Was I a Rebel Without a Cause?

When I was younger, I suppose people may have seen me as a rebel without a cause.

I questioned people.

I challenged authority.

I did not like being told what to do.

The harder someone pushed me, the more I pushed back.

To other people, it may have looked as though I was deliberately being difficult. As though I simply refused to conform or thought the rules did not apply to me.

But I was never a rebel without a cause.

The cause was real.

Nobody could see it because I could not explain it myself.

What if it was PDA?

Now that I understand more about PDA, I look back at my younger self differently.

PDA is commonly understood as a demand-avoidant profile found in some autistic people. A demand or expectation can create intense anxiety and a feeling that control or autonomy is being taken away. The response may become fight, flight, freeze, fawn or complete shutdown rather than a calm, deliberate decision to be uncooperative.

That is the part people do not always understand.

It is not simply:

“I don’t want to do it.”

It can feel more like:

“I cannot let you control me.”

“I need to get out of this.”

“I feel trapped.”

“I need to take back control before I lose myself.”

The demand might seem small to somebody else, but inside, it can feel enormous.

Your body can react before you have even had time to think.

You may argue.

You may refuse.

You may make excuses.

You may walk away.

You may become angry.

You may do the complete opposite of what has been asked.

You might even want to do something, but the moment somebody turns it into a demand, it suddenly feels impossible.

That is not rebellion without a cause.

That is a real response to feeling controlled.

The harder they pushed, the harder I fought

When somebody believes you are just being defiant, they often become stricter.

They repeat the instruction.

They raise their voice.

They add consequences.

They remind you who is in charge.

But for someone experiencing PDA, more control can create more panic.

The more they push, the more trapped you feel.

The more trapped you feel, the harder you fight to regain control.

Then people point to your reaction as proof that you are badly behaved.

They do not see that their approach may be increasing the distress.

They see someone refusing to cooperate.

They do not feel the fear, anger, pressure or desperation underneath it.

I did not have the words

I could not have explained any of this when I was younger.

I did not know what PDA was.

I did not know why being told what to do could create such a powerful feeling inside me.

I did not know how to say:

“The way you are speaking to me is making me feel trapped.”

“I need some control over what is happening.”

“I may be able to do this, but not while I feel forced.”

So perhaps I communicated it in the only way I knew how.

I fought back.

I refused.

I challenged.

I became the rebel.

Other people saw the behaviour, but they did not understand what the behaviour was protecting.

The rebellion may have been protection

Looking back, I wonder whether some of my rebellion was actually self-protection.

Perhaps I was protecting my autonomy.

Perhaps I was protecting myself from feeling controlled.

Perhaps I was fighting against pressure that felt unbearable, even when nobody else understood why.

That does not mean every reaction was right.

It does not mean that every difficult moment was caused by PDA.

I cannot go back and diagnose my younger self.

But understanding PDA gives me a different way of looking at the person I was.

It replaces blame with understanding.

Maybe I was not difficult for the sake of being difficult.

Maybe I was responding to something very real happening inside me.

We were never rebels without a cause

How many autistic people grew up being called stubborn, defiant, controlling, dramatic or rebellious?

How many were punished because nobody recognised that demands could make them feel frightened, trapped or as though they were losing control of themselves?

People saw the fight.

They did not understand what caused it.

That is why these words mean so much to me:

“They called us rebels without a cause because nobody stopped to ask what we were fighting against.”

We may have been fighting against being controlled.

We may have been fighting against expectations that overwhelmed us.

We may have been fighting to keep hold of our autonomy.

We may have been fighting to protect ourselves when we did not yet have the words to explain how we felt.

I was not a rebel without a cause.

The cause was real.

It was just invisible to everyone else.