I hear that voice in my head all the time. It sounds simple, even logical. But for someone like me—someone with PDA, or Pathological Demand Avoidance—it can be a trap. It’s not about being lazy. It’s not even about not wanting to do something. It’s about the pressure of expectations—external or internal—triggering such intense stress that avoidance feels like the only option.

That stress isn’t always visible. It builds up slowly. Sometimes the energy and effort required to do a task is so overwhelming that not doing it feels safer. And often, we’ve learned from experience that doing it wrong is worse than not doing it at all. When we do push through, only to be told we didn’t do it right, we carry that humiliation for a long time. Every task comes with mental calculations: Who’s watching? What are their expectations? What’s the risk of failure?

So I avoid. Or delay. I need time to think—time to process what I’m doing, and why. Can I copy what others are doing and just get through it? Yes. But then I second-guess everything afterward. If I didn’t fully think it through, I worry it will fall apart.

I know that most neurotypical—or allistic—people don’t face these hurdles every time they try to do something “simple.” And that knowledge causes real pain. I should be able to start this assignment, finish this marking, plan this lesson. But when it takes me hours to even begin, it’s easier to avoid it entirely. And even when I manage to catch up, it’s easy to fall back into the same cycle.

This usually starts when routines are disrupted. If a lesson plan I’ve worked hard on falls apart, I scramble to adapt. Plan A fails, then Plan B, then Plan C. Afterward, when I’m supposed to be marking or prepping for the next day, I get stuck. My brain fogs over. I can’t focus until I’ve figured out what went wrong. But I can’t figure that out because I’m still exhausted from all the quick changes. Small adjustments I can handle. Tossing the whole plan out the window? That’s draining.

And so, the backlog begins. I bring that pile of unmarked work home with me, too tired to process anything. If I push through the exhaustion and mark it anyway, I don’t have time to properly rework the next lesson. And then the cycle repeats. My planning suffers. I fall behind again. And I start to believe it’s all going to collapse.

Eventually, I begin to feel like I’m going to fail anyway. So why try?

I get anxious when I’m asked to speak with my administrators. If my principal or vice principal want to talk, I spiral. Even if they tell me what the meeting is about, it doesn’t matter. I assume I’ve screwed something up. I should have done it better. I should have anticipated this. I should have known.

That waiting period—the gap between the message and the meeting—can paralyze me. I can’t eat. I can’t mark. I can’t plan. I can print worksheets, maybe. But my brain is busy replaying everything I did wrong and everything I should’ve done differently. I’m sure my coworkers would’ve gotten it right. I’m sure they wouldn’t be in this situation.

And then come the mental spirals: Will I need to rework the month’s lessons? Add new homework? Change the layout of my classroom? I can’t do all of that—not when my mind is conjuring worst-case scenarios and I’m already emotionally maxed out.

Sometimes I try to force my way through it—just get the work done. But then I make mistakes. I mark things wrong. I prep the wrong materials. I’m not really processing what I’m looking at. So I have to redo it. Not once—three times—just to be sure it’s right. That’s three times the effort while in a state of brain fog caused by PDA and that ever-lingering impostor syndrome.

And even then, I’m full of questions: Is my feedback targeted enough? Is red pen okay? Should I correct every mistake, or will that demotivate the student? If I only correct the objective, will someone complain? Should I teach what the children need, or what the parents expect?

If I get called in for a meeting, I don’t feel like a professional—I feel like a child sent to the principal’s office. I don’t know what I did wrong. I just know I must have done something. I’m often on the edge of tears before the meeting even begins.

Two years ago, I did cry. Things were happening back in Canada that I couldn’t control. I was told I might lose my mother. So when I got called into the office, I broke down. I couldn’t stop.

Today, it happened again—though not quite the same. I had a meeting that turned out to be about nothing. But the anticipation had already locked me up. I nearly went mute. I couldn’t think clearly. I was trying so hard not to let anyone see how knotted up I was inside. A student asked me what was wrong, and I couldn’t answer. I later explained a little to my team lead, but I still couldn’t shake the thought that I’d somehow failed.

I got nothing done. No food. No marking. Just me, staring at the table for two hours, trying to get back on track.

If I freeze, avoid, or fall behind—it’s not because I don’t care. It’s because I care too much. I’m running a mental marathon just to stay upright. Sometimes what I need most isn’t a solution, but space, patience, and the chance to catch my breath.

Yesterday during my men’s group we discussed dangerous and scary situations we had found ourselves in. A few of the men in my group began talking about situations on mountains. This brought back a memory I have of mountains that I shared. And it made me think about other situations in my life.

I don’t know how old I was, but I was not old. We used to drive around and through the mountains of B.C. when I was young. From home to town, home to school, home to anywhere, you needed to go through the mountains. They were beautiful. I still love the mountains, but do not enjoy climbing them.

One day, while we were driving, my brothers and my father discovered a cave up one of the mountain sides next to the road. I don’t remember whose Idea it was, but it was decided to stop and check it out. I’m sure it wasn’t far up, but to me it seemed very high. This mountain was covered with shale, and rubble, so it was not easy for me to climb. I complained that I was scared of what might be in the mountains, and was having a hard time climbing.

Dad guided me to a tree and told me to hold it. Then he left me there to take my brothers up to the cave. I had visions of bears, or monsters or many other things in the caves hurting my family. I honestly thought they were not coming back for me. I started to cry and scream. It felt like an eternity for me to be holding tight to a tree on the side of the mountain thinking that I had either been abandoned, or lost my family to Bigfoot or a bear in the cave.

They came back, and scolded me for screaming. Apparently they had wanted to explore the cave more, but heard me screaming, so turned around to get me instead.

It’s hard to recover from that. I thought I would be alone forever (A constant anxiety growing up), I thought I had lost my family. I thought I had ruined everyone’s time and was a burden to everyone.

I always worried about being alone, and being a burden. From then on I tried to be there with my family, even if it was terrifying. Because being alone was worse.

I remember coming home many times from school and crying as I got home. Telling mom I was scared of being alone forever.

My wife sometimes teases me for being so stubborn about caring for my family, and making sure we are together as much as we can. I get it, but I still feel lost on the mountain sometimes, alone. But at least I can make sure my children don’t feel that way.