PDAers often struggle with being perceived

PDAers often struggle with being perceived.

By that I don’t simply mean being seen. I mean the experience of someone observing, interpreting, forming conclusions, or assuming meaning about what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, or why.

It can feel like someone accessing internal information that we haven’t chosen to share, while perceiving via their own biased lens.

Even when the other person believes they are being helpful, supportive, or insightful, the experience for a PDA nervous system can be exposure and loss of autonomy.

This becomes particularly relevant in co-parenting.

In families raising a PDA child, it is common for one parent to become the “preferred” parent while the other parent has more difficulty in the relationship.

I am frequently asked how to get a co-parent on board. How to make them understand that the child is not doing this on purpose. How to help them see that this is a nervous system response and not manipulation.

There is often an assumption that if the other parent just had the right information, the right explanation, or the right framework, they would change.

But we cannot make another adult understand something they are not ready or able to understand.

Sometimes the other parent is also PDA. There can be an assumption that this should automatically mean deeper empathy or insight in regard to the PDA child. However, adults who are PDA - especially those who do not recognise or accept that in themselves, may already be operating from a chronically activated nervous system.

When they are given information about what they are doing “wrong,” or shown a different way of parenting, or positioned as the one who does not understand, they may experience that as being analysed, corrected, or controlled. In other words, they may experience it as being perceived.

And when PDAers feel perceived in that way, resistance is a very common response.

Equalising often shows up in these dynamics.

Equalising is not a conscious decision to punish someone or make life harder for them. It is not about deliberately sabotaging a partner. Equalising is a nervous system attempt to restore balance when someone feels one-down, criticised, exposed, or stripped of autonomy.

In co-parenting, equalising can take different forms.

If one parent is more responsive, more flexible, more nurturing in accordance with the child's specific needs, and the other parent interprets that as permissive or believes the child is being manipulative, they may feel that their authority or autonomy is being undermined.

A PDA parent in that position may equalise by parenting in a harsher or more rigid way. They may also equalise against the other parent by criticising their parenting, challenging their decisions, or giving them a hard time about the way they handle things.

From the outside, this can look intentional or punitive. Internally, it is often about restoring equilibrium.

Tit-for-tat patterns can also emerge, particularly when both adults are PDA.

Earlier in my own co-parenting relationship, both adult PDAers, there was a lot of tit-for-tat parenting and tit-for-tat arguing.

I assessed everything through the lens of fairness. My brain constantly asked, “Is this fair?” "Am I being fair?"

But what I thought was fairness was not always fairness.

It was balancing scales. "He did this, so I should do this". "I did this, so he should do this". It became a ledger system.

It was not conscious at first. When it became conscious, I had to actively work on being aware of it and changing it. My brain will still default to the question, “Am I being fair?” That reflex is still there.

When you grow up as a PDAer, fairness can become a very abstract concept. Particularly if you grow up in environments where your behaviour is assumed to be volitional, intentional, conscious, and manipulative. You are regularly criticised, punished, dismissed, invalidated, and perceived as bad.

Over time, I internalised the belief that I am inherently wrong.

That creates what I would describe as fairness trauma.

Fairness becomes hypervigilance. Am I being fair? Have I done enough? Have I taken too much? Have I made it even?

I assumed that others perceived me as bad. I assumed that I had always, or was always doing something wrong without even knowing what it was. I learned to expect criticism.

Here’s what stands out to me: PDA children begin by stating “That’s not fair!” about just about everything in life. And this is because they’re children with a very sensitive response to perceived injustice toward themselves and for some, toward others.

My own experience, however, changed across my lifespan to “Am I being fair?” I believe due to being socialised as a female - gender stereotypes, being socialised to be a carer and nurturer (I am also those things naturally), to put myself last and to burn myself out trying to support others.

That is not PDA itself. That is the trauma that results from being misunderstood and constantly perceived through a deficit lens.

In parenting, this trauma can distort how fairness is interpreted.

Tit-for-tat responses can emerge. Scorekeeping can emerge. Reactions can be about restoring balance or equalising, rather than responding to what is actually needed in the moment.

In my own life now, it is often my ex-husband who will point out that I have done enough and that it is okay. He will sometimes show me more compassion than I show myself. That shift only became possible once I recognised the tit-for-tat pattern and began to separate fairness from scale-balancing tpward myself, internally.

For the preferred parent, watching equalising or harsher parenting can be extremely difficult. You can see what triggers your child. You know what helps and what destabilises them. You want to protect.

However, constantly intervening can intensify the dynamic. It can increase the other parent’s sense of being perceived and escalate equalising or tit-for-tat patterns.

Often, the more stabilising approach is to step back from trying to manage the other adult and instead focus on our own relationship with our child. Allowing the other parent and the child to develop their own relational rhythm, even if it looks different from ours is crucial.

This does not mean ignoring our child’s experience.

We live in a culture that promotes parents presenting a united front at all costs and never speaking in ways that could be interpreted as disloyal. But there is a difference between vilifying a co-parent and validating a child.

If my co-parent raises their voice and my child comes to me and tells me about it, I validate the experience. I might say, “That sounds really disappointing. That must have been hard. It doesn’t feel safe or fair when I am yelled at. How are you feeling about it now?” I offer a hug. I make space for their feelings. I do not need to label the other parent as bad in order to acknowledge that the experience was painful, however if the other parent was being abusive, this is different.

There is a way to validate a child without escalating inter-parent conflict.

Where dynamics move into abuse narratives or genuinely harmful patterns, that requires a different response and a different strategy. That is a separate and important conversation.

For now, the key concepts are these:

- PDAers are sensitive to being perceived in ways that feel intrusive or evaluative.

- Equalising can emerge in co-parenting when one parent feels criticised, undermined, or one-down.

- Tit-for-tat patterns and fairness trauma can distort how adults interpret balance and responsibility.

- Attempting to force insight or control another adult’s nervous system often escalates these responses.

Many will respond by concluding that an adult should know better - that they could somehow magically overcome the very thing that we still struggle to understand and even believe exists in children: Pathological demand avoidance.

We can only work on something we truly know, understand and accept. And for a PDAer, the pressure of someone trying to intervene on this impacts the nervous system to the point where learning is impossible. Being centred, grounded and able to take in new information and perspectives is impossible.

Often, the parent child relationship will find a rhythm once we step back. It will be messy. Sometimes ugly. Different from how we'd do things.

But the increase in trust with our coparent to navigate this pathway helps restore their autonomy and their confidence.

We cannot take responsibility for the other parent’s growth. We cannot fully protect our child from every relational rupture. We can focus on our own regulation, our own relationship with our child, and validating their lived experience without fuelling the dynamic.

That is often the most stabilising work available to us. It might just be the thing that saves us, and our relationship with our child.

KF