When support feels like a demand
Written by Dr Theresa Kidd
We often think of support as something that makes life easier.
We offer help because we want to reduce someone's stress, make daily life more manageable or help them move towards something that’s meaningful to them. But sometimes, even well-intentioned support can feel like another demand, particularly when we are already overwhelmed.
This can be easy to miss.
We might hear…
“Come to therapy,”
“Tell me what's wrong,”
“Choose what you want to do,” or
“Try this strategy,”
and these can seem like reasonable and helpful suggestions.
Yet when our capacity is already stretched, each of these requests can add to the load. We may want the support but not have the capacity to engage with it in the way that we can when we aren't feeling overwhelmed.
This is particularly important when we think about Autism, PDA and burnout. When our capacity is low, tasks that would normally be relatively straightforward can suddenly feel enormous. Making and getting to an appointment, responding to a message, making a decision or explaining what is wrong can all require more effort than we might realise.
When we aren't engaging with support, the response can sometimes be to increase the support. We might be offered more prompts, more structure, more encouragement or another strategy. But increasing the pressure can sometimes make tasks harder rather than easier. We may withdraw, shut down, become distressed or appear to be avoiding the very thing that we believe would help.
It is tempting to interpret this as a lack of willingness. But willingness and capacity aren't the same thing. We can genuinely want to do something and still be unable to do it at that particular time. We can want therapy and find attending an appointment overwhelming. We can want to connect with someone and not have the capacity to respond to a message. We can want to make a change but find the steps involved too much to manage.
This is one reason I think it is useful to ask ourselves whether we are looking at willingness, or whether we are looking at capacity.
We also need to be careful about assuming that giving us more choices will always feel more autonomous. Choice can be an important part of supporting autonomy, but making choices also takes cognitive and emotional resources. When we are overwhelmed, being asked whether we would prefer A, B or C can sometimes feel like another task we have to complete.
Supporting autonomy isn't simply about providing more choices. It is about creating the conditions in which we have genuine influence over what happens to us.
Sometimes that means offering choices.
Sometimes it means reducing the number of decisions we need to make.
Sometimes it means saying, “We don't need to decide that today.”
For PDAers, the experience of demand can be particularly important.
It isn't simply about whether we are capable of doing something. The way a request is experienced, our sense of autonomy and control, our current stress level, the relationship we have with the person making the request and the context in which it occurs can all influence our ability to engage.
This doesn't mean that expectations disappear, or that we can always remove demands from our lives. It does mean that we can be more thoughtful about how we approach them. Connection, trust and safety can create very different conditions for participation than pressure, persuasion or control.
So rather than asking, “How do we get them to engage?” it can be more useful to ask, “What might make engagement feel possible?”
Sometimes the answer will be practical. Perhaps the environment needs to be quieter, the appointment needs to be shorter, there needs to be more processing time, or communication needs to happen in a different way. Sometimes it might mean reducing the number of decisions or expectations. And sometimes the most helpful thing may be to slow down and spend some time building trust before asking someone to participate.
This way of thinking also asks us to look beyond the individual. When someone is struggling, our instinct can be to look for the strategy that will help them cope better. But sometimes the more useful question is what we can change around the person.
What demands can be reduced?
What could be made more predictable?
What could be communicated differently?
Is there something about the environment, relationship or expectations that is contributing to the difficulty?
Our response can give us useful information about what is happening for us.
Support works best when it feels supportive. That doesn't mean we need to remove every challenge or expectation. It means paying attention to capacity, autonomy and connection, and being willing to adjust our approach when what we are offering is creating more pressure.
Sometimes helping ourselves or someone else move forward isn't about finding another strategy or asking us to try harder. Sometimes it is about creating enough safety and space to find our way forward when we have the capacity to do so.
PDA Space Summit
Living in Survival Mode: Understanding and Managing Burnout for PDA Adults
Melanie Turner and I will be exploring this topic further at the online PDA Space Summit in October, where we’ll be presenting Living in Survival Mode: Understanding and Managing Burnout for PDA Adults.
Burnout can significantly change our capacity to manage everyday demands, and for PDA adults, the experience of living with high levels of demand, stress and nervous system activation can be particularly complex. In our talk, we’ll explore what survival mode can look like, how we can recognise when capacity is being depleted, and what can help us move towards recovery in ways that respect autonomy rather than adding more pressure.
If this is something you’d like to explore further, free tickets are available for the PDA Space Summit. You can register using the link below.
