I read this article this morning and here are some highlights I think you’ll appreciate

“The core difference between masked Autistics and PDA Autistics tends to be their approaches to external expectations. Masked Autistics strive to game out unspoken social rules, and to perform the roles expected of them, in order to avoid detection as disabled. PDA Autistics, in contrast, are often viscerally incapable of doing so.”

“But the line between a masker and a PDAer is shaky, and may really just be a matter of one’s point of view. An Autistic person who strives with all their might to be easygoing and agreeable might still be viewed by ableist outsiders as too emotionally flat and hard to be around. Even when we parrot social scripts perfectly, research shows that neurotypicals still dislike us. So in many ways, masking and PDA are just two sides of the same isolating coin.”

“PDAers are often misdiagnosed with related disorders such as ADHD or oppositional defiant disorder as children, or with conditions like Borderline Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality Disorder as adults. Though the PDA profile of Autism has been championed by a number of parents’ groups and clinicians, it currently is not listed in either the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders, or the International Classifications of Diseases.”

“People sometimes get very attached to an understanding of disability that is rooted in biology, because they believe that is the only explanation that grants them permission to not function up to society’s punishing, impossible standards. But the reality is that neurotypicality’s punishing standards are not attainable to anyone, and so nobody should feel defective or broken for failing to meet up to them.”

“While it may bring relief for a parent to believe their PDA Autistic child is failing to meet standards because of something neurologically wrong with them, questioning the standards themselves will prove way more fruitful.”

“In a world where Autistics are conditioned to become passive and compliant, I’m thankful that my reflex is to reject and disappoint instead. It’s a good thing that sometimes I can be a little difficult to deal with.”

“As a public-facing Autistic person, I receive many worried emails from the parents of PDA Autistic kids. They want my advice for how to “make” their kids feel better, “make” their kids do better, “encourage” their kids to do more. Instead, I wish most people could be more like PDAers. Perhaps if we all collectively refused to be pressured into painful compliance, the world would already be a lot more friendly to difference of all sorts.”