Fawning & The Locus of Control

I think most people would agree, at this point, that the most accurate definition we have of PDA is that it is 'an anxiety-driven need to remain in control' - but, due to its name, people are mainly (and for some, exclusively) focussed on the 'demand avoidance' aspect of this, still, rather little-known and little-understood profile within the autism spectrum. After all, it is the most prevalent feature, but it is, however, important that its definition - 'an anxiety-driven need to remain in control' - is fully understood, and that its other manifestations, not just the obsessive resistance towards the ordinary demands of life, are not discounted or disregarded.

The presentation of the PDA individual is known to vary across different settings. A key example would be the child who is described by their teachers as well-behaved, quiet, unassuming, and even compliant in a classroom environment, only to be described as the complete opposite by their parents when the child is at home. Why on earth would this be? I find it useful to see the PDA person as having a locus of control, which can move around depending on the company and the environment in which the PDA person is situated.

At home, the PDA child might feel safe: they know their parents (if they are together) love them unconditionally, and they know that the chances of mum and dad either fleeing or abandoning them are low. Therefore, the need for control in this situation manifests outwardly as extreme demand avoidance. This could all change as soon as the PDA child is in a different environment, say, at school. Here, things, namely people, are more uncertain and unpredictable, causing the PDA child to now feel unsafe. Due to this different dynamic, the locus of control will shift. The PDA individual might be able to hold it together and remain ‘under the radar’ in certain company or environments, because that is precisely what their need for control is now driving them to do; and because of this, those around them may not be able to accept that this person could ever be controlling or manipulative towards other people. It is also important to note that within unsafe environments, there is often either a goal that the child is intent on achieving or an irresistible allure, such as being near to a person with whom they are obsessed, and this is what can drive the PDA child out of their safety zone and into the snake pit.

Imagine, if you will, a PDA child who is characteristically demand avoidant at home. The child acts in a manner that would fit most people’s description of ‘controlling, manipulative, obstinate and domineering’ behaviour. To cut a long story short, the family members of this child, despite loving them unconditionally, find them to be very difficult to live with. But, due to some fluke of nature, someone at school reports that this child is an absolute delight and pleasure to be around, and cannot for the life of them envisage this child being any other way. Let’s imagine that the person making this contrasting claim is a pupil whom the PDA child has befriended, rather, developed an intense obsession towards. Let’s also imagine that this pupil or friend is a dominant individual. Now the PDA child, who is also dominant, may figure out that in order to keep this person close to them, they are better off taking on a more subservient role as opposed to resorting to the behaviour they usually display at home. Remember, at home, they know they are loved unconditionally and that mum and dad will never abandon or compromise their love for them, however deeply they are impacted. The new friend at school is different. They have to be won over for a start and do not love the PDA child unconditionally, and given that the friend at school is a dominant personality, this will not prove an easy conquest. New tactics ought to be employed. The PDA child knows that by taking on a more subservient role, their new social obsession will neither attack them nor flee from them, or are at least less likely to do so.

People may find it hard to see how subservient or submissive behaviour could ever be described as ‘controlling or manipulative’. In the case of the PDA child, they are being just as controlling and just as manipulative; it is just that the locus of control has shifted. They are employing what I call ‘inverted control’, a method of exerting control over their environment by drawing out certain responses from certain people, and presenting themselves as precisely the type of person that their social obsession tolerates or approves of. The ‘fawn response’ is probably the least known out of the 5 F’s: fight, flight, freeze, flop (which are all self-explanatory) and then fawn: people pleasing as a result of anxiety. Fawning is not to be confused with ‘kindness’; it does not stem from a place of compassion (although this does not preclude the individual actually being compassionate; compassion simply has no bearing here). An individual who possesses the social intelligence required to analyse and predict the behaviour of others may find that meeting people’s needs is a good way of staying safe, ensuring survival. Fawning, also, could also be part of masking. People sometimes ask me why some children cannot bring themselves to go to school whilst others are able insofar as they don a mask. As I mentioned before, there is often a goal at play here or the child has succumbed to a most irresistible allure. The child who is unable to leave their house sees school as nothing more than an oppressive, demand-laden cesspool with absolutely no allure. Staying safe and avoiding danger in this case is totally reasonable and rational, and not a sign of naughtiness or wilful disobedience on the part of the child. My analogy I use here: imagine a diamond or a jewel in the middle of a stinging nettle bush. One may feel tempted to reach for it, but they would be far better off putting on a rubber glove beforehand, lest they get stung, or hurt. This represents the PDA child who masks at school.

It is important to note that whilst many children are able to hold it together during school hours and let it all out at home, some children may be the complete opposite. The locus of control moves depending on how safe a child feels in their environment. There are many children who might feel safer at school, around friends who are caring, understanding and accepting of them, whilst others might feel unsafe at home and even mask around their parents for all sorts of reasons.

Let’s return to our example of the PDA child who takes on a more subtle and subservient role in the presence of their dominant social obsession, whose needs must be met lest they scarper or turn aggressive. Just because the PDA child finds that their anxiety is driving them to be compliant with their dominant social obsession, this does not mean that their need to avoid demands completely ‘disappears’. It is just that in this situation, the drive to comply prevails over the drive to avoid demands, as complying guarantees more safety than avoiding demands. Remember, the PDA child cannot guarantee that their dominant social obsession will not turn on them or abandon them if they are demand avoidant, so in order to keep them close, which is to say, in order to keep in control of them, they have to meet their needs and present a personality that their dominant social obsession will tolerate or approve of. But the need to avoid demands is still there; it just isn’t as strong as the need to comply. So strong is the need to avoid demands and stay in control that a demand, to the PDA person, represents the venom that drips from the fangs of a viper. The PDA individual is unable to distinguish a minor request from a genuine threat - a poisonous snake slithering towards them. If the need to comply overrides the need to avoid demands, the PDA individual finds themselves in extremely close proximity to the demand, which would be like holding a Rottweiler up close to a person who is afraid of dogs. This would be like a near death experience, and could give rise to a phenomenon I have called ‘capitulatory injury’: a post traumatic state induced through demand compliance.

There are, of course, people around whom the child doesn’t only feel safe, but recognises that such people understand them, meet their needs, acknowledge them for who they are, and with whom they are perhaps neurologically in-sync (although the latter is not an essential criterion). This is a person whom the PDA child would regard as ‘part of their tribe’, to use a necessary cliche. This is a PDA state only characterised by ‘an anxiety-driven need to remain in control’ in the sense that these experiences and relationships are few and far between. The PDA child doesn't want to control their tribe members, but may have to if they feel that losing them means leaving the natural habitat and returning to a cold, confusing and painful world in which they are not accommodated.