Reflections
Essays from Kristy Forbes exploring PDA, autistic experience, parenting, identity, care, systems and the ordinary moments that shape family life.
Are your PDA children short and sharp with you in front of others at times?
This can actually be culturally and socially appropriate.
We accept that teens do this as part of their identity formation and separation from us into their transition toward a sense of self in adolescence. We make joke...
I never want to forget.
This is an image of me, deep in the trenches, around a decade ago.
My husband would message from work each day and ask how 'things' were.
Some days, I couldn't speak. I'd send pictures. This was one of those days, and ...
Our child is struggling with demand avoidance and cannot complete simple, familiar tasks.
I've been reflecting on a powerful concept we discussed in our recent Q&A from inTune with PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance).
The art of living in the now, especially when supporting our children. I relate to this dee...
I will not wait until I’m in my last days.
So many people unconsciously spend (waste) their lives working toward what they hope will be peace, one day.
Work hard, then rest.
Main meal first, then dessert.
Wees first, then poos. (I made that one up because orde...
It never gets easier
It never gets easier, nor am I ever better prepared for the moments my autistic children (and I) are exposed to another parent’s grief stricken story about their autistic child.
I was conditioned to believe that the fir...
I have not yet rebuilt.
Hello, I’m here writing. It isn’t easy, and it isn’t complete.
Be patient with me, please, as I figure out a way to communicate this internalised experience, these thousands of thoughts, these physical movements that co...
When I give, I give myself.
Walt Whitman said "When I give, I give myself".
Both a blessing and a curse, this is something I am forever navigating and managing. I'm someone that loves to give, because it makes me feel good to see others doing well...
We're in this together.
I had a close friend and colleague reach out to me about six months ago to ask how I'd feel about them writing a book on parenting neurodivergent children. They know that I'm also working on this (insert laughter coupled...
PDAers don't make promises.
We have a saying in our family: "PDAers don't make promises".
It's a letting off the hook for all of us, because I can't tell you the amount of times adults try to bargain, not realising the demand that is wrapped up in...
You don't like the soup?
(ETA: This is not about being against therapy. It is a piece on the problematic nature of generic frameworks thrown at autistic people, rather than a consideration of the individual needs, wants, preferences and if there...