As an autistic person AIBU

[estrogone]

To be sick to death of people blaming all bad behaviour on neurodiversity.

It seems like the go to excuse.

Little Johnny urinated on somebody- must be ND
CF stole my shit and is rude and unpleasant - must be ND.

I wish people knew that autistic adults (especially women) are highly sensitive to fairness. We have strong inner policeman and will make sure we play fair. We spent decades masking and sticking to the rules, so we would be the least likely to be a cheeky fucker.

Some people are just rude, insensitive, aggressive, entitled, horrid. As children this might be down to genetics, family dynamics, as adults because they just are not very nice.

So only Sheldon Cooper types are amazing? How incredibly reductive and what appalling stereotyping. I should give up but I will never stop fighting for these distressed kids who are often demonised for things way beyond their control.

What does that have to do with this thread?

I feel like they need to grade autism as the spectrum is to large. There is a significant difference between an autistic person who can't walk or talk and will need full time care for life compared to an autistic person who is capable of having a family, owning a home and working a full time job The latter need to be taught how to fit in with society

I never said that I said I know loads of autistic people including myself I'm nothing like sheldon cooper. But I don't like or tolerate violent and aggressive people autism or not.

Yes im very much aware that its a huge spectrum and most adults won't be Sheldon cooper types either .

I’m pretty sure if someone was doing something wrong there would be a hell of a lot of people shouting NO at them. Someone trying to climb onto train tracks to get a phone they dropped will absolutely get NO shouted at by someone if they are seen. They might ask a colleague to buy them a drink or give them a lift to the station. They might say no. They might ask an employer for a raise and get told no. Honestly there are so many reasons adults will hear the word no. And IF it’s just about an aggressive NO (which it’s not as PDA isn’t just about an aggressive NO) then that could happen as well. Again in a job situation. They could decide to do something dangerous and yes an employer could well just shout NO at them.

Sometimes even friends might get more angry than is really necessary. What if someone with PDA keeps asking a friend to lend them their car. Eventually their friend might just say NO and STOP asking me!!! This is life!

Well i agree with you on that point ,the diagnosis is fast becoming meaningless.

I’m equally fed up of people saying “ND” when they actually mean autism or sometimes ADHD.

It absolutely is not. The 3 main areas and high threshold most certainly do not make it meaningless and neither does the very low percentage of the population with autism.

It’s impossible to grade.

Sorry, but for an autistic child having a meltdown, being removed from the situation is the outcome they desperately desire, want and need. It’s not undesirable. It would not ever be perceived by the child as punishment.

In fact, most parents are lambasted for pandering to their child as outsiders perceive a child throwing a tantrum because they don’t want to go to Christmas dinner at the grandparents, or you’re taking them to a fun fair and the child starts complaining and dragging their feet and eventually screaming because it’s too much and they want to go home now. This is perceived as “ruining a fun treat or family day out” for everyone.

The thing to understand about meltdowns is it is not a choice to behave undesirably, it is a physical reaction to sensory overwhelm. Sensory overwhelm causes physical pain. They’re reacting the same way you would if someone were blaring a bull horn in your face and spraying you with pepper spray.

It’s funny I’ve lived and worked until my late 50s and have rarely if ever heard the word no barked out, even with other verbalising or context.

PDA has nothing to do with the person with PDA being told no, it’s more about the person with PDA always saying no to any request made of them as an automatic gut reaction.

Like, “get your shoes on Sally, time to go to school.”
”No”
(runs away)
“Come back downstairs Sally, we really must go or we will be late to school”
”Only if I can wear my sparkly ballerina shoes”
”Sally, the school rules are you have to wear school shoes”
”I won’t go to school then”
”You can’t not go to school”
”No, no, no, you can’t make me” bedroom door slams,

I agree with this. I have no idea if people generally excuse poor behaviour with neurodiversity, but I definitely see people claiming neurodiverse children are just badly behaved and have terrible parents. As a neurodiverse adult you have learned a thing or two, neuro diverse children haven’t reached that point yet. They may, at some points, engage in extreme and antisocial behaviour. Nobody with an ND child will just sit back and say “ahh, it’s autism” and let it happen.

Maybe because you’ve never done anything fairly serious or bad?

Are you saying though that those diagnosed with PDA only respond badly to the word no and that’s it? So all you need to do for those children is to say no and explain why and it’s fine? It’s literally just an aggressive NO they have an issue with?

She has faced huge and wide criticism and rightly so. It’s complete bonkers and she is basically saying women can’t be autistic and only those diagnosed before 5 can be. She discredits masking too. It’s widely known that women get missed in the very male dominated diagnostic process and an often mask.

But this is the quote this part of the discussion has come from:

Absolutely. Try saying no to a kid with a PDA profile and see how it escalates. That’s not to say nothing can be done - but no is not the way to do it.

So are you saying what the poster said isn’t correct?

I can assure you I have, the same as anybody.

They are not incorrect. The interpretation you had was off the mark.
The escalation comes when

• demand made
• PDA person says no
• their no is overrided by a no back

(in this case no you can’t wear sparkly ballerina shoes to school- it then escalated to complete school refusal)

The PDA reaction starts before the escalation.

So it’s both somehow “nothing to do with hearing the word no” but also “hearing the word no”.

The whole point of this discussion came from someone saying PDA people can’t hear the word no. Then people saying no one ever says no to adults. Even if it is just a no response to a no, this will also happen in adult life. You cannot avoid being told no.

“Can I wear my high heels to the building site I’m inspecting”

”No you need to wear special hard toed boots”

”Well I’m not going to work then”

It doesn’t matter the context. These things can and do happen in adult life.

This leads to cheeky fucker behaviour like publicly telling a teacher when they’ve got the wrong answer in maths class or correcting an English teacher’s grammar

How is this being a CF? I thought that was about taking advantage of people. Pointing out that someone is wrong (especially if what they are teaching other people is wrong) doesn't seem like bad behaviour to me.

Most people (not all) with pda - particularly adults - have learned to mask. This is not a solution for them or for society but it does mean that as adults, with support, most of them can function to some extent in the world.

I agree with you. Surely teachers want to know if they’ve got something wrong?

And a large part of that is achieved if there are systems in place that do not judge and stigmatise the kids and their parents. Doubling down and telling the kids that they are bad and that the parents are shit and ineffectual is literally going to have the opposite effect.

with support and understanding kids that many of you would see as irredeemable can actually be productive and function well In adulthood. Like my 18 year old son.

This is true though . PDA isn't in the DSM and therefore cannot be diagnosed on the NHS.

If you look at research, the evidence for "PDA" is there, but also that it's a rare condition. Demand avoidance in autism, however, is common, and usually a reaction to overwhelm, dysregulation or a context that is not attuned.

It seems to me everyone is jumping on the ND bandwagon.
It's very easy to offend people I have found. eg someone complained they had forgetfulness and I simply said 'welcome to getting old' as they're a few years younger. Which was a mistake because (unknown to me) they'd had a ND diagnosis from somewhere and apparently forgetting peoples names is an actual ND trait. Not something that happens as you get older (because over the years there is a limit to how many people you can actually remember their names every time)