This just in: Amanda speaks the truth on YouTube about autism / ADHD and demand avoidance, and I Have Thoughts

This is all so I don't post a whole blog entry in Amanda's comment section.

Amanda is my favorite fellow autist / ADHD lady on YouTube. She just posted about coping with what’s called “pathological demand avoidance” (PDA for short) or when “your brain says no” to a task or activity that you need OR want to do. If you’re autistic or ADHD or you love someone who is, I highly recommend her channel AND this video in particular.

And now comes my TED talk! My time is very limited this morning, off to learn some classical Arabic with some fellow Muslims, God willing. But I wanted to post before I left.

• Wow, over nearly six decades of life, have I had a ton of things I thought I had to be or do to be a valuable human being. So much of that has fallen by the wayside, thank you God, thanks to being on Islam, being older, not having to work fulltime anymore, and recognizing that I’m neurodivergent.

• It is SO important to our time and our budgets that we recognize and accept that many special interests will be temporary. Singing and playing music was that, for me. As a 59 year old I have no interest in singing anymore, and I realized this only recently, AFTER spending hundreds of dollars on voice lessons just two years ago. Don’t follow my example on that - save your time and money!

• For folks worried about "careers" and "passions" and all that stuff that allistics like to talk about: it's OK to be just passably good at something to be employed in it. I can't tell you, over decades of professional employment, exactly how much all-out mediocrity I've seen in myself and others. And we held on to our jobs (and got good performance reviews) anyway. But if your conscience troubles you, over and over, that you're not doing enough, you might want to look at some ways to focus better, turn the phone off while you're working, and so on.

• I’m a Muslim. I believe that I am a creation of God and I am exactly as He wills me to be at any moment of my life. This means that even if I have NO skills or talents that I've developed.... I'm still OK. As a Muslim I have daily prayer tasks to attend to and I'm pushing myself (a bit) to learn classical Arabic. And don't think for one second that part of me simply wants to stay on the couch and do nothing when it's prayer time! But I know it's critical to my well-being here and in the afterlife that I say my five daily prayers. And so, I do.

• Is it PDA? Is it part of my soul that wants me to overeat, overspend, and hurt myself with those activities? Is it Satan (and as a Muslim I believe in Satan, although he has only the power that God allows him to have)? I believe that my neurophysiology may contribute to that feeling of "No" and "Go eat something" whenever I want to do something that's even remotely challenging. So you could call it PDA. But I believe we are more than the sum of our neurons firing, we have immortal souls, and we face spiritual challenges every day.

• All of this is to say: sometimes I have to push myself when something in me says "no" to a proposed task. And sometimes I am far better off going along with that "No." It ain't easy!