Keeping myself alive is killing me
My experience with PDA and the cost of surviving a system not built for me
You're hiking in a field along a well-trodden path. Other hikers spoke highly of this trail, so you were eager to try it. But now that you're here, something feels wrong. You can't see it, but you’re certain something’s watching you.
You’d asked about potential dangers, and the others had laughed. There’s nothing out there, they said. It’s just an open field.
But you swear you can feel eyes on you.
You tell yourself not to be ridiculous, but that doesn't stop the sinking feeling in your stomach. You begin to tremble as adrenaline rushes through you. Your hair stands on end. A sickening feeling overwhelms you: I'm going to die.
This same sickening dread is what I experience any time an obligation is placed on me. I have something called PDA – Persistent Drive for Autonomy, also known more officially but less kindly as Pathological Demand Avoidance.
I'm trying to figure out how to make you understand the weight of this fact, because I know there's a chance you're currently rolling your eyes.
But I'm not being dramatic, and it's not something I can simply get over – I have no say in it, in fact. My sympathetic nervous system activates on its own in response to a trigger, just like yours probably would if you saw a bear (or a gilet-wearing finance bro). It just so happens my body perceives demands as a physical threat, no matter how pleasant or unpleasant the demand is, and no matter how much I do or do not want to fulfil the demand.
The problem is, capitalism is built on obligation. It turns basic needs into transactions. In a world designed to let you die if you don't have the money to feed, clothe and house yourself, every money-making task becomes a demand.
This means I have to struggle against my chemistry every single day. And it comes at a cost.
Even if I manage the demands of daily living – like going to work – doing so requires me to suppress the stress and anxiety that arises, and this anxiety compounds the longer I need to suppress it.
Get over yourself, I imagine you thinking. It’s just a bit of anxiety.
Except chronic anxiety isn’t just a mood. It’s a full-body state that corrodes over time. In the short term, it floods me with adrenaline and cortisol, elevating my heart rate, tightening my muscles, scrambling my ability to think clearly. My digestion slows. My sleep suffers. I get sick more easily.1
In the long term, that state becomes a pattern. The stress hormones alters my brain, messing with the parts that help with memory and decision-making.2 My nervous system gets stuck in high alert. It shows up in my blood pressure, my immune system, my gut, my energy levels, my ability to function at all.3 It's not sustainable.
Anxiety disorders were associated with a significantly increased mortality risk4
So when I say that keeping myself alive is killing me, I’m not being metaphorical.
Until recently, I had secretly hoped freelance work would be the answer. It allows for more autonomy than a corporate job, so it had to be a better fit for me.
But last week when it looked like I might get my first freelance client, the same sickening dread overcame me. It weighed me down for days – I couldn’t focus on my day job, and I couldn’t enjoy my free time. I spent a lot of time in bed feeling like I was being dangled over a cliff’s edge.
If something like Universal Basic Income were in place – enough to cover food, shelter and the basics – my life would open up in ways I can barely fathom. My days could be led by my curiosity and shaped by my capacity. The daily panic might ease. I might live as long as my peers.
And I know I'm not the only one. There are so many of us who are struggling, not because we’re lazy or unwilling. We're just exhausted.
A guaranteed income would be a huge step toward a gentler and more humane world, and it’s something I plan to fight for… as much as my PDA will allow.
Late-stage updates
This week in capitalist whatthefuckery
This week I want to use this section to share something that happened recently at work.
Last week I mentioned my employer is going through restructuring (layoffs) and that we had a company-wide Q&A session with leadership. Naturally, a majority of the questions asked were about restructuring. People are worried about their jobs.
As the session was wrapping up, the CEO was asked if he had any closing remarks. He paused a moment before speaking like a disappointed parent – the C-suite had spent the majority of the time being asked about the restructuring and not about the industry or the business itself. It’s human, he said, to be worried during this time but we’re losing focus on the important things.
That’s not verbatim but near enough. I can’t bring myself to listen to what he said again – it makes my blood boil. This is the man who earns five hundred times what the average employee does, and he was admonishing us for not caring about his business enough. It’s unreal.
Shiny things from the curio cabinet
Things I’m noticing, loving or want to share
I’m a slow reader, and I started using Goodreads in 2010. Together these two facts mean I’ve built up an unrealistically-long to-read list over the years.
My tastes have changed a lot during this time too – even books I marked as ‘want to read’ only three years ago tend to not interest me any longer.
So, in pockets of free time over the past few weeks, I’ve been going through the books on my ‘want to read’ list and removing ones I no longer, well, want to read. And so far I’ve removed over 250 books! Super satisfying.
Ideally I’d like to have no more than 100 books on this list – so it feels like I have a chance of actually reading them all one day 🙃 – but we’ll see, because currently there are 500….
If you use Goodreads or StoryGraph, feel free to add me:
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Thanks for reading! See you next week.
McEwen, 2007. Physiology and neurobiology of stress and adaptation. Physiological Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.00041.2006
Lupien, McEwen, Gunnar & Heim, 2009. Effects of stress throughout the lifespan. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2639
Juster, McEwen & Lupien, 2010. Allostatic load and chronic stress. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2009.10.002
Meier et al., 2016. Mortality in people with anxiety disorders. European Neuropsychopharmacology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroneuro.2016.01.006