PDA, Punk Rock, and Non Violent Communication

Peyton Belunek is a disabled and AuDHD writer, nature based spiritual contemplative, death doula, naturalist, herbalist, energy worker, and life coach. She is dedicated to advocacy and activism around autism and disability rights, environmental and social justice, and Non Violent Communication as a way of being in the world. She has an undergraduate degree in social work from NYU and experience as a grassroots community organizer. She is a graduate of the University of Vermont’s End of Life Doula Program and is passionate about education, advocacy, autonomy, and companioning through all stages of death, dying, grief, and earth grief. She is committed to opening and normalizing conversations about these matters. You can connect with her at http://druidhealing.com.

Autonomy is a basic human need. Let me say that again – autonomy is a basic human need. Every human on our planet (or anywhere else in the Universe – I am looking at you, Space Station crew mates!) longs to be free and autonomous to whatever extent they are able. While autistics may feel the tug of this need a bit more strongly, those who identify with the PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance/Persistent Desire for Autonomy) profile of autism (more on this acronym and its variants later) feel this need for autonomy in ways that impact their daily lives very strongly. I am such a person and the path I travelled to self love, acceptance, and living my life by my values led me deep into the compassionate heart of Non Violent Communication. I would love to explore this with you in case there is a tiny seed in my story that you might like to water in your own garden or a resonance there in your own story that you might like to celebrate here with me.

Punk Rock and Autonomy

One of my first experiences of feeling held by community and of “in group” was in the punk community. I knew it right away, in every cell of my body. I looked around at my first punk show and knew that all of the “too tight” and too constraining rules that seemed to have no real logic to them didn’t really matter there. I could dress comfortably and allow my interior world that was full of colors and creativity to seep out and be seen in my clothes, my mannerisms, my hair, my words, and my body art. It was the first time I really felt it might be safe to be myself around others.

Looking back, it is easy for me to see that punk culture was very much neurodivergent culture, even though we had none of that vocabulary back then.

Mosh Pit as Communal Stim

I always say when I was young, I was “sensory seeking and sensory finding” and that was true at punk shows for sure. When I look back on mosh pits, it is a funny paradox that I see in how much I was agitated by the accidental knocks in the hallways at school but sought the intentional communal chaos up close to the stage. There was something beautiful about being a co-creator in a collective sea of people all resonating with the same rhythm and message. Meditating on the mosh pit as a “communal stim” brings a smile to my face every time.

What is PDA? What’s In a Name?

“PDA, short for Pathological Demand Avoidance (or Pervasive Drive for Autonomy), is a concept predominantly acknowledged in the UK and not yet formally classified in the US. As a subtype of autism, it exhibits distinct characteristics characterized by a strong inclination to resist and avoid demands, even if the individual desires to fulfill them. The primary function of demand avoidance in PDA is to safeguard a person’s autonomy.

Let’s explore the six core characteristics often associated with PDA:

Perceived loss of autonomy activates an extreme threat response
Hierarchy can feel threatening; they will try to equalize it
Resists & avoids the ordinary demands of life
A nervous system disability that can have both internal & external presentations
Appears sociable on the surface
Uses social strategies as part of avoidance (e.g., distraction, refusal, threats, entering into role play)”

– Dr. Megan Anna Neff

https://neurodivergentinsights.com/autism-pda-explained/

When I first heard about PDA, I knew there was something in the painful physical sensation of a demand landing in my body that I recognized in the description but the clinical name “Pathological Demand Avoidance” landed as a cutting judgment and I could see an oversized foam finger appear pointing toward an innate character flaw that made me deep cringe. Still, there was something calling me to look deeper and seek out others from the community who saw themselves in this profile and were lending their voices to first person lenses on it. Beyond the clinical documents that paint a rather damning profile for PDAers, I began to see people talking about their own experiences and discussing PDA in more well rounded terms with alternative acronyms like “Persistent Desire for Autonomy” and “Pervasive Drive for Autonomy”. A softer and less judgmental view began to come into sight for me – a view where I could find myself and self compassion began to bloom.

A Quick Look at Some PDA Traits

Some common traits of PDA from Sally Cat’s book Pathological Demand Avoidance Explained:

avoiding every day demands
imaginative and creative
offbeat sense of humor
love of word play
easily overloaded
needs a lot of quiet space
rejection sensitive
freedom need
free thinker
high anxiety
does not conform
own set of ethics
rejects orders
impulsive
likes to help others

Things That Can Bring Some Relief

blocking off free time and being intentional about keeping it clear
the sacred art of “saying no”
naming feelings and needs
yelling or mouthing the words “I won’t!!!” alone to yourself, whether or not you go ahead to do the task in question. (This can often break the tension of a demand for me. Just giving voice to a desire to reject a demand opens a portal to self love and accompaniment. It gives me my sense of choice back to celebrate my potential refusal.)

PDA, Justice, and Personal Integrity

A profound sense of justice is very commonly associated with being autistic. Many of us have been treated unfairly during our lives and, due to our high functional empathy (Oh! What is she talking about here?! I invite you to get curious about if that feels true to you. In my lived experience, autistics are often more, not less, willing to take up action when injustice or inequity are present.), we feel it very deeply when we witness unfairness befalling others. It can be so dysregulating when we see personal or systemic inequity and we are likely to dedicate our energy and resources to causes that aim to lessen these forces in the world – animal rescues and humane societies, social justice movements, ecological initiatives, and many others.

Like many other autistics, I really try to live my life in alignment with my values and beliefs. We tend to be rather intentional people and I always feel best the less compartmentalized my life is.

I like to say that my integrity builds the structured log pile, injustice pours lighter fluid on it, and my PDA is an open flame that will inherently come in close and enjoy the show.

PDA and Being a Person in Whom “Conditions May Favor a Natural Disaster”

I was at odds with my PDA for a long time. It was easy to see it as a personal flaw and others would almost always tend to agree – other people love it when they make a demand that benefits them and you courteously agree (Public Service Announcement: Don’t expect those who are making demands of you to find the beauty in your embracing of your PDA temperament! Lol!).

In a recent situation in my life, there was an organization that was hurting its members. There was nothing to do but shine a light on the abuse present and work for the safety of those involved. I had the opportunity to meet myself in the working of it and acknowledge that sometimes PDA can be like when you are watching the news and the weather forecaster says, “Be mindful tonight. There is a storm system moving through and conditions may favor the development of tornadoes.” PDA, like the tornado, won’t always play out. You aren’t cursed to burn everything you get involved with to the ground but if a system is unhealthy and harming others, you may not be someone who can sit idly by and be complicit in a bad system. Not all structures are healthy structures. It is a funny thing to come to peace with a tendency to be “a force of nature” but the world absolutely needs people who are – people courageous enough to challenge existing structures when they are imbalanced.

PDA as One’s Courage

My friend Mellie and I were recently talking about the beautiful aspects of PDA and she said the most profound thing – “Don’t you think your PDA has often been your courage?” My entire body celebrated as this question landed in me. There is so much truth in that and my every cell recognized it. An incredible warmth accompanies the activation of PDA in my body. When I feel it alive in me, there is an urgency to action – usually toward a cause related to justice issues, advocacy, or safety. I can become incredibly charismatic in the glow of that heat and plans can mobilize quite quickly. There is a sense of priority and imperative. It is not something I can will into being or harness for my own ends, though I often wish I could! If I could bottle the sensation, I could happily retire somewhere lovely with few demands! Ha!

Non Violence and Punk Rock

I think many people outside of the punk community mistakenly believe that punk culture is violent. While unfortunate things happen in every community, punk culture (despite the spiky dog collars – it is ok if you get a giggle at my expense if this has fallen from favor, I am an old punk and a bit of a hermit!) tends to promote peace, the cessation of wars, and ending the oppression of marginalized peoples. Something about valuing freedom and autonomy demands wanting those same conditions for everyone and violence impedes that on every level. It is no coincidence that punk music often features political messages and messages of personal sovereignty.

What is Non Violent Communication?

Non Violent Communication sounds like what most people think they are doing, right? I mean, who sets out to communicate “violently”?! Within capitalism though, violent communication is the norm and it is easy to see the “power over” style of demands that flow freely in that system, the penalties individuals may face for not complying, and the judgments and consequences which exist that are inherently violent in nature. Unlearning this system takes dedicated effort and Non Violent Communication is one path to dismantling this harmful societal power structure.

Non Violent Communication is a framework conceived of by Marshall Rosenberg. It is a system of communication that focuses on feelings and needs and it aims to replace demands with requests.

What is a Need?

Needs are omnipresent in our lives, whether we can name them or they exist unnamed in the background. Everyone has needs. Sometimes we become aware of a need because of how we feel when it goes unmet. For example, we may suddenly realize in the evening hours that we have not had a sip of water all day that was not in a coffee or a tea. Water and hydration are needs all humans share but they may be difficult needs to meet when our executive function is low or interoception (our ability to notice what is going on in our own bodies) prohibits us from noticing our thirst. Monotropism may narrow our vision to just the project we are focusing on at the moment and thirst may fail to tap us on the shoulder.

Needs can be very tactile, like the need for water, or more difficult to quantify – like a need to “contribute in the world” or a need to “feel seen”. All needs are valid and all needs matter.

Marshall Rosenberg described needs this way, “a need is life seeking expression in us.”

Many of us were raised to believe that “having needs” was not altogether acceptable but this denies the very humanity of our existence. All humans experience uncountable needs every day. Unfortunately, most of us were not taught to identify or name the needs which live inside us.

Here is a link to a list of Universal Human Needs: https://nvcacademy.com/media/NVCA/learning-tools/needs-list.pdf

Interoception Difficulties and Our Needs

“The interoceptive system provides us with awareness of internal body states.

The interoceptive system receives information from sensory neurons in our internal organs and communicates information about body states and emotions. It provides us with information such as:

The urge to urinate or eliminate
Fullness, Hunger, Cramps
Thirst
Pain
Tension
Emotions
Heartbeat

Interoception awareness speaks to our ability to accurately perceive and identify our internal body states. Broadly speaking, interoceptive awareness provides us with information about our body states and our emotional states.”

– Dr. Megan Anna Neff https://neurodivergentinsights.com/what-is-interoception/

For those of us who experience difficulty with interoception, connecting with the bodily sensations that may signal unmet needs or laying precise language to our feelings may feel shaky. Non Violent Communication can begin to resource us with the language we long for and warm attention to our own feelings, needs, and bodily sensations may begin to emerge.

When Needs and Safety Have Conflicted

Sometimes, we may not have felt understood or we may have been made to feel like our needs didn’t matter. This can be very painful to experience and it can create shame, anger, or even denial of our needs. It is important to acknowledge that this has happened to us and to mourn the harm those types of sentiments may have caused us. We can also take time to think about the ways we can better take care of ourselves now and ponder what it is to have a need, how completely appropriate our needs are, and to sit with the idea that our needs may have many strategies that could be used to meet them.

What is a Feeling?

Feelings can feel trickier to assign specific names than needs. Even so, when I am able to be precise about what I have been feeling, there is often a sense of relief and calm that accompanies the naming. I am always so grateful when a friend or empathy buddy dares a guess at what I might be feeling. Right or wrong, it helps me test the waters of my internal landscape. It can be a bit like trying on clothes and seeing what fits right or matches my mood. When both my friend and I release the need for any of the guesses to be right and allow it to be more of a “feelings scavenger hunt” we can play with together, feelings feel less scary and way more approachable. All feelings are ways of being that are available to all humans and none are anything to be embarrassed about or ashamed of.

Here is a link to a list of feelings when our needs are met and another for our feelings when our needs are unmet:

NVCA-feelings-needs.pdf

Alexithymia and Modifications of NVC for Autistics – or, Why Feelings Wheels Often Let Us Down

On her website Neurodivergent Insights, Dr. Megan Neff describes alexithymia in this way:

“When a person has alexithymia, it means they struggle with distinguishing between emotions and bodily sensations. Alexithymia occurs on a spectrum, and a person can have mild to severe alexithymic traits. Alexithymia is broadly considered a personality trait.”

Alexithymia is a potential factor in the autistic experience that I know quite well. I have given answers to the question “How are you feeling?” that have puzzled those asking more times than I can count. Answers like, “I feel kind of green,” “it feels like my heart is in my throat,” “I feel like my essence has been drained” (thank you, Dark Crystal for helping me with that last one!). Unfortunately, none of these show up on traditional feelings wheels – not yet anyway! – and can leave some of us scratching our heads and asking who these seemingly endless feelings words make sense to.

I have been really overjoyed to be able to study with Sarah Peyton, a Non Violent Communication trainer who has developed her own system for resonant language. She addresses these unexpected responses some of us experience so beautifully in her category of resonant language she terms “Bodily Sensations”. These somatic experiences that may occur in us during times of intense emotion can be very important and help others understand us better and attune to us more easily. Often these body sensations carry big clues to what we are feeling and also offer insight into which needs are alive in us at any given moment.

One such example might be when I am sensing “a frozen heaviness in my lower abdomen” while at a public event. My body might be expressing the feeling Sarah Peyton describes so eloquently as “alarmed aloneness” even in a crowd of people, needs for ease and consideration, as well as a possible Freeze nervous system response to sensory overwhelm.

As an autistic, I have found that I do best when I begin with body sensations and needs rather than feelings. If I can name the need that was met or unmet, I can often begin to perceive the feelings that have resulted. On a busy day, I may begin to sense that I had a need for “unstructured time,” play, and flow that fell by the wayside in the busy-ness of the day. As I ponder the feelings of those unmet needs, I may be able to lay my finger on the feelings that sat vague inside me as being “alarmed”, “depleted”, “weary”, and “bewildered”. Sometimes, I may be able to name the need and ask myself, “what might someone feel when that particular need isn’t being addressed?” Then, I can play a bit of “needs dress up” and try those feelings on like costumes and see which ones feel just right and which ones are a bit scratchy and uncomfortable. The most important thing seems to be releasing the desire for my guesses to be “correct” or to “do it right.”

What are Demands?

You can try a little experiment by noting the demands you see on signs on one outing.

STOP

YIELD

DO NOT ENTER NO SMOKING NO STANDING

WRONG WAY

EXIT ONLY

MERGE

How about in commercials on TV or experts on the news?

LISTEN TO ME

TRUST ME

Demands are everywhere! Some demands are far more covert. I used to say I was “allergic to advertisements,” meaning they often had the opposite effect on me than companies intended. It turns out that the techniques used in marketing register as a demand in my nervous system with a clang! “You need this product” is both a demand and an assumption.

Even well intentioned advice can feel like a demand. Pretty much any sentence containing the word “should” is likely to register as a demand. It can make you feel guarded about sharing any hardship or difficult time you may be facing when it feels like a demand might immediately follow from the person you’re talking to.

It is easy to have internalized this tendency to place demands that is so omnipresent in society. We can begin to wield that weapon on ourselves in a misguided attempt to protect ourselves from the pain of living in an unaccommodating world. Who could blame us? The world is really hard to navigate sometimes and we can be really good at spotting patterns! “If you would just do XY&Z, this would not be so hard.” Making these kinds of demands of ourselves may be a way of feeling like there is order to the world and that there is more predictability than there often is. That need for order is so understandable but there may be gentler ways to accompany ourselves through difficult times.

Any time we find ourselves “taking a should” on ourselves, we are looking at a demand.

“You really should take a shower, you would feel better if you did.”

“You should tidy this room!”

“You should be handling this situation way better than you are.”

Can you feel those demands anywhere in your body? https://youtu.be/gkHRK6P1UhE?si=CB7B8jyzXpvJPRxQ

Compliments Can Register as Demands

One extra covert category of demands for some PDAers is “Compliments”. But, “Wait!,” you shout! “Doesn’t everyone like compliments?!”

Non-specific compliments can be particularly painful to receive. Generic compliments on areas of talent like “Wow! You are an amazing artist!” can set off a nervous system response and land in the body more like “You have a lot of talent – that means you bear a heavy responsibility to make lots of art and to constantly strive to improve upon it!” While every PDAer will have their own nuanced relationship with compliments, sharing specific observations may be received more easily.

Does the following feel different in your body?

“I love the way the moss and shadows enliven the understory in your painting. A calm falls over me imagining my hands touching the velvety forest floor you brought to life.”

The more we meet our own responses to demands with curiosity and care, we may discover the words come to us to help guide those close to us to communication with us that builds greater connection and awakens less prickliness.

Strategies for Meeting Needs

Strategies are the various options we may choose to employ to meet needs. While needs may be more fixed in nature, many different strategies may exist to help us meet any one need. Assessing strategies works best when we allow ourselves to be open and creative in our process. While one strategy may seem the obvious choice, we need to be open to our needs and feelings as well as those of others involved and not get overly attached to one strategy.

Here is an example …

Maybe I am feeling “isolated” and “lonely” with needs for “friendship” and “community” alive in me. One strategy to meet my needs of community and friendship may be to request a friend come by for tea once a week to visit. This is a lovely strategy and it deserves its place on my strategy list for sure but I should also consider alternate strategies as well. My friend, after all, has needs of her own – she might be in burnout herself, working longer hours than usual at her job, or wanting more time for a special interest. I could add strategies to my list like attending a group for a special interest online or in person, volunteering for a non profit, attending a board game night, or sitting down to write a penpal. Very rarely does a need have only one possible strategy. Having multiple strategies allows our requests for help meeting our needs to be true requests and not slide into the category of being a demand.

A Litmus Test for Requests

You may wonder how to know if the request you’re making of a friend, partner, acquaintance, caregiver, anyone else in your life, or yourself is truly a request. When this crosses your mind, the surest test for this is to ask yourself, “what would happen if they said ‘no’”? If big feelings start to well up contemplating a “no”, you may have a demand on your hands instead of a request.

What is a Value?

I am of the belief that a value is simply a need we allow to steer our choices. I began to see this most clearly when my husband I were using GROK cards (https://groktheworld.com/) to communicate our feelings and needs around a high stress situation we were navigating together. We sat on opposite sides of a coffee table from each other and each lay out feelings and needs cards in front of us related to the situation. We then swapped sides and read each other’s cards. To our great surprise and awe, we saw many of the same cards resting where the other had sat moments before. This let us know that we had the same core values at play and also that both of us were distressed by our difficult situation. Understanding each other’s feelings and needs helped us both know that the other longed for order, peace, and harmony. This opened an avenue for mourning, gentle communication, and the beginning of brainstorming peaceful strategies for meeting the present needs after attending to our needs to be heard, met with empathy, and to be deeply considered.

“Compassion” is a Universal human need but it can also be a value one lives their life by. Here is a short list of needs that might be steering values as well, though the list is really endless and very personal:

Authenticity
Empathy
Equality
Peace
Justice
Autonomy
Connection
Community
Choice

What Does Non Violent Communication Have to Offer Autistics?

Non Violent Communication can help autistics in several main ways …

helping us communicate our feelings and needs more effectively to others
helping us understand ourselves, our feelings, and our needs with compassion and warmth
growing our capacity for self advocacy
helping us understand the feelings and needs of others
helping us plan and collaborate with others on healthy strategies to meet needs

What Does Non Violent Communication Have to Offer PDAers?

I believe that many people approach NVC seeking a better system for communicating with others but, eventually, many discover more than this that NVC proved a key to developing more robust self warmth, self love, and self care.

We can easily point to all the ways society encourages demands all around us but, just like ableism, we can discover that we have an internalized demand generator who works 24/7 barraging us with mandates and judgments. Learning NVC can begin to break down this learned behavior and slowly our brains and bodies begin to become gentler places to live.

As we begin to apply this language of feelings and needs, our “Inner Critic” may begin to soften and become more balanced with an “Inner Advocate” and, what Sarah Peyton calls, our “Resonating Self Witness.” When this starts to happen, we may find ourselves meeting ourselves on hard days with statements that begin “of course” instead of “you should.” Imagine the sweetness in saying, “Well, of course, you are feeling dysregulated! Today has been a lot and you have needs for order, reasonable expectations, and calm that have not been met!” instead of, “You should really be handling this better! Get your act together!” I would bet you can feel the difference in those two statements in your body when you read them! The first one is that gentle empathy you would show a friend, letting them know they make sense and are not alone. The second one is a learned demand based voice that fails to meet us where we are or feel like we make sense in the world.

How Does NVC Dismantle Ableism and Internalized Ableism?

Ableism is a really nefarious societal bias and it is so omnipresent within capitalist structures that it can take a great amount of personal work even for empowered self advocates to dismantle. Very often, internalized ableism suppresses our ability to touch into our needs in favor of prioritizing accomplishment and productivity. The deep issue with this prioritization is that it causes us to lose touch, lose acceptance, and lose warmth for our own feelings and needs. The moment we re-enter (or perhaps enter for the first time) warm communication with ourselves about our own feelings and needs, we have embraced the radical path of anti ableism and potent self advocacy. NVC is a concrete framework for opening that inner dialogue.

Why is NVC So Punk Rock?

NVC really is so punk rock! Because, really, what could be more radical and countercultural than learning a language of compassion that seeks to honor individual and collective needs beyond the imposing walls of consumerism and capitalism?!

NVC is a way of living the ideals that punk music has anthemized so well and that we often see play out in healthy squatter communities, in Food Not Bombs, and many other projects that meet people where they are and mobilize strategies to meet their needs with empathy, care, and understanding.

See if you can spot the feelings, needs, and values in the following answer in the FAQs of the Food Not Bombs parent site:

“What ideals does Food Not Bombs spread?

Food Not Bombs supports sharing, respect, peace, cooperation, dignity, a nurturing of the environment, and most of all, optimism at a time when many are in despair. We encourage a “Do It Yourself” feeling of empowerment and a rejection of the need to solve problems through violence – violence of war, violence of poverty and violence against animals and the earth. We show that it is not necessary to waste so much of the food that we work so hard to grow, but organizing a voluntary system of food recovery and redistribution. No one should need to rely on a soup kitchen or charity when we have food in great abundance. We work to end the domination of corporate power and provide access to participation in making decisions that affect our life and future. Food is a right, not a privilege!” – http://foodnotbombs.net/faq.html

Masking vs. Fawning

There is considerable buzz about unmasking in autism circles and with very good reason. Many autistics have used masking as a way to survive in the world. My early attempts at masking were not very successful and the very little me trying to utilize any semblance of a mask became befuddled and found my mask lacked strings or any useful means to hold it on my face and promptly gave up the effort. What I did instead was really rely on my nervous system’s fawn response to navigate the world.

Unfortunately, a great many autistics likewise survive in a state of nervous system activation whether or not they have employed masking. While this may “work” to survive situations and demands, it is often at the expense of our health, our self accompaniment, warmth, and acceptance of ourselves as we are. It can be a type of self abandonment that prioritizes others over ourselves. Many of us know this pattern of prioritization by the name “people pleasing” but, if you have chronically used this strategy the way I have in my life, you may know all too well that “people pleasing” very often neglects pleasing the most important person in your life – YOU! NVC can be a starting place to reconnect with yourself, better meet your feelings and needs, and begin to tear down ableism in your life and the world.