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If you’re reading this, you know what I mean.

It can be hard to connect when it matters the most. Revealing vulnerability can be filled with tears that arrive quickly and without warning. You may not cry but instead get frustrated, even furious if you can’t be understood quickly. Flushed in the face and neck. Or words catch in your throat and your mind goes blank. You need this person to know and to see you. Why don’t they?

Does that happen to any of you? If it does, you are likely incredibly sensitive to this. And may then do anything to avoid feeling this way.

It is a very common experience for PDA adults and children.

We can talk about rejection sensitivity. But you know about rejection sensitivity, right? If you don’t Dr. Donna Henderson wrote a great blog post about it. You can find it here: https://www.drdonnahenderson.com/post/you-re-so-sensitive

There are many reasons that BIG FEELINGS go unprocessed and unexplored. As a therapist I work with the pain created when needs were not understood or supported by family. Even “good enough” parents have made mistakes. For most of us there are layers of pain and confusion that our challenging day to day experiences mirror back to us looking for holding and care.

I’m not writing about family or intergenerational dynamics. Not today.

I’m writing about Demands with a capital D. The one you may value and hold in the highest regard. Trumpets and drum roll here!

To KNOW who you are and embody it. To be AUTHENTIC. Whoever gets there without bringing their BIG feelings along too? No one I know!

If you think this doesn’t apply to you, read no further. This isn’t written for you. But so many PDA adults I meet feel this way.

They wish someone could tell them who they are. They wish it were easier to figure themselves out.

As a result, they can’t speak of the upset or confusion, they can’t share it, they can’t let it enter their experience. Maybe, not until it is well in the “rearview mirror”. Because BIG feelings are a HUGE demand which will lead to knowing yourself in all the ways that are true and real. This is the biggest demand of all. But it means feeling big feelings. Can you handle all this? Can your relationships! Many PDA adults especially young adults are just not sure they can. So, it makes them so anxious it’s avoided. As much as possible.

PDA adults are more aware of this process. But, children, in their clarity and wisdom, can describe this too.

If you are a PDA adult or child and felt the need to “let the BIG feelings, go” but also did not want to talk about it or shape your experience with words you know what it is I’m talking about.

In many instances BIG feeling don’t actually mean ANYTHING other than you are tired, hungry, overwhelmed, or spent.

But, confusing experiences, hurtful relationship patterns and even other’s attempts to connect and stay connected, can all be avoided too when BIG feelings are involved. This is what then builds into a personal pattern that can get stuck. Where you may want to do it differently but find yourself, just NOT. You don’t know how! This is what my clients then ask: “Elise, how do you actually do this? I can’t figure out how!”

People and connections with people can then become part of an avoidance of uncomfortable BIG feelings. However, this is the very thing that helps the PDA person to SEE and KNOW themselves. Remember that “Authentic” thing? Well, PDA people I know value this, a great deal! But the path to get there can be fraught.

Why avoid this? Well…..I hope that this writing is clarifying. If it helps, I’m glad.

Last night, in a support and process-oriented group of smart and insightful young adults, I heard their voices, and it all felt very similar only expressed from their own personal vantage point.

I’d sum it up to say, it’s just plain “awkward” when the PDA person feels an expectation to explain when they don’t KNOW the answer! They actually “can’t” really explain, or the explanation is incomplete or not accurate. Or the explanation is not satisfying. Or the explanation will hurt someone.

Or, “awkward” to realize that they have purposefully disconnected because life and or pain points this issue touched in them felt too much. It then gets harder the more time passes. How do you tell someone that. That what they represent to you, not who they are, but the feelings they trigger, make this feel too much?

There are real reasons for the disconnect. It’s just hard to extend grace to embrace them.

Frankly, being exhausted at the end of a day, feeling spent if your work involves a heavy cognitive load or even needing to withdraw to recover from and let go of a big expression of feeling is REAL. It is a valid and frequent PDA experience.

It is one that most people with neurodivergent processing share. It can all be explained. But it isn’t easy for PDA adults to offer this explanation to themselves and accept it as valid.

There is a grace, an acceptance, at some point that you, reader, can offer yourself. When and how you do it is immensely personal. You will come to know that this is how you tick. This is how you operate. This is as the computer engineers say, “my operating system”.

In PDA adults this is the realization that they “CAN’T NOT that they WON’T”. It’s the same feeling and awareness PDA parents want to foster for their children. They want PDA children and environments to know support needs are real so that their children can move through an experience and know themselves in it.

So, then, am I saying that PDA adults have support needs that when these needs are supported makes it possible to move through an experience and know themselves in it? Well, when demand avoidance is triggered. Absolutely!

Sometimes these support needs don’t look all that clear in a life that is well designed for them. But the design is still accommodation. You will know if you try to do without it! Rather than question if you need it your energy is best served asking for and creating accommodating relationship as this is a foundational part of an inter-connected life with those who care and can offer you understanding.

Does that mean that PDA adults and children can’t DO big feelings? Or navigate pain points in their relationships or own their part and make a change in the way in which relationships wax and wane?

Well, hold on for a minute. That’s not the case. It often can be possible to access feelings and hold them. Embody them. Know them. Even if it is incredibly demanding. There are many ways to make it easier and there are many reasons to do the work. Remember pain points? The “stuck feeling”? And that tricky thing called authenticity?

How do you actually make a change for yourself, grow or get “unstuck”?

Look for Part 2 of Big Emotions and PDA: “It’s so awkward” and learn ways I hear people get “unstuck”.