Understanding PDA
Plus a Playwriting Prompt from Maria Irene Fornes
PDA is something I’ve struggled with as a person who is Autistic and has ADHD. But anyone might relate to this or identify those they love who suffer from it.
PDA can occur in folks with or without an autism profile. What does PDA stand for? People can’t agree! Arguments swing between the worst: Pathological Demand Avoidance (so biased, sounds like a disease for criminals) to the snarky Please Don’t Ask that makes light of a potentially life-destroying problem.
When my father had lung cancer, I was his primary caregiver. I drove his Explorer to the hospital to see his team. He rode in the back in his plaid pajamas, his white robe, a scarf and slippers, the portable oxygen tank at his side, and the wheelchair folded up. His big sister who lived nearby met us there with his baby brother who had flown in from Kansas City. My middle-child father must have been used to these meetings since he often mentioned being called into the principle’s office in kindergarten for smoking.
The medical team made it clear that he would not be flying out to California to see his about-to-be-born first grandchild; he would not need a handicap license plate; and he should cancel next week’s eye appointment. We signed papers for hospice.
I will never forget his disbelief. Like Caesar surrounded by traitors, he looked at us asking, Really? That’s it? This is all I get?
As I began to help him back into the Explorer, he said, I want you to take Route 30. What? 476 is much faster and—we argued. I knew I was right. He knew he was dying.
He was only 62. He’d sold his company and retired early. He had owned buildings on Route 30. He worked in one for decades in a first floor corner office with an enormous leather-belted glass ashtray. Smoke so thick, he could barely see out to the parking lot or catch the corner of his favorite restaurant named for his brand, Winston’s. Beside that was a movie theatre, the music store where I took guitar lessons after school, a fancy candy shop, the tire place, and the tie-dyed headshop. There was a Roy Rogers where we fell in love with horseradish cream, and a Dunkins where a cup of coffee used to cost 40 cents. He wanted to drive past that stretch of buildings with the new knowledge that he would never see it again.
We were used to arguing with each other. It was how we communicated. But this time he wasn’t going to let me win. This time, without the energy to argue back, he said, Why do you always argue with me?
The question caught me. Not like a gut punch. More like a lightbulb fizzling trying to turn itself on, like a rainbow that couldn’t fully materialize, or a sunrise through thick clouds. He asked again, Why do you always argue?
He always argued too. As did my mother, who lost her last argument with cancer 40 years ago last week, age 44.
No statement in my childhood home ever went un-argued. Morning til midnight, every day was a series of fights. We only slept for the energy to fight again. Not because we liked to fight. It was a matter of survival.
What went through my mind as I buckled him into his seat and put his wheelchair behind him was a glimpse of sunshine behind clouds. I do always argue, I realized to myself. I do it before I think. It’s not a chosen response; it’s a reaction.
I react without thinking: fast, furious, fearless. Yet fear is a big part of it. Fear was turning over in my gut, churning bile and venom to nightmare. I felt the truth of it.
I drove Route 30. I remembered all the years he’d spent away from us. He’d come home for dinner and go back to the office to hang out with a friend who sold lists made by a machine called a computer. It took up half of one of his buildings and looked like a big filing cabinet, a strange mistress.
I drove slowly while he stared out the window. I remember being glad for once that he wasn’t paying any attention to me. He couldn’t see my face covered in tears.
That was the first time I became aware of something in me forcing me to react in a way I didn’t want to react. I’d been out of control before, but I’d never been aware of it as something I could think about or talk about or reflect on. I was 34 and undiagnosed. I didn’t know the words Autism or ADHD.
PDA, aka Pervasive Drive for Autonomy, is a Nervous System response to a perceived threat that causes an out of control need for control.
This is why I started to try to learn everything I could about the human nervous system. It’s why I teach my coaching groups about how it works, why it works, and how we can learn to regulate it. Often we think that how we show up is just how we are, but we are also biological and physiological. We have been shaped by how we’ve learned to regulate our nervous system since birth. There is so much we can do to change this.
While I can’t apologize to my Dad for that fight 25 years ago, I can offer myself compassion and forgive myself knowing that my neurology is not uncommon even though so few understood it until very recently.
THE PROMPT:
Here’s what I call a Selfie Prompt, taken from my love of artistic statements. A few years ago I began to create prompts from them. Here’s one from Maria Irene Fornes, not from any specific statement she wrote, but from some of my own take-aways when I was blessed to study with her while getting my MFA at the University of Iowa.
Do you write from an inspired state? This is where Irene wanted us to begin. That's why we ground ourselves in the body, breathe and close our eyes, soften the belly, notice the landscape of the interior, try to imagine from a place that is open to impulse. (This is how each Brave Space session begins, inspired by Irene.)
If we are not exercising our creativity, we are writing from what already exists. Irene wanted us to work from a creative system that allows for anything to happen. She wanted us to break through the rules and the monotony of how stories are told in order to discover something uniquely your own. Memory, Daydreams, Free Association all bypass the analytical brain that wants to structure a thing before we even know what it is. So here are a few of her exercises to subvert your logical mind:
Imagine a time before you turned 12 connected to an element (water, fire, air, earth)
Imagine a caregiver's (a parent or close relation) hands in detail, or their face or their naked back or feet, or watch them do something that they often did, something they knew well. Once you see something in great detail, open your eyes and describe it on the page - make a sketch, or write a prose description, or let it appear in lines of dialogue or as a scene. Let all ideas of product go and let yourself play.
Interrupt yourself or change directions at a random moment in your work with a non-sequitur. If you are interrupted while writing, use the interruption as an opportunity to loosen yourself up Irene Fornes-style by letting the interruption change things on the page too!
To do this you can take the interruption as a chance to grab a line or idea from a book nearby or the news, or use a word or a line from a conversation you've overheard. Irene used to call out a line of dialogue or an action in the middle of everyone writing. Often she gave us lines from her own plays! Let it shift the energy of what you're doing. Let it in.
Add a sensory detail: something a character sees or saw, a smell, a sound, a texture, a movement, something in the mouth tasted or craved, music, a strong sensation or feelings, intuitions.
Write as if you're devouring a delicious meal after fasting. Write as if you’re enjoying the cool mist of a waterfall or the warmth of a campfire. Write as if you're enjoying a sexual act.
Upcoming Saturday Classes on Zoom!
MAGICAL DIALOGUE Saturday August 16th 2-5pm Eastern Time EVENTS & REVERSALS Saturday August 30th 2-5pm Eastern Time
These are 2 really super classes for playwrights & anyone else who wants to understand how to create builds and pacing with dialogue & ways to get narrative to work better.
For more information CLICK HERE & scroll, For TESTIMONIALS CLICK HERE & scroll
Indivisible - OneMillionRising:
One Million Rising : I will be hosting a zoom call on Friday, August 8th, 7pm ET for anyone interested in strategic non-cooperation to fight authoritarianism. All are welcome. Please email me (emmagoldmansherman at gmail) if you’re interested in attending, and I’ll share the link! Why noncooperation? Because they are coming for immigrants, and if I don’t speak up, they will come for me too. Because non-cooperation is easier when you can stand with friends. Because a small group of people can change the world. And we will grow. I don’t necessarily know what to do, but I will not stand idly by while the country is destroyed. Join me!
Advanced Brave Group Coaching!
For those of you who have already done the 6 week group coaching, I’m offering support weekly on Wednesdays at 3pm ET. Let me know you’re planning to attend and I’ll send you the link. Next Advanced Group Coaching is Wednesday August 6th.
artwork by Scott Sherman at ScottShermanStudio on Instagram
Neuro-Affirming (NAF) Parts Work Group:
Meets Second Saturdays of each month (August 9th at 12pm ET - time zone converter here) to offer community, parts work experience and support for anyone neurodivergent (inclusive of Autism, ADHD, Audhd, OCD, cPTSD, traumatic brain injuries, and more).
You do not need an actual diagnosis to participate. Run by Emma and Jess (Level II), both of us Audhd, we are creating non-pathologizing and anti-ableist Parts Work content for healing and ease in neurodivergent systems. Sign up for our link here. Sliding scale from $5-25/session, but no one will be turned away.
Opportunities:
The Fall 2025 Workshop Writers Intensive for playwrights is now accepting applications for FREE development online! Due 8/4/25.
New Dramatists applications are due August 4th.
International Human Rights Art Festival open for 10-20 min self-produced submissions due August 15th. Stipend! To be performed in December at the Tank (NYC). More info here.
Enter the YALE Drama Series Competition deadline 8/15/25
Ixion seeks up to 8 scripts where DEFIANCE figures prominently to be considered for further development, including staged readings and possibly full production in June of 2026. No more than 4 actors. Simple setting. No more than 12 pages. Include only first initial and last name of author. Put script name and your last name in header or footer. Multiple subs allowed. No bios. Send to ixionensemble@gmail.comby 5 p.m. 9/30/25. Defiance can be in any form or any situation to explore relationships, dynamics and moments where opposition comes into play, could take on the relationship between a parent and child, and individual versus a collective or even a people versus an entity.
Women in the Arts & Media have a list of opps you can sign up to get monthly.
For poets, Two Sylvias Weekly Muse is a great community with classes and more! They are offering an Online Poetry Retreat this summer and early fall.
Go on a virtual Women’s Writing Retreat with the International Women’s Writing Guild this August 11th - August 15th!
Brave Space
With prompts, grounding practices, & discussions, Brave Space invites playwrights, poets, painters, potters, novelists, memoirists, musicians & artists working in any medium to make meaning in a safe community. Begin and/or bring your projects to completion.
Or use Brave Space as a body-doubling space to get other things done in community (write hard emails, clean out your closets).
$5-25 suggested per session. 4+x/week! On or off camera. No commitment, drop-ins welcome. Try it!
Female and nonbinary folks welcome any time. All Humans welcome on Sundays.
Brave Space Schedule:
Mondays & Wednesdays at 12pm ET; Fridays at 12pm ET w/fast feedback; and Sundays at 6pm ET with Sharing Second Sundays at 730pm ET (that means August 10th!!!) Email or reply for a link!
ACTUAL SCHEDULE: This week there is no Brave Space tomorrow, Friday, August 1st. But there will be Brave Space for All Humans on Sunday August 3rd at 6pm ET. And a regular week of MWF Brave Space at 12pm (with Fast Feedback Friday) and Brave Space for All Humans on Sunday 8/10 will happen as usual with Sharing at 730pm ET.
Amazing People Doing Amazing Things:
If you want to be listed here, please let me know what you’re up to and include your links!
Aug 9, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM in person Paterson Performing Arts Development Council's 2025 Hamilton Arts Festival (HAF) will present a staged reading of the play Covenant Farm written by Brigid Amos and directed by Anne DeMelo.
About the play: When a legal agreement resurfaces, it sets off a struggle among three women over the fate of a communal organic farm and forces them to reevaluate their life choices. Covenant Farm explores the conflict between following a passion and seeking security. WHERE: The Great Falls Center / 39 McBride Ave. Ext / Paterson, NJ 07501, USA $5.00 tickets available at: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/haf-playwight-showcase-covenant-farm Parking is available in the open lot across from the venue. Reading will be on the first floor. Entrance across from parking lot that says "Glenpro."
Jess Pearce and I collaborated on this offering on Insight Timer. Enjoy it here. (If you want more, come to NAF Parts Work every second Saturday!)
Three new micro-fictions of mine will be published in August in Boudin, the spicy online cousin to The McNeese Review. My award-winning poem, Minotaur in the Backyard, will be published in Gigantic Sequins this week! And my micro-chapbook, “Possible Paths for the Minotaur,” will drop online as part of the Ghost City Summer Series on July 31st (today)! Proceeds for this will go to the Trans Law Center. Plus Best MicroFictions 2025 was just named 1st Runner Up in the 2025 Eric Hoffer Awards and is available for purchase!
My friend and mentor Angela T. Carr at WORDBOX is an amazing poet. She’s been caught in a systemic governmental trap. You can help to alleviate her suffering while enjoying submissions opps and classes, prompts and workshops here - any help you can offer is welcome.
POLITICAL ACTION:
I suggest, instead of feeling helpless in the face of the news, ignore corporate media and get up-to-date on issues that are important to you. Seek out Substacks or youtube providers or other newsletters and news outlets beyond the corporate hegemony. Here are a few examples and other ways to focus on issues that may be of interest to you.
Get Involved:
Chop Wood, Carry Water - a substack by Jess Craven that helps me focus on political action.
Third Act - a community of older Americans coming together for political action.
What you need to know about ICE.
Fight for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
Writers for Democratic Action.
READ and SUBSCRIBE:
ABORTION EVERY DAY a substack by Jessica Valenti - support real research about what’s really happening. MEN, this is scary shit, and your support is needed and appreciated!
THE CRUCIAL YEARS a substack by Bill McKibben - climate change and ways to understand it and to actually do stuff about it.
ERIN in the Morning, by Erin Reed - news about the trans community.
The Intercept, 972mag, and Mondoweiss - independent news.
DONATE:
Give to the Middle Eastern Children’s Alliance
Give to Doctors Without Borders
6 Ways to Support Palestine
Donate for Civilians in Palestine
Lovely piece Emma, thank you as ever for your wise words. And congrats on your chapbook being published! Very exciting.
“Do I write from an inspired state.” Such a great question to ask. I also appreciate the invite to stop and breathe, taking the time to write prose first before dialogue. Thank you for sharing your story and for the prompt Emma.