Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Welcome back, everybody, to another fabulous conversation on the Parenting with Impact podcast. I am super excited to have this conversation today. My guest is Kristie Forbes, and she's going to tell you about herself in a moment.

But not only am I psyched about what we're going to talk about—because she’s really got an expertise in an area that is rare and that I have been curious about and learning about for 10 years—but it’s very rare to find somebody who can really talk about this syndrome.

We’re going to talk about Pathological Demand Avoidance syndrome, or I may have the language wrong, and so she’s going to correct me in a moment.

But I’m also excited because Kristie and I have been trying to schedule this conversation for, I don’t know, four months or something. We’ve been going back and forth, back and forth.

So actually connecting with each other—from Melbourne, Australia, to Atlanta, Georgia—and finding that sweet spot is always a challenge. So I’m particularly excited to have you here. Kristie, welcome, and thank you for being here.

Kristie Forbes: Thank you for having me. I must say, I think you’re being very kind when you say four months because I’m sure—

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It’s longer.

Kristie Forbes: Yes, I’m equally as excited to be here.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: We started today, and Kristie told me she thought I might be the most patient person in the world. And I asked if she could please tell my kids. My business partner.

No, really—we’re going to have a great conversation. So kick us off! Tell us a little bit about what you do with families of complex kids and how you came to be doing this work.

Kristie Forbes: So I am an adult complex kid.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Kristie Forbes: Actually, I’m a complex adult. So I am autistic, ADHD, and PDA myself. And I’m the parent of four children who are also autistic. Three of them are PDA, and they are all ADHD as well. I’m an educator, and I create principled spaces for families that are communal—spaces for learning about and exploring neurodivergent family lifestyle and culture.

These are for families raising neurodivergent children who aren’t able to access the support they need openly outside of a private space because of fear of judgment, criticism, and all that lovely stuff that comes along with raising neurodivergent children.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: You were talking earlier about a positive neurodivergent environment.

Kristie Forbes: Yes, positive neurodivergent identity and culture. And part of that culture is the way we raise our children, the way we look after our own essential individual needs.

All of that is part of neurodivergent culture. Whether you’re neurodivergent or not, if you’re raising neurodivergent children, then you are living inside the bounds of neurodivergent culture.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. And most of us listening to this podcast would fall right into that realm.

Kristie Forbes: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So I want to talk about PDA. But before we do, how did you get from a point where—you mentioned earlier you weren’t diagnosed with ADHD until much later. How did you get to 33 without having the autism diagnosis identified? Because that’s really your first major turning point.

Kristie Forbes: Yeah, I think a healthy dose of neurotypical shaming creates that kind of thing in childhood. And when I say "healthy," obviously, I’m being sarcastic.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Kristie Forbes: Yeah, growing up masking really, really well. And for those who aren’t aware of what masking is, it’s when you’re neurodivergent, and you learn to fit in and adapt by shutting down your organic neurodivergent expressions, like stimming—all the things we do to create balance and regulate ourselves.

So I became a great observer of the identities that society placed on me. I learned what those identities were. For example, being a young female, I knew what that meant. I observed and received very strong messaging about what it meant to be a girl—it meant being quiet and polite.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And a good girl.

Kristie Forbes: Yes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Kristie Forbes: But aside from all of that, I grew up in a family that is just so neurodivergent. I mean, my ancestry is just riddled with neurodivergent people.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I love it.

Kristie Forbes: And so, yeah, that becomes your normal. And I didn’t realize that. I knew I was different, but I just thought, "Well, my whole family is like this, so I’m sure there are lots of different people out there." And of course, there are, but not in the way I thought.

But then as I got older, I started hearing more within my family—conversations about anxiety disorders and medical terminology. So I didn’t relate to that because I thought, "Okay, I am different. I do process information differently. I feel different.

I know I’m really sensitive." But I just never thought of myself as being medically disordered. So I guess that’s why I didn’t ever think I was autistic—because the messaging out there about autism was that it was a medical disorder.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And in those days, it still wasn’t for girls.

Kristie Forbes: I mean—

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: For the most part, right?

Kristie Forbes: It’s the same. We’re still thinking about autism like it’s a small white boy rocking in a corner or spinning toys. So many people still don’t know what autism really means. But inside of that, I was school-refusing, I was in trouble with the law as a teenager, I was violent towards my parents and in my family home.

I was placed into isolation at school. I had a lot of mental health issues. And at 16, I was placed into a psychiatric facility. But nobody ever gave me a diagnosis of anything—not even a mental illness or anything like that.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It was just behavioral. It was just a behavior problem.

Kristie Forbes: Yes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, amazing.

Kristie Forbes: Yes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, I can’t believe that. I feel for you—my heart goes out to you. We were talking earlier about why we both do this work, and we do this work so that kids today can grow up feeling fully able to express who they are in the world—not grow up having to hide or, as you said, "mask really well," but instead be allowed to be full expressions of themselves. But that is not the world you and I grew up in.

Kristie Forbes: No, it’s not. And I think on top of the masking, there is residual trauma.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Kristie Forbes: That’s unrecognized. It comes along with shutting down our inherent selves. Which is something else that you and I were talking about earlier. For me personally, being neurodivergent—autistic, ADHD, PDA—that’s my identity and culture, not my medical disorders.

And so, yeah, I think not being able to live in alignment with that for 33 years… How could there not be trauma? How could there not be?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, Gabor Maté says, trauma isn’t what happened to you—it’s how the adults around you as a child responded to what was happening to you. And that’s exactly what you’re describing—the response was to quash, to shut down—

Kristie Forbes: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Who you really were. So most of the people listening will have some familiarity with ADHD and autism, right? I would say everybody in our community has a fairly good sense of what that is. Part of me would like to spend another conversation with you—and maybe we can do that—to go down a deeper rabbit hole on autism.

But today, I’d really like to talk about PDA because it’s not a diagnosis that’s recognized in the United States. It’s one that I discovered about a decade or so ago through a group doing autism research in the UK. So, can you tell us about what it is and anything you want to share about it?

Kristie Forbes: So PDA—Pathological Demand Avoidance. I think, in psychology, we tend to fixate on the most predominant behavior and then create a label from that. Inside of the adult PDA community, many of us prefer the term Persistent or Pervasive Demand for Autonomy or Drive for Autonomy rather than Pathological Demand Avoidance.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Say it again—Persistent Demand for Autonomy. Love that.

Kristie Forbes: Yes, or Persistent Drive for Autonomy. It is an expression of autism. So, you cannot be PDA without being autistic. It is a subtype of autism—that’s what the research reflects at the moment. And, as you know, the research is really young, having started in the UK. So, what can I say about it? It is—

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So let’s describe what it is because it sounds frightening. Some people hear "Pathological Demand Avoidance," and it’s an alarming term—although I love your reframe of the language, so thank you for that. Persistent Demand for Autonomy. So, the reflection is someone wanting a sense of control or autonomy. Is that how it manifests?

Kristie Forbes: That’s what it looks like, yeah. I think the most important thing for people to know is that this is not a conscious choice. It’s a neurobiological drive that we have very little say in. What it looks like on the outside is a person—if we think about childhood, because it often presents very differently in childhood. Children don’t have much control over their environment, so those behavioral outcomes tend to be more visible.

What that will look like is a child who struggles to comply with everyday demands or expectations. Those expectations can range from putting shoes on when asked, going to school, showering, brushing teeth—even something as simple as being asked to close a door. Anything that feels like it’s been chosen for us, or isn’t coming from our own decisions, can trigger extreme levels of anxiety.

But that anxiety manifests very differently compared to a child with, say, generalized anxiety. We don’t always appear nervous. Instead, we might appear competitive or—

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Positional is the word that’s often used.

Kristie Forbes: Yes, absolutely. And it can get really ugly because the issue is, as parents, we’ve been conditioned over centuries to be in charge, to tell our children what to do.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Learn when to do it, how to do it, and for how long to do it.

Kristie Forbes: Yes. And for a child with a PDA expression, every demand—big or small—equates to anxiety, extreme anxiety, severe anxiety, and trauma.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Shutdown.

Kristie Forbes: Yes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Or pushback.

Kristie Forbes: And the more that happens, the more the child will withdraw over time—until they won’t leave their room. Their threat response is activated constantly. This is what happens with a PDA brain: our threat response is activated consistently, and it’s very, very hard for it to de-escalate.

Especially when we don’t know our child has PDA, and we don’t have the right way of communicating or managing life in place.

When that threat response is activated, we are constantly, unconsciously scanning—

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Adding reference points. Yep.

Kristie Forbes: And threat can look like a million different things. It can even be something as subtle as a person who feels "off." When I say that, I mean a child might walk into a classroom and meet a new teacher for the first time.

If the teacher is insecure, unsure of themselves, or doesn’t know how to handle a situation—if the teacher is seeking compliance over building a relationship—that’s going to shut down the child’s connection with that teacher, potentially for good.

So, relationship and connection are everything. Transparency and honesty are everything.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Kristie Forbes: What happens is, we don’t get a choice about this. If my neurobiology picks up on something it perceives as a threat, my threat response doesn’t know the difference between standing in the road with a bus coming toward me and being asked to do my homework. They are both threats.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Or, to the person experiencing it, they feel equally threatening.

Kristie Forbes: Absolutely. The body is wise—neurobiology is wise—and it doesn’t care about the details. So, a parent might say, “Homework is really good for you to practice your writing skills,” but the amygdala doesn’t care about that. It just wants to know, “Are we going to survive this?” Its one job is to keep me alive, and if it senses that something is a threat, it will employ a range of strategies and tactics to prevent me from engaging with that demand.

So, it might look like an outright “No, I’m not doing it.” That’s actually a panic attack—it’s not insubordination, it’s a panic attack. It might manifest as a migraine, shutting down, becoming nauseated, or running away. We are trying to escape what feels like a life-or-death situation.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And that’s a very reasonable way to respond if it feels like a life-or-death situation.

Kristie Forbes: Yes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It actually makes perfect sense that kids would respond in this way. I want to check in on something because, as I mentioned, I learned about this many years ago when I read about it. I believed my eldest child had this, and when I shared it with them, they agreed with me.

Some of the things I remember reading about it were kind of obscure. For example, I recall that PDA individuals often have a particularly high acuity for language. Is that still considered accurate? Ten years ago, it was noted that many PDA individuals were gifted with language, as opposed to the common stereotype of autism being associated with nonverbal traits.

And I also remember something about playing with little characters and creating intricate worlds with them. Am I misremembering, or is this still considered accurate?

Kristie Forbes: Well, I think those things have been expanded on over time. They’re definitely recognized as characteristics. The first one, around language, has been shifted into a social characteristic. For instance, we can appear more adept at socializing. Foundationally, though, there’s this perception that we lack depth socially—which is such a lovely thing to have to say about yourself during a chat!

But what it can look like is having a very articulate way of expressing ourselves through language—being able to communicate really well and having a broad vocabulary. I agree with you, though, that this isn’t mutually exclusive from being autistic. It ties in with different autistic expressions.

The point is that people can overestimate our abilities based on how we communicate. In social situations, we might make better eye contact or appear more confident. But for me, personally, that’s something I taught myself over time—making eye contact so that people wouldn’t place demands on me or question whether I was in control. It’s a strategy I’ve developed to keep people at bay.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I understand completely.

Kristie Forbes: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And what about the characters? Expand on that because that one really struck me.

Kristie Forbes: Yeah, so roleplay—that’s something we’re very interested in, and we often use it as a technique to navigate life. Many children will take on characters. This ties in with what’s often referred to as “special interests” in autistic individuals, although I try not to use that term because it’s quite pathologizing. They’re passions.

One difference—and I’m going to stereotype a little—is that if we think of the most commonly understood passions of autistic children, we’re often talking about things like dinosaurs, trains, and similar topics.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Kristie Forbes: So, for people with a PDA expression, our passions generally revolve around philanthropy, psychology, sociology, and things like sports stars or pop stars. But a common theme amongst PDA children is that we often gravitate toward villains and anti-heroes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I was just going to ask you that! That’s so crazy. I was thinking, could it be because of a fascination with the macabre and forensics? A lot of parents worry when their kids are interested in something dark, but I often find it’s a strangely healthy expression to navigate fear.

Kristie Forbes: Yes, exactly. A lot of parents, before their children are identified as PDA, will have already gone down the path of wondering if their child has antisocial personality disorder. They’ll even ask, “Is my child a sociopath or a psychopath?” Although we don’t use those terms anymore, they can look the same.

But there are good reasons why young people, particularly those with PDA, might identify with anti-heroes or villains. It’s because we have this internal conflict. We’re constantly receiving feedback that we are bad, and that what we’ve done is wrong. Sometimes, that anti-hero or villain is the only representation in media that even remotely reflects how we feel inside.

And when we think about media for children, it’s almost always based on characters who are good—the heroes doing great things. For children with a PDA expression, though, if we’re having meltdowns, being violent, or destroying other people’s things because we perceive a power imbalance, we might seek to balance it. I have an example from when I was seven years old in Grade Two that I’ve never forgotten. Our own behavior can shock us sometimes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Kristie Forbes: I remember being in line, and a girl in my class saying, "I have all these Easter eggs. If anybody would like one, you need to line up at recess and wait patiently, and I might give you one." Everybody was lining up, begging for these chocolate eggs and doing all the things she was telling them. And me, being a PDA, I was like, “No, this feels wrong.”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I was just going to say, that’s going to trigger you.

Kristie Forbes: Yeah, we’re not doing this. This is really unfair. No, sorry, you're not holding unnecessary power over all of these people. But at the time, I didn’t think of it this way, it wasn’t conscious.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Kristie Forbes: And that’s the other struggle we face as children. We have these behaviors that we know are outrageous, but we don’t understand them. So we turn on ourselves. In that moment, I waited in that line.

When it was my turn to come to the front, I grabbed that crate of eggs and crushed it into smithereens. There were constantly parents coming up to the school complaining about me, and children weren’t allowed to play with me. It was a horrible experience not knowing why I behaved that way.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. You said something about fairness, that really jumps out at me. That part of it felt unfair.

Kristie Forbes: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And what else? It was… and then you were going to write that wrong in some way.

Kristie Forbes: I mean, if it was up to my conscious choices, I probably would have done it a very different way.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Of course, well, hindsight and maturity might help a little bit.

Kristie Forbes: Yeah. It also, this is the really disabling nature of PDA.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Kristie Forbes: We don't get that choice as children, we don't have that insight, and we don't have the understanding of our behavior. So we will do things outrageously. We call it social leveling. And something that underlies that is the other characteristic when people think that we don't respect or identify social hierarchies.

It's not that we don't identify them, and we don't respect them, but we have a hard time accepting that they will be used as a form of inequity and inequality.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And fairness.

Kristie Forbes: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Kristie Forbes: Or that sense of that incredible, powerful drive for social justice exists within us. From the time we're born, you’ll see it in siblings: if one sibling gets a smidgen more water in their cup, the PDA child will almost have a meltdown about it. “That's not fair! You spend more time with my brother than you do with me!” So the thing about that is, I recognize social hierarchies, but I have this inherent drive for fairness, for equality, for equity, at all times.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, I share that with you. We were talking earlier about the value of how coaching is a modality that really can support parents of kids with a lot of complex issues, including PDA. One of the reasons I think it worked so well with my kids is that it's a great way to balance that drive for social justice. What I always said to my kids was, “Each of you will get what you need from me, and it won’t be the same thing.” So, I acknowledged the need for social justice and gave them another way to see access to it. Right? And that’s a very coaching approach. It’s that everybody will get what they need, and the needs won’t be the same.

Kristie Forbes: Absolutely, yeah. And I love that you’ve mentioned that. Because that’s where we see the great need for equality between a child and a parent, and that won’t be accepted because of our conditioning as adults. And I think this is the hardest thing about parenting a child with PDA. I’ve had to learn it, and even though I’m a PDA myself, I have to learn it every moment of every day while parenting my children.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Kristie Forbes: I always have to shift the focus away from them and bring it back to myself. What’s being triggered in me? Where does it exist? Is it in them? Or is it in me? Is it trauma? Are my needs being unmet? What is it that’s sitting with the discomfort, really going in and looking at why this is hard for me?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Why? I just... what you’re speaking to, it’s so hard for so many parents of complex kids of all kinds, is that the change starts with us.

Kristie Forbes: Yes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And I want it to be about my child, because then I can fix that. But that’s just not how it goes. The work starts here. And the work starts with letting go every day of all of the things that we’re holding that are preventing us from being in relationship.

Kristie Forbes: Yes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: You know, over-compliance, as you said earlier, right?

Kristie Forbes: Yes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And that collaborative approach is antithetical to how most of us were raised.

Kristie Forbes: It really is. And not only that, something else you and I were talking about before is that, inside of neurodivergent culture, we create a life that works for us, that allows us to thrive. And it won’t look the same as other people’s lives, and that has to be okay.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Kristie Forbes: But the challenge there is that for many of us, it feels extremely isolating because we do receive the unsolicited advice—however well-intentioned—from family, friends, and professionals.

And over time, there are some wonderful, wonderful supportive professionals in the world, but there are some really uninformed people as well. And at the end of the day, we’re all just human beings, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Kristie Forbes: It’s okay to withdraw from systems and supports that do not help us to thrive.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yes. On so many levels, I would love to continue to talk about 12 different things that have come up in the last five minutes, because I could talk to you forever. And we are so much in alignment in so many pieces of the work we do and the passion that we bring to these communities that we serve.

And I’m aware that we are already well past the time that was recommended, but you and I both know, time is its own thing.

Kristie Forbes: What is time?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: What is time? So, Kristie, tell people how they can find out more about your work and how you support parents.

Kristie Forbes: So, you can... the quickest way is to visit my website, which is www.kristyforbes.com.au.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And that will be in the show notes for everybody listening. It’s kristyforbes.com.au. And we will have all that information for you.

Kristie Forbes: Thank you. Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Before we wrap, two things I want to ask you. First, I want to ask you, is there anything else we haven’t touched on that you want to make sure you leave with parents today? Anything you want to make sure they take away or that you’ve at least shared?

Kristie Forbes: You are the expert on yourself and your child. You know your child better than any professional, better than any therapeutic approach. And you may not feel that way, but along the line somewhere, that thread that connects us to our child gets slowly chipped away at when we’re raising complex children with complex needs. But intuition is like a muscle, and with exercise and with practice, it gets strong again.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Kristie Forbes: And this can be a beautiful, beautiful experience, no matter where your starting point is.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Love that. Thank you. That’s a beautiful way to close. I had asked you at the beginning, I sort of gave you the heads-up that we like to ask our guests for a favorite motto or quote, or something to leave with the day. What do you got for us?

Kristie Forbes: This is called Let It Go by Donna Holtz:

Let go of the ways you thought life would unfold. The holding of plans or dreams or expectations. Let it all go. Save your strength to swim with the tide. The choice to find what is here before you now will only result in struggle, fear, and desperate attempts to flee from the very energy you long for. Let go.

Let it all go and flow with the grace that washes through your days, whether you received it gently or with all your quills raised to defend against invaders. Take this on faith, the mind may never find the explanations that it seeks, but you will move forward nonetheless.

Let go and the wave crests will carry you to unknown shores beyond your wildest dreams or destinations. Let it all go and find the place of rest and peace and certain transformation. I had that printed and on my reach for a decade to get me through the hardest moments.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It’s beautiful, absolutely beautiful. I often say that parenting is a daily exercise in letting go. That’s really what parenting is more than anything else.

Kristie Forbes: Absolutely.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Thank you. That’s lovely. Kristie, it was worth the wait. Thank you for your time, for your wisdom, for your beautiful energy, and for the work you’re doing in the world.

Kristie Forbes: Thank you. All of that back a million times. Thank you so much.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Now, it’s a pleasure. To those of you listening, thank you for tuning in. Thank you for giving up your time, your energy, and your effort. Thank you for what you’re doing for yourself and your kids. At the end of the day, that’s what makes the difference. Talk to you next time, everyone.