Does this sounds familiar…
“Exhibiting a high level of anxiety under demands.”
Got that huge deadline at work? Anxiety. Prepping for your big exam? Anxiety. Working for an impossible boss? Anxiety.
The difference is it takes MUCH less to make Isla feel anxious.
Isla’s point of view: The teacher just gave me a worksheet and I can’t read or write. It just looks like a jumbled mess and when I get it all wrong I will see that look on my teacher’s face… disappointment, annoyance, frustration, genuine concern or apathy it varies depending on the teacher. I will feel dumb and embarrassed. That worksheet is a demand too big, too costly for me.
Anxiety.
People with PDA resist and avoid the “ordinary” demands of life usually by distracting the person making the demand, incapacitating themselves, or through physical outbursts/attacks.
I am using the worksheet scenario but keep in mind it could be any everyday task. Basic chores, picking up blocks, closing a door, getting dressed… literally ANY demand in PDA can seem overwhelming.
So as Isla sits with this worksheet, she may ask to go to the bathroom. She may point out that she hears a train passing by. She may ask for her shoe to be tied.
All distractions. All a desperate attempt to get the person making the demand to move on to something else.
Depending on the temperature of the room, the teacher’s demeanor or personality, classroom noise, time of the day, whether she has a running nose or not, and potentially 100 other factors, if her anxiety escalates, then comes hitting, kicking, biting, or pulling hair.
Then when she can’t think of anything else and her incredibly resourceful brain has run out of options, she may do the one thing she knows no one can ignore. She either begins to take off her clothes or urinates on herself.
She is pulled away from the worksheet to change and move on. Success!
It took me years before I realized that her refusal and explosive behavior were all forms of PANIC resulting from severe ANXIETY.
For years Isla girl was disciplined by her parents and her schools for having “panic attacks”. Not because we didn’t love her because we didn’t understand.
