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.

There is a common expression that irks me. “Rules are made to be broken.” I am sure you can guess why. I firmly believe it should be something like “Records are meant to be broken” (Please don’t break my LPs).

On Monday an amusing thing happened and I had to explain this concept to one of our Senior Staff. On Monday we had our Art Expo Gallery Event. The children have been preparing their art to put on display. On Monday afternoon, that had a lot of Art related activities including a Gallery Walk.

Before the Gallery Walk we introduced the Rules of a Gallery. Our Art teacher prepared a video and slide show for us to go over with our class. The Rules are simple, and for use in a real Museum or Art Gallery.

• Do not touch the art.
• Stay back behind the barriers
• Let others around you see the art. (Don’t block the way)
• Quiet.
• No photos.
• No eating near the art.

Shortly after this, one of my autistic students noticed our Head of School walking around near our classroom. They took out their Phone to take pictures of the Art. My student immediately went outside and quietly talked with the School head. I did not hear what he was saying, but then I was approached, respectfully, to ask about the rules. Apparently my student has asked him not to take pictures of the art.

I wanted to laugh, and it took me a moment to respond. I informed him that these were the rules set up by the Head Art Teacher. Then I asked him to follow the rules. He thanked me and left. When I was eating lunch, later, I finally got the words to explain, and sent him a message.

You see in most autistic heads, a rule is a rule. If there are exceptions, it is not a rule. We can and do learn about exceptions and the reason behind them, but when we are young it is hard. Autistic children will get stuck on analyzing what the exceptions are. They wonder if what they are going to do fits into those classifications. They will not ever be sure if what they are doing is alright, or not.

If they do it and nobody catches them, it reinforces their belief. They think this must be one of the exceptions. Then they are caught doing it wrong later. They get confused. They have to go back to trying to figure out what is ok and what is not.

In a school setting where rules may differ from home, this can cause a lot of confusion.

Children are not the only ones lost by this. Rules are created for a reason. In our minds, there must be a reason for these rules. Often they are safety, and following them will keep us from harm. Sometimes they are respectful, and disobeying will cause someone to be angry with us. No autistic person wants this, it does not “run off our backs like a duck.” Rules can be there to protect things, like our history, or other people’s property. We don’t want others breaking our things, and so empathize with them.

There are so many times, where my Mask and My need for following rules have clashed. Other Autists have this issue to. We often feel pressure to fit in and look like everyone else. This is how we keep our Mask up. But when everyone else is breaking a clearly stated Rule, it drives us nuts.

When I was studying to be a teacher, I had to deal with this. In the Men’s bathroom was this big no Smoking Sign. Daily, there was people standing next to it, or leaning against it smoking. I would ask them to go outside to smoke. The common argument was they didn’t want to go down to the first floor to smoke. Eventually, the building allowed smoking on the Fire Escape at the higher floors. We were on the 4th floor.

I handled this by going down to the 3rd floor. Alternatively, I would go up to the 5th floor to use the bathroom. This of course made people see me in a negative light. I was being a snob.

One of my early Schools actually had a fire. The auditorium caught fire. Did we follow the Fire escape plan we had practiced over and over again? Did we call the fire department? No. The fire had taken out the fire alarm for that building. Local Teachers were herding kids back into their buildings to not miss class. and the PE teachers began getting the fire hose out to put out an electrical fire.

I did my best to keep staff and teachers out of the building, and herd them to the safe zone. Two other foreigners did the same. I was so upset. Teachers and children could have died. The school was only worried about their test scores and reputation. They ordered us not to talk about it again.

I am glad I left that school.

Rules are here for a reason. And that reason isn’t so you can break them to look cool. They are not a challenge to accept. They are not there for fun.