Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids, and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.

In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

Here's today's episode.

So welcome everyone to another episode of the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

I'm Kate Moore Youssef, here as your host, as always, asking the questions and digging a little bit deeper so we can get the answers that so many of us have been waiting for, that we deserve.

And today I'm delighted to welcome a fascinating guest.

Her name is Casey Ehrlich, Ph.D. and she is the leading researcher on PDA in the United States.

She's also a mother of two PDA kids and the founder and CEO of At Peace Parents.

She's coached thousands of parents of PDA children and teens you using empirical evidence, cutting edge science, and her own deep well of personal insights and empathy.

And I'm delighted to welcome you to the podcast, Casey, because I really want to have a little deep dive into pda.

And before we get started, I've used the word PDA many times.

I know it is pathological demand avoidance, but actually you told me just before that you perhaps use it as another sort of acronym.

What, what do you call it?

So a lot of PDA adults prefer, and I think children and teens, depending, they prefer pervasive drive for autonomy.

So I use pathological demand avoidance when I am in a research and professional capacity because the literature has been already written on pathological demand avoidance and I'm building.

But in terms of like working with families and identity, we often use pervasive drive for autonomy.

Yeah, and I, I understand that because I actually would if I was going to sort of relate to something.

I have a huge drive for autonomy and I never really related to the PDA of pathological demand avoidance because that to me sounded quite negative.

It sounded like something I didn't relate to.

But everything I do is with autonomy in mind and the fear of being cooped up or told what to do or put in a box or have to be at someone else's demands or of disposal fills me with dread.

So would you say that would be a trait of pda?

Well, first of all, I think every human, if they allow themselves to ground into their true self, has a strong drive for autonomy and equality.

I think neurodivergent brains have an even stronger drive for autonomy and equality.

The way I define pda so that we can separate it conceptually from other neurotypes, and what I think makes it a nervous system disability is that that drive for autonomy and equality is so strong and so subconscious that it consistently overrides one or more basic instincts like eating, sleeping, hygiene, toileting and.

Or safety.

So with children and teens, like, often we come to PDA when the nervous, the cumulative nervous system stress is so high that any perceived infringement on equality or autonomy will set them off into fight, flight, freeze, or shut down.

And they're being disabled from accessing one or more of those basic needs to the point where their parents are seeking medical or therapeutic support.

So, like, for my older son, it was eating.

Like he stopped eating.

And then my younger son, who's currently in burnout, it's hygiene.

Yeah.

Okay, so it's a continuum.

Right.

And sometimes we don't know how strong the drive for autonomy is until it accumulates in the system and someone hits burnout, PDA burnout.

And then it's like, oh, I actually can't eat.

Not because of the sensory experience, but because of the physiology of all this nervous system stress building.

Yeah.

And listen, you explain that and you realize how severe and challenging and awful it must be, first as a parent, but also as the child going through that.

So I send you lots of love and compassion from one parent to another.

And I have spoken to other parents who have got PDA kids and dealt with it throughout their lives in different capacities.

And I know how challenging it is.

I actually feel bad saying that I relate to it because it's nothing.

It's not.

It's not anything.

You know, that sense of autonomy actually is nothing compared to what you've just described.

And I think it is important to be able to explain it like that.

Can you explain from on a spectrum of how PDA could show up day to day that perhaps isn't as extreme as what you just said, but perhaps can still take its toll on their nervous system or the kid's nervous system, but also as a parent, would that be something as simple as refusing to brush their teet teeth every single day?

And that makes you late for school, and then that makes you late for Work.

And would it be something like that?

Well, I always want to encourage parents to put their critical thinking cap on and understand the root cause of the avoidance, because avoidance is a superficial behavior that can be driven by a lot of different things.

So, like, some kids avoid toothbrushing because of the sensory experience.

Some.

Some kids avoid toothbrushing because they have an executive functioning challenge, and they don't remember that that's what they have to do before bed.

With pda, it's the expectation or authority of the parent that is saying, you have to do this, and it's subconsciously activating their nervous system, and they're having, like, a trauma response, essentially.

Right.

And so I think there's five observable.

Well, four observable characteristics, and one that we have to infer that I point out to parents to try and help them understand whether or not their child is pda.

And, like, I can give examples of how it plays out, if that would be helpful.

Very.

Yes, please.

Okay.

So the first characteristic is the one I already mentioned, which is the survival drive for autonomy, which is something we can sometimes observe.

If we're an adult, we might start to observe it within ourselves, or if we're a parent, we can observe it with our kid.

Which is what's actually making them react and resist is not sensory, executive functioning, social communication differences, preference anxiety, like a cognitive anxiety about the future.

It's actually the subconscious perception that they have to do it or that you're making them do it or that you're putting yourself above them.

So, for example, with putting on shoes, what we sometimes see with PDA kids, and we think.

And this is what I thought with my first son, okay, he has sensory processing disorder or he has adhd.

So I'll, like, set up the shoes, show him the visual chart of what needs to happen, and I'll get him really comfortable socks and shoes.

But what the pattern I saw, and I'm a social scientist, so I observed patterns, was he would resist fiercely putting on his shoes and getting out the door on the way to school or on the way to the grocery store and, like, physically fight me.

But as soon as he was like, I want to go to a trampoline park, he would, you know, pack his snacks, put on his shoes, like, get dressed, buckle his seatbelt.

And it wasn't the sensory or executive experience or the anxiety about leaving the house.

It was the autonomy, the choice.

Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

If every.

All of this is happening subconsciously for a lot of our kids, like, they might have that Stomach flip or the physiology of a fight flight response.

But we might not see it.

We just see it as like opposition or defiance or resistance.

But a second thing is that it accumulates in the system over not just a day, but like weeks and months, sometimes years.

So the experience of the parent is like, why did this set them off today and not last week?

Like, it's impossible to sort of see what's called the antecedent because it's building cumulatively in the system.

So parents often think, did my child just have a sudden autistic regression?

Like, did they just become autistic or they just become pda?

Because it escalates to a tipping point.

The third thing we see is what's called equalizing behavior.

So like, to give the example of the shoes, right?

So sometimes we're like, no, but you got to put your shoes on.

And they comply and do the thing, but they perceive that they're below you.

And to get back to safety, they need to control, criticize, or like equalize to be above.

So they might put the shoes on, but on the way out of the door, like, quote, accidentally, their hand falls on your plant and it smashes down.

And then they pretend like it's an accident to equalize.

Or they get in the car and in the back seat, they won't stop touching their sibling, like in an impulsive way.

And the more you say to stop, the more it escalates to the point where like they're kicking the back of your seat and screaming, or they're like whispering, you're stupid, you're stupid.

So that's equalizing.

So it's.

There may be compliance, but then there's an escalation.

And it looks like, like it's almost like this impulsive and compulsive behavior where like, the more you tell them to stop, the more they fixate on doing the thing.

So when people say, like, just don't let them do it, it's a nervous system driven response.

You can't stop it.

And it can escalate into epic proportions.

And the cost is every time it escalates, it pushes them towards that point of burnout, right?

So there's always this cost of trying to make them comply.

And that's when we see impact on basic needs.

So masking is another one where they appear to be two totally different children in different contexts.

Not just imitating like neurotypical norms at school, but actually, like, they seem fine at school and then they're a feral animal at home.

And then the need for Undivided attention constantly.

Like if you're giving them undivided one on one attention, they can seem very typical.

Like typical kid.

As soon as you divert your attention to like try and do laundry or text or something, it's like mama, mama, or they start equalizing.

So there's also patterns with basic needs when they start to lose them.

And I'm happy to talk about that.

Or we can talk about how it might manifest in adults.

Yeah, I mean, I'm listening and I'm recognizing how challenging this must be for parents, neurodivergent parents, because very typically, you know, it's often us.

And we might notice some of these behaviors that maybe we've masked or we've grown not, I would say not grown out of, but evolved from in different ways, socially conditioned ourselves.

And it's challenging.

And I speak to parents who are burnt out from parenting neurodivergent kids.

And we know how this all evolves on the spectrums.

You know, adhd, autism blended together, then you've got the PDA blended into that.

I'm interested to ask about oppositional defiance and what overlap there is with pda.

And are they from the sort of same family?

Do they show up the same?

Yeah, I'd love to hear a bit more about that.

So I'm not a clinician or a psychologist or a medical doctor.

My personal belief is that odd as a category that's diagnostic does not explain, it's not explanatory.

It's just this kid is defiant.

We don't know what to do with them.

We're going to slap an odd label on them.

Like many clinicians do think that odd is not an actual explanatory category.

Like what is the root cause?

Just that you have a bad kid?

I don't think so.

Yeah, snap that.

Whereas pda, it's like if you listen to PDA adults and look at patterns, there's actually a consistent root cause that's causing them to avoid, that's causing the fight flight.

So personally I don't think that odd is a category or a diagnostic label that is helpful for a lot of families.

So I mean, would you say maybe I'll speak from a personal perspective.

Do you explain to your kids about PDA and how it shows up, what it looks like?

So they're kind of almost recognizing in the moment what's happening?

Is that a helpful way to communicate with them while they're in this sort of this state?

While.

While this is happening, like the equalizing.

Or, you know, not in the moment.

In the moment.

Yeah.

Okay.

No, because like, this neuroception about autonomy and equality, it's like their entire composition on a molecular level.

Like, if I'm trying to start a conversation about, you know, you're this and this is why you're doing this, or even a conversation about, like, pda, they're just gonna be like, their brain is gonna be like, mom's starting a conversation I don't want to have.

She's above me.

I don't have autonomy.

Fight, flight, Reject it entirely.

So we really have to go through a process of, like, a paradigm shift of, like, really signaling autonomy and equality, which includes not trying to talk about things that they don't want to talk about.

So it might be like six months of really practicing a different lens of parenting before they have enough felt safety and trust with you to start talking about it.

So it's like, it requires an absurd amount of patience and a very different approach to parenting.

And so while you're establishing that it's like a tenuous relational dynamic and.

And you trying to talk about things that they don't want to will set.

Set the conversation back.

Yeah, I know, I can understand that.

Yeah.

With pda, it's like very chronological how things can help.

Like when I'm working with families, especially if they have children over the age of 11 or they've gotten a previous diagnosis that the child might have rejected, which is common.

Like, you know, 12 year old PDA gets a diagnosis of autism, and they're like, upset by it and they don't want to talk about it or they don't engage at all.

We have to start from scratch.

We separate the diagnosis from the identity from the nervous system response conceptually.

And there's.

We put the diagnosis on a shelf, and it might take like six to 12 months before that child is ready to engage autonomously on a conversation about what they want to identify with.

So we have to give them autonomy even in that process, because sometimes they identify with PDA and sometimes they don't.

My older son identifies with PDA and autism.

My younger son, who has an autism diagnosis as well, is still in that tenuous space of like, I don't really want to talk about it.

He knows he's having a hard time, but, you know, it really has to be child led.

Yeah.

And it goes against, I guess, all these sort of the conformities and the social conditioning that we've been told, you know, discipline.

And it's so hard if you've got people around you who haven't done the work that you've done and you've clearly, you know, listen, you're a leading researcher in this, in this area and then you've got the judgment of others and you know, fear of going out and you social situations and feeling this sort of disapproval from other people who have no idea what you're going through and no idea how to parent your child in the way that you have.

We all know those moments when we've been in that moment of meltdown and no one else knows what to do apart from you with that child.

And I relate.

I have one child that has, I don't think she is pda, but I do think we've gone through, you know, lots of meltdowns with her and it's only way after we're able to kind of like have a little chat about it and talk about it.

But she also holds a bit of shame, a bit, a lot of shame.

And she gets embarrassed and wants to apologize and promises it won't happen again.

And I'm trying so hard to give her that compassion.

But what it's done to my nervous system, that takes like sometimes for me it takes days to get over.

And I wonder if we could talk a bit about that because I can only imagine there's a lot of parents listening to this right now who are nodding and understanding and maybe feeling quite triggered upset listening to this because maybe they hadn't even realized that a child of theirs was pda.

But I talk quite generally, but in specific situations with workshops and stuff about how important it is that we come to the situation as regulated adults and how important it is for us to work on our nervous system regulation so we can parent our kids when the times get tough and they do get tough.

And you said just before that we have to exercise so much patience and when you're neurodivergent yourself with, you know, overstimulation and overwhelm and noise and sensory, you know, differences, this is, this is hard work, isn't it?

Oh, absolutely.

So I guess let me distinguish between what I mean by patience and then what I mean by establishing a new baseline with a new paradigm.

So patience is really this idea that we're surrendering to the fact that like especially if our kids in burnout or we're really trying to change ourselves, it's going to take a year or two, it's not going to be take a three month course.

And now we're, you know, we're back to quote, normal because, and I think this is true for any neurotype I think like a parent realizing their child is autistic or ADHD or PDA initially, and I know this personally, we want to figure out what's going to make them be normal, quote, unquote.

Like, most parents don't want to admit that it's not popular, say on social media.

But like, a lot of us go into fixing mode of like, okay, and I did this of like, okay, I'm gonna double down on like five days a week of therapy.

I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna do all these interventions, die free diets, supplements, like, try and make this not what it is, right?

Because it's so hard.

And then we move into the phase where we're starting to move through acceptance.

But with that comes grief, resentment, anger, railing at the moon, hating our lives.

And then on the other side of that, once we move through that, we go deeper into acceptance.

And then we start making decisions in our lives that reflect, like, I can't change my kid, but I do have autonomy and agency over my decisions and behaviors.

So like, for my husband and I, that meant especially in a crisis time, me leaving my career and us Moving from Washington D.C. to my home state in Michigan, which is less expensive, one of us could stay home, all those things.

So it's like a long term journey, right?

And that's what I mean by patience.

Because in the moment, like, I totally understand.

And you know, I was diagnosed with panic disorder in my 20s.

Like, I have a reactive nervous system too.

And so in the moment, what we want to, I think what we want to think about is most of us are starting from a baseline and an assumption.

It's my job to train this kid or make them good.

I need to teach them to be good.

I need to teach them the skills, they need to be independent and successful in life.

That's the assumption.

And that pervades even, like, gentle parenting, right?

So the paradigm shift is my kid is already good, but I'm interacting with their threat response, their nervous system.

And so I'm going to accommodate through these counterintuitive approaches to bring down the threat response, meaning I'm not going to correct the behavior in the moment.

In some cases, like when they're like, you're an idiot, right?

And I'm like, yeah, mommy's an idiot.

Sometimes that's very different than the logic of I need to make sure they don't call women an idiot because in the future they're going to be an abusive husband, right?

Pda, it's like, that's Just data of what's going on in their nervous system.

I'm going to de escalate.

Right.

As we're moving through this paradigm shift.

So the new baseline is I am instead of immediately trying to talk to them about how they can't break toys during a meltdown afterwards and trying to teach them, I'm going to treat it like they had a panic attack.

And my baseline is, it's not their fault.

I'm going to give them a popsicle and a weighted blanket and bring their iPad to them to help them recover.

Different logic.

Right.

And so the baseline is just continually trying to come back to like.

This.

Is a threat response and not a lack of skills or a bad kid.

And so we're gonna react, we're gonna get frustrated.

We're gonna try and teach after the meltdown at first, we're gonna be like, don't call me an idiot.

We're gonna be like, stop destroying your things.

And.

That doesn't mean we're impatient.

It just means we're conditioned.

Right.

And our nervous system is going to react because we're like in the moment and we're going to go down the pathway that we're most used to, which is like the conventional wisdom on parenting.

And so that's normal.

It's going to continue happening.

The practice is coming back to a new baseline.

Yeah.

A different way of doing it.

Yeah.

And giving yourself compassion 100.

And you listen as you're explaining all of this to me and what you've explained is that it really is coming back down to the nervous system and what puts us in threat and so many different scenarios, especially if you're autistic, easily overstimulated, wants autonomy, enjoys doing the things that they want to do and all of the different multi layered and complex ways it can all show up and I guess be triggered sometimes, maybe when we're not even expecting it.

And it is about this sort of nervous system regulation.

And I know that you work a lot with more of a sort of deeply spiritual, Buddhist based system, I would say to find more of this acceptance, presence, mindfulness, compassion.

Is that from something that you had to personally go through yourself?

Like you say you had to go through this paradigm shift to get to where you are now, helping other parents?

Yeah.

I mean, definitely went through a paradigm shift for my own parenting, but also my priorities and my spiritual values.

So, like when my older son went into burnout, I had no idea what neurodiversity was like.

I had never heard of pda.

I had never Considered that he would be autistic.

Like, my entire world came crumbling down.

And, like, no, none of the professionals that we saw had any idea how to help.

And, you know, before that, they had been like, use 1, 2, 3, magic.

Use timeouts.

Positive discipline.

You need to be consistent.

And it reached a point where, like, I was actually scared of my son.

He was only four and a half, but, like, I would have to pick up my infant and run into the street, and my husband would, like, stay behind to do damage control because he would, you know, target the infant, target us.

I remember one time I ran out into the street with my Bjorn with my newborn.

I'm, like, crying on the sidewalk.

And a neighbor drives up and is like, are you okay?

And I'm like, no, I'm not okay.

Like, I do not know what's happening.

And my four and a half year old locked.

My husband, like, threw a toy that hit my husband in the face.

My husband's a very, very patient man, naturally the most neurotypical of all of us.

And he took the toy and was like, I'm going to put this in the basement.

Not in a, like, punishment.

Like, I'm going to put this in the basement.

He just said, this is a consequence.

I'm going to do this.

He.

My son locked him in the basement so he couldn't get out.

And, like, I'm standing outside weeping in public.

And after that weekend, I just quit my job and was like, we can't do this anymore.

Like, he wasn't eating.

He would.

He, like, refused to walk.

It was just constant, constant, really terrifying meltdowns that we couldn't stop.

They were, like, hours long.

And this is a burnout.

Was this a burnout cycle that he was in?

Yes.

This is my.

My first son, Cooper.

What I know now is that he was going into burnout, but I was, like, doing very traditional parenting.

And that's, I think, what also caused him to have trauma in addition to PDA burnout.

And I, as a, like, agnostic slash atheist who was not super interested in spiritual practices, was desperate to make sense of what was going on.

So I saw a shaman and.

And I, like, started reading Buddhism.

You know, a Celtic priest, a rabbi, a Quaker.

Like, I was seeking, seeking, seeking.

And so Buddhism, I had a very strong yogic practice like, I had been.

I used to do it six days a week, very intensively.

So Buddhism was, like, a good match for me and an incredible match for how we move through the difficulty of parenting a PDA kid.

Because I'm going To get a little.

This might trigger people, but.

But, like, I was raised Catholic, right?

And so the underlying assumption was, like, we were kicked out of the Eden because we were original sinners.

Like, and so a lot of what we need to do to get back to Eden or heaven is to be good, Right.

We need to learn how to do that and consistently follow rules and comply to do that and under the authority of hierarchical system.

And that's part of why I left like that spiritual practice or religious practice in my teens.

But the fundamental and underlying assumption of Buddhism is not original sin.

It is that we have forgotten our true nature.

And that true nature is part of source.

Right.

Like, we are Buddha, Buddha is within us and so forth.

A child who was a feral animal and seemed like a demon to my nervous system.

And, like, I had to do a lot of trauma work on that.

I had to grasp onto something that told me, your child is a divine light that can never be corrupted.

And we need to get back to that.

Right.

So that belief underlies my work with my own children, but also the families that we work with.

Because if we stay in the mindset of, I need to train this child with skills and teach them to comply and fit to allow me to be the authority.

The more we do that with a PDA child, the more we reach these, like, really harrowing burnouts and ruptures in families.

Yeah.

So I can only imagine that people come too desperate and essentially that beginning of, like, please help fix us.

Fix us as parents.

Fix him or her as a child.

Just fix.

Fix this situation, make it go away type thing, which I can understand.

I've been there myself.

And then you have to move through lots of different stages and almost, like you say, sort of accept where we are and create this new paradigm shift so we can focus more on.

On the presence and the neutrality of the situation and being able to work through this, whatever is thrown at us with more compassion.

Do you notice how PDA then evolves as the child gets older and then moves, you know, transitions into adulthood?

And then I guess a parent who is like, learning all of this for the first time and then kind of going, oh, my God, this was me as a child, and this is how it shows up now as an adult.

I'd be interested to know how that evolution shifts from maybe explaining what happened with your son, and then what could that evolve into as a parent, as an adult?

And how do we, as the adult PDA regulate ourselves?

Yeah, I mean, that's a big question.

Let me explain a couple of things.

So first I want to talk about the threshold of tolerance in the nervous system.

How it shows up, especially in women who are PDA and often very successful and perfectionist people pleasers later in life.

But maybe with mental health challenges, quote, end quote, mental health challenges or burnouts.

And then third, PDA strengths, because there's another side to this coin.

The sensitivity of the nervous system and the drive for autonomy, inequality.

I think it intersects a lot with like ADHD as well.

So you can tell me what you think.

Okay, so the first thing is it's cumulative, right?

So when a child or a teen is accommodated and we can find ways to support them and often it's moving, like if we change everything in our home instead of having our child activate.

So let's say that you have a cup, right?

And unbeknownst to us as parents or if you're an adult, what's happening is your amygdala, your threat detector.

Every time it's like this person is putting themselves above me or they're telling me what to do or I don't get to choose.

They have a nervous system activation and it puts a drop in the bucket.

And when it's down here, they might be moving through life totally, typically and not look neurodivergent even maybe just stubborn or strong willed or deeply feeling.

Right?

But as it builds, like let's say I'm, I'm traditionally parenting and I'm starting to see some defiance.

I'm putting my kid in timeouts or doing consequences and then they're at school and they're getting told what to do.

It's building, building, building.

And they hit a tipping point, right?

So every interaction is you're either activating or accommodating the PDA nervous system.

So just changing our parenting, we can really lower by accommodating that cumulative nervous system activation and create a window, a window of tolerance.

So they're still going to activate when they perceive losses of autonomy, but they're not necessarily going to tip over into being disabled from basic needs and constant recently being, quote, defiant or in fight or flight or in shutdown.

So there's a lot of agency that we have to support these kids.

And, and like this is why you see so much unschooling homeschooling or kids going to like Sudbury Democratic schools or Montessori schools because they have more autonomy baked in, right?

So we don't get to that point.

So it's not this inevitability of like, your kid is doomed, doomed.

It's just we have to take a really, really different approach, right?

And then as an adult, what I see for most of the clients that I have is women who maybe they have that nervous system activation, like they know or maybe they don't know, like, why do I get so upset when someone tell.

When.

When my boss sits on a desk above me, you know, and I start shaking or like, why, why does my heart race?

Or I have like a dagger in my chest or tunnel vision or tingling or itching all over my body when it seems like someone knows more than me about a topic, right?

They're above me.

But it's just how you've experienced life.

But every time that happens, it builds.

And so for a lot of women, instead of it coming out as fight, flight, defiance, their nervous system pathway often adapts to freeze or fawn.

So they perceive like, this person is putting themselves above me or infringing on my autonomy.

But then they go into automatic, pleasing or yes mode, fawn mode appeasement or just sort of freeze.

And so society likes that for women, right?

And.

And so you can see these very successful, creative, intelligent women who have also gone through these really difficult periods of like, chronic health issues, depression, burnout that they don't necessarily understand, like, why can't I get off the couch?

Or why can't I leave the house?

Or why am I like, looking literally vibrating around this person?

Right?

100%.

So it's understanding that mechanism of like, why is the nervous system going off and.

And how is it building?

And once we understand that, then we can start to accommodate more ourselves and then we have this understanding of the strengths.

Because here are some strengths of pda.

First, autodidactic.

And I know that's true for a lot of neurodivergence.

For example, my son, we pulled him out of a wonderful Montessori school because he just couldn't manage it with his nervous system.

And he's been unschooling for now seven months.

And he's like, started to teach himself how to code in Minecraft and like teaching himself how to read and stuff.

So there's autodidactic.

There's this energetic radar that it's like the same sensitivity of like, subconsciously perceiving it, even the most subtle.

Like, this person is trying to put themselves above me or they're trying to make me do something or control me.

Even if it's not direct, they perceive that their body knows, right?

And it's super hard as a parent, but it's actually a huge strength because they walk into a room and they know this person's trying to put themselves above me or they're trying to control me in a manipulative way or.

And sometimes we don't even realize it as parents that we're trying to elicit certain behaviors, like with praise.

Right.

Oh my gosh, I really like your drawing.

You did such a good job.

And then they destroy it.

Why?

Because our energy behind it was, look, they're writing and drawing again.

I want them to do it again.

They perceive it.

Right.

Like we cannot fool BDA energetic radar.

They're also, I call them the modern day alchemists.

So they have this amazing ability of taking things from one material state to another.

So like in a, in PDA women or adults, some of the patterns I see are like, like one woman I worked with, how she regulated and provided self care to herself was like going to vintage shops and buying a bunch of clothes and turning them into new versions of fashion or baking, you know, jewelry making, gardening, artistic expression.

But in kids, what you often see is like, you know, you're laying out crayons because we're going to draw and then they just peel the things off the crayons, break them all up and then they want to like start a fire and melt them all down to transform it into something else.

And then spirit connection with animals is another one.

Okay, explain that a little bit.

So I think this is true for a lot of neurodivergent individuals, but they often, not always PDA kids are like, like my older son was always, always most regulated and comfortable around dogs.

And he actually had a service dog for four years at his school.

But there is like, it might be a hamster, might be cats, horses, just like feeling most comfortable with animals.

Yeah.

Goodness.

It sounds, I mean, I'm literally, as you were saying all of those things, I was thinking of so many different people I know relating to myself a little bit.

Yeah, yeah.

In lots of different ways.

And I always talk about using what I would sort of call like our ADHD kind of restless energy or whether you want to kind of say neurodivergent restless energy.

But a lot of people with ADHD really relate to having pent up energy, like a nervous system that just doesn't feel very settled and using creativity as a channel to kind of move out of ourselves.

And when we have a consistent creative practice that might evolve and change and it doesn't matter if it's sort of, you have a hyper focus for six months or a year, as long as there's a channel for it I kind of think about is like a filtration system a little bit.

And our ADHD doesn't feel as pervasive as opposed to.

It kind of can stifle and then erupt.

And so there's so much crossover in so much of this.

But I think what you're explaining of how this can manifest in adulthood to then understand how your child is is very helpful because we can always see that version of ourselves, especially when we didn't know any of this.

We didn't have the language, our parents didn't have the language.

And I mean, I don't know if this is sort of not politically.

I don't know if it's politically correct to ask this, but would you say that there's an element of not understanding maybe what PDA looks like in adults and people think it's sort of, you know, a narcissistic behavior or, or sociopathic?

Do you think there could be this crossover of not understanding how it presents?

And yeah, I'm just intrigued.

So I'll tell you an interesting pattern and I'll tell you what I think about it.

This is not research based, it's just anecdotal from the work that I do.

So there is a surprisingly high amount of women that I've worked with who are divorced and have an ex spouse who is narcissistic.

And as they move through the work of understanding their child slash pda, they realize that there is both at play PDA and narcissism.

My understanding of narcissism is that it is often from a traumatic childhood experience, right?

Like where the needs, the human needs for connection, attachment and attention are not met.

And what's hard with PDA is that as parents we think, well, we're giving them everything they, they need.

Like they have a good school, they have shelter, they have good dinner on the table, clothes.

But a traditional and conventional parental relationship with a PDA or can actually be traumatic for them.

And it can be even more so if you have like an authoritarian parent where like some kids, like a dandelion kid or a neurotypical kid or a kid who's more resilient in terms of their nervous system might just be like, grow up and be like, yeah, my dad's an.

Whereas a PDA or like it's trauma.

Like it's so much trauma and entrapment that they can sort of disassociate from self and just become the ego, which is sort of what narcissism is.

This is not My area of expertise.

But this is how I understand it.

So I do think there is a potential pathway that's pda, unsupported, unrecognized and sort of extreme experience in childhood and throughout their childhood, teen and young adult life where they've just experienced so much trauma that this turns into narcissism.

This is not to excuse the narcissism, but in terms of making sense of one's life.

When I'm working with a mother who then sees, oh, the genetic pathway came through father with the pda, but then we have to separate.

Like child is not a narcissist.

It's not your responsibility to reparent someone who's being abusive to you.

But we do have agency and possibility with this seven year old who might be behaving in a way that looks very similar to dad.

Yes.

Yeah.

So you know, that sort of like from my coaching and behind the scenes work with a lot of women, it's actually a surprising percentage.

Like in my life before pda, I didn't know a lot of women who would say their ex spouse or spouse is narcissistic.

And I see it a lot in the PDA space.

Sociopathy, from what I've read about it is the absence of fear.

Like they don't have the fear, they have like a goal and there's no fear to stop what they're trying to achieve.

So it can actually like they could look very typical throughout their lives, but when they decide like they want to achieve something, the strategic maneuvering can be like harming people to an extreme degree.

I actually think PDA is the opposite of sociopathy because it's an overabundance of fear.

So you're seeing fight flight behavior that in a sociopath wouldn't be strategic to achieve the goals.

Right.

So sociopaths can look quite typical in their childhood.

You know, there might be some things that play out but.

But our PDA kids are just constantly experiencing fear.

It's not the absence of fear.

Yeah.

I mean it's so fascinating to be able to break this down and understand it.

And like you say, it was making me think, you know, I speak to quite a few people who work within the criminal justice system, people who've been in prison, people who've worked within prisons.

And we know there's such a high rate of ADHD and autism within the prison system system and throughout their lives, the prisoners lives, they have seen it, you know, go through generationally and when we have the understanding of the neurodivergence and we're able to help with different ways of living and creating different pathways and understanding and compassion and awareness and education.

We're able to still see that person, you know, with the neurodivergence and who they are from a different capacity, but they are able to then given a different pathway as opposed to maybe what they've seen in their families.

And I do wonder that as we talk about all of this and how the spectrums and how it shows up in so differently and so many, you know, different people that we are able to hopefully help more people live with this.

Like you say, there's acceptance that we can't change our children and we can't change who we, we are, but we can create environments and structures and autonomy in different ways to help them thrive, help ourselves thrive.

I mean, would you say that is essentially what you're doing with your coaching, with your, you know, the parents, the children is recognizing that the PDA is there, but also creating conditions to help them thrive and live better lives alongside it?

Oh yeah, absolutely.

So on a spiritual level, I think the work is like supporting families to find peace and acceptance and to let the divine light within each member of that family shine.

Right.

And it's a long term process, but I think there's a lot of deconditioning that goes along with that.

That's a lot of the work we're doing because a lot of families know about PDA and know about lowering demands and declarative language.

But they, but the conditioning, the thought patterns and the behavioral patterns are and the like guilt and fear and all that is just getting in the way of consistently going against the grain.

And then, you know, the mission of my business, of our business, because we have a team, is to reduce societal violence towards self or others one household at a time.

So the name of my business isn't PDA parents, it's at peace parents.

So like that's the overarching mission because I believe, you know, unfortunately we see a lot of hospitalizations and we see a lot of self harm.

We see, you know, family estrangement, we see, you know, really, really difficult things and pathways and I think bringing unconditional love and acceptance and, and truly believing like this isn't my child, this is the threat response and I have the agency to change their trajectory to let that light out.

I may have to do a lot of things that go against what other people think is quite quote right.

But that's the goal.

That's the goal.

And I, I don't believe any Child or teen is like, it's too late for them or it's lost.

Because I did think that with my son, I was like, he's going to end up in jail.

Even at four and a half, he's going to end up in jail or in a, in a residential care like he.

And that's what made me make pretty extreme decisions like leaving my career and a really good job in Washington, D.C. and moving out of a city and dedicating the next two years to caregiving.

Yeah, I mean, your story is something I hear, you know, maybe that's not to that point, they've not been able to make those decisions.

But I hear this a lot.

And no wonder.

There's so many burnt out, you know, parents trying to do so much, navigate their children's health and their own health and all the other stuff that's going on.

But I think what you're doing is, you know, incredible.

And I know there'll probably be a lot of people wanting to get in touch with you.

So can you just share how they can, you know, speak with you or book an appointment?

Yeah.

And what's your wait list like?

Yeah.

So currently I only provide coaching within the context of a live cohort program, which we run two times a year.

So the next live cohort is in April or May.

We have two other coaches, one of whom is a PDA autistic adult with four PDA children under the age of 10.

And Kendall.

And we have another coach, Donna, who has raised two PDA adults, now adult women.

They're 20 and 27 and she specializes in teens and adults.

So if someone wanted coaching like tomorrow, well, there's a little bit of a wait, but if they want more immediate one on one support.

But we also have a ton of, ton of free resources.

Like we have five free master classes.

We have a free survey you can take to see if this applies.

We have a podcast.

So.

Okay, amazing YouTube training.

And that's.

And that's.

What's the website?

Just so people can go on that?

Yeah, it's@peaceparents.com Amazing.

Well, Casey, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for sharing, explaining, answering all my questions and I hope that we've been able to enlighten people and give people the information that maybe they've not received elsewhere.

So thank you so much, much.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

It was fun to talk.

If this episode has been helpful for you and you're looking for more tools and more guidance, my brand new book, the ADHD Women's wellbeing toolkit is out now.

You can find it wherever you buy your books from.

You can also check out the audiobook if you do prefer to listen to me.

I have narrated it all myself.

Thank you so much for being here and I will see you for the next episode.