Ep24. AuDHD IRL and PDA with Sharmayne

This episode is for my fellow PDAers (and the people who love us and are quietly very confused by us). Sharmayne and I had never met before we hit record, which felt weirdly perfect for an episode about nervous systems that do their own thing in real time. What followed was the info dump I have been waiting for.

Sharmayne Bennett is a non-binary, neuroqueer, 2E, AuDHD PDA-er and psychologist, founder of Wonderfully Wired Psychology and co-creator of ND AffirmEd. Her glimmers include squirrels, Lego and Shrek, which honestly tells you everything you need to know about why this chat was so good. Her puppy also made a cameo and then point-blank refused to be perceived, which is the most PDA thing I have ever witnessed on camera.

We get into what PDA actually is, beyond the tired "rejects every demand" myth, and why the P in pathological has a lot to answer for. Sharmayne walks us through a morning in a PDA brain, where opening your eyes is a demand, moving the bedsheet is a demand, and brushing your teeth is roughly nine demands in a trench coat. We talk about why behaviour is communication but never the whole story, why regulating is itself a demand (rude), and why meltdowns are not the enemy. Picture a shaken Coke bottle: you let the lid off, or it goes flat and fizzes inside anyway.

Then we go where it really lands. The 2E perfectionism that makes asking for help feel like failure. The myth that independence is the goal. Self-compassion for a capacity that changes daily, because disability is dynamic, not something you nailed yesterday so must nail today. And co-regulation as adults, including the gift and the weight of being someone's safe person.

I could have kept going for three more hours. PDA 2.0 is officially on the cards.

Takeaways

• PDA is a spectrum, not a switch. Some days the demand is doable, some days it absolutely is not, and both are valid.
• Every step is a demand. A meltdown is never about that one moment, it is the hours of demands stacked underneath it.
• "Take it off your plate, or is that worse?" Sometimes removing a task helps. Sometimes it just hands you the demand of remembering it later.
• You cannot manipulate a PDAer. That nervous system clocks everything, so collaboration beats clever tricks every single time.
• Regulated does not mean calm. You can feel big feelings and still be grounded.
• If someone says they are PDA, believe them. No research card, no "but maybe you are just demand avoidant." Believe them.

Find Sharmayne on Insta at @wonderfullywiredpsychology and through @nd_affirmed.