![]() I do stick to them when I'm under stress but for me that just signals impending meltdowns or burnouts. I have personally tried making attempts to live more "normally," but unlike most aspies am not comforted by routines. The prognosis on PDA seems poor when it's diagnosed late, and it's a syndrome not recognized in the DSM. Right now I am housebound and a burden on my aging parents, but I don't know how I can get my life together. I always seem to pick jobs socially unsuited for me and end up quitting each one without notice. When I do work, I become highly attuned to my coworkers' negativity and never know how to respond to their good moods. All of the jobs I've held in my 20s have gone extremely poorly and I have been avoiding finding new work for a couple years. As in, I would be doing food service with a university degree when people expected me to be in grad school or securing a professional job. I worked regularly when I was younger but my job history gets spotty into my 20s, as I kept sticking to jobs that people wouldn't expect me to do. If someone makes a remark I will understand the comment and what's implied but blank out on a response. I understand what's going on in a social situation but am not socially proficient enough to respond in an appropriate way. I know that I can fake it socially to an extent but fall short at a certain point, which is why my social anxiety is so extreme. I think I have much higher anxiety levels than the average aspie - I am always concerned with failing or being found out for what I am. If I look at my symptoms through the PDA lens though everything makes much more sense. My sensory issues are not that bad either. I have wondered for a while why I've been unable to get my life together despite having better-than-average social skills for an aspie. Like it says above, my understanding is quite shallow. I can act social and be manipulative though I'm not on an NT's level. The only emotions I have difficulty processing are very complex ones like grief. Never had problems with eye contact or understanding facial expressions, vocal tone or body language. I never stimmed, toe-walked, or engaged in repetitive play as a child (though I did play like a PDA child, by commanding/instructing other children). I have regressed quite a lot in my 20s after failing to meet multiple life milestones, but before that no one would have guessed I was autistic. For me the demand avoidance started in adulthood, when I began having a lot of difficulty doing normal adult things (getting through university, getting a job, making friends out of high school, etc). Also, a lot of children with PDA are described as being resistant to obeying commands and meeting expectations, but I was a very compliant child. I have almost all of these symptoms (minus language delay).
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