Dahlia Daos on PDA: Resistance and Resilience

I also experience PDA as disabling and pathological, and it's hard to disentangle that from trauma responses. They can also converge and make it impossible to do anything if I think about it and "decide" to do it. I've been experimenting with letting my inner drive to guide me more and asking inside what I "want" - and even asking what I want becomes a demand, and feels oppressive (truly maddening). So then the only option is to be with myself, be attentive to what's alive in me, what needs are there, and how to allow that to express itself. Now just to figure out how to make that work enough that life doesn't look chaotic. But there's an inner order than looks like chaos on the outside, yet resists any attempt at taming. The only thing that resembles a genuine way forward is wu-wei. *screams in autistic AF*