashing up a storm. I crash into one of the sides, and what keeps me from wildly flying out of bounds are the pillars all around, connected in the “ring.” These incredibly flexible ties move with the action in the ring but can, like a rubber band, help get me back to the center of it and not crash out (in theory).
As an undiagnosed AuDHD sibling of an AuDHD externalized PDAer, I was never going to get all three pillars at once. Two was touch-and-go, but if I could lean on one of these three things as almost like a triangle of safety, that was a pressure-valve release and helped me find an anchor. Being a PDAer in a world that may see (*cough*: expect) you as typical is like being quietly suffocated while the system is holding the bag over your head and asking you, “What’s wrong?” These three things didn’t make everything perfect, solve every problem, or magically give me enough regulation to never have a meltdown again. They were, however, tools that helped catch that crash. They can be the connective pillars that stand in the storm to have that willow-bending flexibility that can hold us from the edge. They may not catch us, but they can keep us from falling further.
Pillars of Support for PDAers
1. Connection
If you’ve heard anything about PDAers, it’s that we need connection. And not some static, janky, D-grade connection. We need the good stuff. And by the good stuff, I mean the REAL stuff. So much of the connection in the world is built on presentation, “shoulds,” “thoughts and prayers,” and polite rules that have us say and do the niceties without ever actually getting to anything real. TL;DR: Don’t bring that s%*t here. Not only do we not want it, we may find it downright offensive (I do). We find safety not only in consistency but in the grounded authenticity of: Are you actually here with me? Are you present and ready to help me feel safe?
The societal niceties that are hard-baked into our culture and relationships are not safe. They’re polite, yes, but they’re also protective, private, and a power play to control the image and story of the connection. And like a piercing noise, PDAers cannot ignore the cognitive dissonance between what a person may be saying and what that person may be meaning. We can feel their nervous system regulation, read their energy, and see through double-speak.
When someone is being inauthentic or trying to connect one-sidedly, it’s the quickest way to shut them out of the “safe circle.”
Our most vulnerable parts are locked away like the nuclear codes, and offering someone access who doesn’t deserve it sets off all sorts of alarm bells in our nervous system. We are looking to connect with safe people. And those safe people are those who live in integrity. Integrity for PDAers is a critical need. Otherwise, you might as well be just another person in the world with an agenda to get us to do something for you instead of being in connection with you.
Once we peg you, that’s a much harder hill to climb to earn our trust. And our trust must be earned with everything and everyone. When we see someone approaching life authentically as themselves—living, thinking, and acting in their (messy, chaotic, imperfect) integrity—we are drawn to that because honesty and authenticity are the only ways we can be in true relationship. Otherwise, we are only in surface-level reactions that will see us spin into one of our protective responses (fight, flight, freeze, fawn, flop).
To live in integrity means your actions, choices, and words are aligned with your values consistently, even when it’s hard or no one is watching.
To have that safe connection is to take that flight, fawn, freeze, and often, with PDAers, fight response out of the driver’s seat so a more regulated part of ourselves is able to drive. It’s the best gift to feel like we’re safe enough to be seen, felt, regulated with, and even enjoyed.
2. Information
Information = safety. The more you know. 🌠
If I’m being honest, going through life without knowing I was PDA or even neurodivergent caused more harm than almost anything else. When I, at 38, received the information about how my brain worked, it was as if someone finally turned on the lights in a dark room. With the flick of a switch, it was like I was in the attic of my brain, seeing all the things that were always there, just unilluminated.
“Oh! Look at all of this here. That’s why I kept bumping into s%*t.”
Having that self-knowledge (even if it’s not a formal diagnosis, because self-diagnosis is always valid) allows you to:
- See the information
- Make sense of it (my brain says “organize it,” if that makes sense to anyone else’s brain)
- Get curious and dive deep with it
- Get to know and try on different facets of yourself
- Find common community
Not knowing this about myself led to a lot of:
- Self-loathing
- Hyper-individualism
- Internalized ableism
For PDAers, this information not only helps with their understanding of themselves, their community, and who they are in the world, it is also the first step in teaching them self-advocacy.
If we don’t give them the language and the information about what is happening to them and why it’s happening, they will struggle much more using the only language they have: failure, difficult, unreasonable, lazy, unworthy, unlovable, hard, etc.
Knowing this about ourselves helps give meaning to our matter—why we do things, why we feel or don’t feel things, why everything may feel heightened to us but not to our peers (no, we’re not making it up, y’all). I often hear parents worried about telling their kids that they’re PDA or neurodivergent. I want to assure you all: this isn’t delivering news of a death sentence. This is delivering news of a full life. Of what’s underneath the rock. Disability is not an adult thing that needs to be filtered or hidden from kids. Quite the opposite. Hiding information from our kids only helps prop up a world of s%*tty systems that do not serve them (or anyone). Information, the lessening of any perceived stigma or shame, and neuroaffirming supports (even if it’s just from their caregivers) are important. We are super open about our diagnoses. I make it a point to identify or call out other PDAers or others who are neurodivergent (we cheered real hard for Alysa Liu in all of her ADHD glory during the Olympics). Kids piece together the world with the information we and society actively give them.
If we can model how many more neurodivergent people there are out in the world, it helps build an accurate picture of how divergent the world is.
Last thing: We are here on earth without any manual or employee handbook, and each unknown step can feel really scary to PDAers. Information is the bedrock foundation to building an attuned and joyful life.
3. Autonomy
I have always been really independent. My kids are too. And if I’m being honest, I genuinely don’t understand why people believe autonomy is something a person needs to earn. Humans belong to themselves first and forever. Autonomy is not a reward for compliance, and it is not something granted when someone proves they can be trusted. It is a human baseline.
When autonomy is taken, restricted, or made conditional—especially for PDAers—it doesn’t create safety; it creates threat.
For PDAers, autonomy is not a preference. It is a nervous system need. When we feel controlled, coerced, or trapped, our system doesn’t interpret that as guidance; it interprets it as danger. That’s when you see the protective responses: fight, flight, freeze, fawn, flop. Not because we are unwilling, but because we are no longer safe. When PDAers can feel in control, with support, we can thrive. This is where people often get it wrong. Autonomy is not the absence of structure, and it is not “do whatever you want.” Autonomy without support can feel just as unsafe as control. What actually works is interdependence: autonomy that is respected, with support that is responsive. I think our PDANA founder, Diane Gould, describes it like oxygen, and that feels on point.
Autonomy and the right to choose support:
- Build real skills because we are participating, not complying
- Foster independence because it is practiced, not withheld
- Support identity and self-knowledge because we get to experience ourselves
- Build trust because control is not being used against us
In a world that consistently feels deeply unsafe, why would taking someone’s autonomy away make them feel safer—especially when what they are actually asking for is the ability to move, choose, and exist without that constant internal alarm going off?
Humans are here to human. To learn, soar, mess up, fail, fall, and try again. But when autonomy is restricted, mistakes are no longer part of learning. They become something to avoid at all costs. That’s where fear replaces growth.
For PDAers, control escalates. Autonomy regulates. Giving autonomy at home doesn’t mean removing all boundaries. It means creating conditions where someone can safely experience choice, consequence, and growth without shame or coercion. Home becomes the place where you can fall on your face and try again without losing connection or dignity.
Fellow PDAer and therapist Calial McCarty, MA, LMHC, CAS, calls this “the box.” Not control, but containment. Not rigidity, but safety. Boundaries that hold, not boundaries that push. Inside that space, autonomy can actually exist. Autonomy, when supported, becomes self-preservation. It becomes the confidence to choose what’s next and the ability to move through the world without constantly bracing against it.
Full and equitable autonomy, with scaffolded support needs, is what actually creates freedom.
We’re not looking for perfect. We’re looking for enough safety to stay. Enough understanding to make sense of ourselves. Enough autonomy to breathe. When connection, information, and autonomy come together—even imperfectly—they give us a place to land, regroup, and keep going.
