Rethinking PDA: From Pathological Demand Avoidance to Pervasive Drive for Autonomy

As a society, we are slowly becoming more literate in recognising invisible advantages. We now name things like white privilege and male privilege — advantages once so normalised that many people didn’t even see them as “privileges” at all. For a long time, gender inequality wasn’t widely recognised as a problem because it was simply the water everyone swam in.

We are now in a similar place with neurotypical advantage.

Most neurotypical people don’t even know they are neurotypical. Their communication patterns, sensory needs, emotional rhythms, and regulatory style are treated as the default — the standard against which everyone else is measured. Because their way of being is the unexamined norm, neurotypical expectations become the silent template for what is considered reasonable, polite, mature, or healthy.

Meanwhile, neurodivergent people move through the world with constant, unavoidable asymmetry. The inequality is inescapable because they must translate themselves across a framework the majority doesn’t even realise exists.

This is the backdrop against which PDA — Pathological Demand Avoidance or, in some communities, Pervasive Drive for Autonomy — is interpreted. The term carries both usefulness and discomfort, partly because it has been shaped through a lens that assumes neurotypical behaviour is the baseline of correctness.

The language itself reflects this tension. Pathological implies something wrong or diseased. Demand avoidance suggests unreasonable resistance. And even the alternative phrase, Pervasive Drive for Autonomy, can feel uneasy. The word pervasive is easily heard as accusatory — as though the person’s need for autonomy is too wide-reaching, too much, taking up more space than it “should.”

But this discomfort makes sense in a culture where neurotypical norms are assumed natural, and neurodivergent instincts are pathologised. When someone’s autonomy needs differ from the norm, they are more readily seen as excessive rather than simply different.

Yet many people with lived experience of PDA describe something very different. They describe a nervous system that relies on autonomy as a primary source of safety. And when we shift from a medical to a relational lens, everything changes. We move away from “What is wrong with this person?” and toward “What does their system need in order to feel safe, connected, and understood?”

Autonomy as a need, not a symptom

For many neurodivergent people, autonomy isn’t optional — it’s fundamental. It’s what supports emotional stability, protects against overwhelm, and allows daily life to run smoothly. Where routine steadies some and social connection steadies others, autonomy is the stabiliser for many neurodivergent individuals. When autonomy is restricted — even in small, unintentional ways — their nervous system may respond with withdrawal, panic, humour, shutdown, or sudden escape. These responses are not acts of defiance but acts of protection. Their system is signalling that safety has been disturbed.

Within a neurotypical framework, these behaviours are often misread as oppositional, manipulative, or avoidant. But within neurodivergent communities, they are recognised as instinctive attempts to re-establish agency over one’s actions, timing, and internal experience.

This is one of the clearest illustrations of neurotypical advantage: neurotypical discomfort is treated as valid and understandable, while neurodivergent discomfort is treated as behaviour to correct.

How the need for autonomy shapes relationships

Relational challenges around autonomy become even more complex when neurotypical assumptions go unnamed. Many people imagine that demands are limited to spoken requests:

“Can you do this?”

“Please come here.”

“We need to leave now.”

But demands can be emotional as well — subtle, unspoken, and often invisible to the person expressing them.

A partner’s quiet longing for closeness.

A parent’s hope for engagement.

A friend’s need for reassurance.

A colleague’s desire for emotional steadiness.

These emotional pulls often go completely unnoticed by neurotypical people, who do not realise they are communicating a need. But for someone whose nervous system is wired to detect relational pressure with precision, these cues register immediately. Their body recognises the demand long before words are spoken.

This is not avoidance of the person. It is avoidance of the pressure. Their system is moving toward safety, not away from connection.

Understanding changes the relational field

When behaviour is interpreted through neurotypical standards — standards that often go unrecognised by the people holding them — relationships can become fraught. But when the underlying need for autonomy is understood and respected, the entire dynamic shifts.

Conversations move from

“Why won’t you just…?”

to

“What would help this feel safer for you?”

A simple, yet powerful, change in how we see things can transform relationships. Instead of seeing a desire for autonomy as resistance, we can recognize it as a nervous system seeking safety. When we approach interactions as a partnership, focused on meeting needs instead of gaining control, the stress disappears, and avoidance fades away. The real work then becomes nurturing the connection itself and honouring the individual's experience.

This is the heart of true partnership, one that always chooses connection over compliance.

Interactions become collaborative rather than compliance-driven.

Connection becomes possible without sacrificing autonomy.

Recognising neurotypical advantage allows a more spacious, equitable relational landscape — one in which both people’s nervous systems are honoured, not just the one that happens to match the cultural norm.

A different way of seeing

Perhaps the discomfort around the word pervasive is another clue that old language does not fit lived experience. As the neurodivergent community continues to articulate its own realities, new framings emerge — ones that honour autonomy without moralising it, and that recognise difference without turning it into deficit.

Whatever terminology we eventually use, PDA is not about avoiding life. It is about moving through life in ways that feel safe and sustainable. When we understand this — and when we acknowledge how invisible neurotypical advantage shapes every misunderstanding — the pathologising falls away. What remains is simply another human pattern: one rooted in autonomy, sensitivity, and deep relational awareness.