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Can you think of other circumstances that might
make you less able to meet a demand placed on
you? You might want to write them here:
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Trying hard to explain the
reasons for not being
able to do something
We have observed that young
people with PDA often spend a
lot of time, effort and energy
explaining to those asking them
to do something why they can’t do it.
My feelings about demands
Trying to survive a world full of demands may feel really tricky and at times impossible. These are frequent feelings we have found in the young people with PDA that we have met.
As you see, the list of feelings we have come up with is rather long, as PDA affects people in different ways. It would be helpful to know which ones might apply to you and also how much these feelings apply to you on a scale from 0 to 10 (0 meaning that it doesn’t apply to you at all and 10 meaning that it does an awful lot).
People asking me to do things I feel I am unable to do makes me feel:
| paralysed | exhausted | ||
| confused | worried | ||
| overwhelmed | helpless | ||
| anxious | grumpy | ||
| fed up | miserable | ||
| angry | stressed | ||
| afraid | furious |
You may want to write any other feelings we have missed:
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You want to do something but
can’t get yourself to do it!
You might also struggle to get
yourself to do something that you
want to do, not something that
others want you to do: something
that you enjoy or even that you
are looking forward to very much.
You might want to go out of the
house to do something that you are
excited about but somehow you
start questioning your ability to
do it and end up getting all worked up.
Let us share with you some examples from the young people with PDA we have worked with. A boy who loves playing with his Xbox told us that sometimes he feels unable to change the game, even when he really wants to play a different game, and has to ask his mother to do it for him. A girl with PDA told us that although she had been excited about going to the zoo for weeks – she loves animals – on the day the visit was planned she couldn’t make herself leave the house.