12 Ways to actually Do Stuff as an Autistic Person!

• How to cope with life and actually do stuff as a PDA.
• Self-acceptance and managing expectations are crucial.
• Utilizing scheduling, novelty, and humor can improve productivity.
• Mindfulness and demand-free time play a significant role in well-being.
• Finding joy in small tasks is essential for reducing anxiety.

How to cope with life and actually do stuff sometimes as a PDAR. Let's go.

I made a video about the core traits of a profile of autism called pathological demand avoidance. A lot of people related to the video. But then we're understandably kind of like, okay, cool, but now what? What do we do with this information? What do we do about the fact that we pathologically don't like to do things, particularly if we're told to do things? Like, we kind of have to exist in this world. Ah, please help.

So I'm gonna try and help a little bit today. I'm going to use some advice that has worked for me, also using the PDA society and advice they have on there. And then there's also a book called PDA by PDA, which I'll leave linked in the description, and hopefully it'll be helpful.

Often we see advice as a demand, so don't panic too much. If you get a little bit of a resistance feeling towards this video, that would be completely normal PDA response. If you've ever wondered why, even when you ask for it, when you get advice, it can kind of make you feel a little bit on edge and you don't always react super well to it, you poke holes in that person's ideas and stuff like that, and you're like, oh, why am I like this? That is quite a PDA thing to see advice as a demand.

And some of this stuff really might not work for you. It might not work for you at this point in your life. It might not work for you ever. Everybody is different. I'd say kind of keep an open mind. Often for me, even if I have a reaction of like, "No, what the hell, go away, stop." Sometimes later, sometimes years later, sometimes a day later, I kind of can see it. You know, I'm like, "Oh yeah, you know, maybe that could work."

Obviously, I will say if you're kind of really struggling to just get out of bed, and you're not managing to do anything in your life and you're in a really, really dark place, seek some help other than just videos on the Internet because there's only so much I can do when I'm not a medical professional.

Let's go. We've got 12 tips by lucky number. I think the first step—don't roll your eyes, please—is self-acceptance. I don't mean that you have to love yourself and like stand in the mirror with affirmations. I find that annoying. If I stood in the mirror and said, "I love myself," my brain would just immediately start listing all of the reasons why I'm unlovable. It would feel inauthentic, cringey. It's shallow. I wouldn't believe it.

I don't feel like you really need to love yourself. What does that even mean? I'm not a perfect queen. I'm just a flawed human being, and I think that's okay. When I was younger, I used to think, you know, one day I'm gonna wake up and be able to overhaul my personality. That isn't gonna happen. And if it could happen, then I would just be ceasing to exist because I wouldn't be me anymore.

For me, acceptance is about acknowledging reality. One of the major points of my reality is that I need to feel some level of being in control of myself, of my schedule, in order to have good mental health. Is that always convenient? No. Is it always possible? No. But I have to accept that I'm always gonna feel like I need to be in control, and I am gonna have some level of stress response if I don't feel like that.

And that is just a part of my reality. And with that knowledge, I can stop telling myself that I'm somehow morally wrong. When I procrastinate something, it's not me being lazy; it's anxiety. I'm somebody who gets anxious about doing things, and I'm out here trying my best, and, you know, maybe I need to procrastinate a little bit, and maybe that's okay, and I don't need to hate myself for that.

Yelling at myself to be someone else has always just led me to burnout. I have a video about my burnout story where I burned myself out for four whole years. Trying to force yourself to be someone who you're not is like trying to walk up the down escalator. It's exhausting.

You don't need to be swimming against the current all the time. Which leads me on to number two, which is to have a schedule of suggestions. I always— and by always, I mean sometimes—write a to-do list for myself. Usually just scrolling in my messy handwriting on a little scrap of whatever piece of paper I find or whatever particular notebook I'm defacing at that moment in time.

I might put times of the day when I want to do things. I might put them in a specific order in which I think it's most logical to do the things in which I would most like to do. Do I do things in this specific logical order that I've laid out for myself? No. Do I manage to get through everything on the list? No. Do I even look at the list most days? No.

I think for me, just writing it out helps me remember the things a little bit more. It kind of relieves a bit of anxiety in that moment. Like I've got all the demands of the next day swirling in my head. I'm getting them down on paper, phew, it's done. And then I'll think to myself, "Oh yeah, that was on my list. I should do that." You know, point number one on the list.

And then I'll be like, "Ah, nah, I kind of feel like doing point number six." And then sometimes I'll do number six first and I'll do them all in a weird order. Or maybe I'll do things that I wasn't planning on doing that day, but I still needed to get them done. And it's kind of like I'm avoiding doing some demands by doing other demands, and it's like this little dance.

And there's no strictness about me needing to do things in a specific order. Obviously, this is a privilege of being self-employed, which I think is great for PDAs, but you know, different jobs will have different levels of autonomy. And obviously, even if you can't control your work day if it doesn't look exactly the way you would want it to right now, you can still do this with other areas of your life, you know, like chores around the house.

Yeah, it just makes you feel a little bit rebellious, you know, like, "Nah, I said I was gonna do this, I'm gonna do this other thing instead." That can be fine a lot of the time. A lot of the times it doesn't really hurt anyone. Just doing things in a messy order that maybe some people would say didn't make any sense. Like, okay, fine, but did I get the stuff done? Yes.

The good thing about my list as well is I'm pretty timelined, so I'll always put way more stuff on the list than I could ever possibly do in one day. I want to exercise at 7:20. Then I wanna come back and clean a little bit. I wanna write 2000 words a day minimum, which used to stress me out but now I'm like, "Oh, that kind of was quite good because I'd never get through the whole list."

So I'd always feel that level of like, "Ha, ha, see, I'm not doing everything on the list." And there'd be a lot of stuff to choose from as well. Sometimes if I'm avoiding item one on the list by doing item six, I think, "Oh, I should do item one." And then my stomach twists. I'm like, "Don't really want to do that now."

Item six sounds quite nice. And then I'll really think about it and I'll be like, "Nah, actually, I kind of don't want to do item six. So I'm gonna go do item one." Like, or whatever. I'll kind of be tempted by item six, and I'll feel like I have the option and the complete freedom and it's okay for me to do item six, but I might be like, "Ah, no, I don't really want to do item one right now. But no, I can see why it's probably good to do that. So I'm gonna do it anyway."

And I think if I felt like I had to do item one to myself, I would be able to accept doing item one a lot less easily than I can when I'm thinking to myself, "It's perfectly fine if you want to do item six right now, that's okay." I often hear PDAs talk about this in a way of, like, they kind of trick their PDA. I don't really like to think like that.

I don't really like to think of myself at war with myself anymore. I’ve spent a lot of my life very much at war with myself. I don’t really want that energy, that fight energy. I like to see it as giving myself options, you know, giving myself freedom. Obviously, there will always be some things that you have to do on your schedule, and that’s fine.

Although I do kind of recommend, you know, maybe do those early, if you can, when they're not the most demanding thing on your list. That might feel a little bit more free, but not in a pressured sort of way, just in a, like, "Ha ha, look, I'm cheating a deadline for this in T2 weeks, but look, I'm doing it now."

That can be quite good. I don’t always do that, but that can be quite beneficial when I have done it. And I tend to work better that way. But anything that isn’t essential, pencil it into your schedule, have it there as a loose option. But like, it isn’t the end of the world if you don’t do it. You don’t need to hate yourself if you don’t do it.

And this leads to number three: manage your expectations of yourself. This is a quote from Rico PDA, who also has a blog and a Facebook page. I generally only aim to do two things every day aside from the usual dressing and eating. But if I don’t do them, then that’s fine. If I do more than that, great.

And you might hear that I think only two things every day. Like, really? I think this is just a good mindset, and you can interchange that number two with whatever number you think is more relevant to you in your life. Maybe you feel like, I could definitely do more than that. Or maybe you feel like, you know, at this point, I’m really burnt out. I can barely get myself up.

I’m just gonna ask myself to do one thing a day. And maybe that can even include getting dressed and showering. It just depends where you're at. Even if you set a low number of things to do in a day, you can do more than that, as Riko says. And also, if you do less, don’t beat yourself up. You know, don’t feel bad about it, which is hard to do. Doing stuff and productivity is very intertwined with worth and being morally good.

And there’s a book called Laziness Does Not Exist, which I’ve been listening to as an audiobook. I’ll leave a link to that down below. I think that is a brilliant book for a PDAA to read. Number four: okay, so now some more actual practical kind of tips. Like, okay, well, what do we physically do? How do we physically get ourselves to do stuff? We got to live in this material world.

So the next tip for me would be to throw in a bit of novelty or stimulation. You’ll hear this quite a lot from PDAs that novelty can kind of at least temporarily override demand avoidance. Cleaning is obviously a big, never-ending demand, particularly if you have children. I can only clean if I have good music that I'm really super into, or a good audiobook to listen to.

Any kind of mindless chore where I can have my Bluetooth headphones on, and sometimes my family are a bit like, "Are you ever gonna take those headphones off?" And it can be a bit antisocial, but it’s how I get myself to be productive. And then I’m kind of distracted from the fact that I’m doing the demand.

And I think that can be a big component of it. I'm in the story; I’m not in my body. Sometimes when I clean like that, I literally can forget where I’ve put things because I’m kind of in a more of a trance state, and sometimes I’ll be full and excited to clean. You know, when Taylor Swift drops a new album or something like that, like, please give me something to clean because I want to put these headphones on.

If I had to clean without my headphones on, would anything ever get clean? No way in hell. I think a lot, if not all PDAs, we have an ADHD diagnosis as well. We can get flipping bored, and boring things are just asking for a bit of avoidance. Stimming as well can also be a way to get through things if it’s possible.

In PDA by PDAs, Rico says, “I may buy new bath products, try new foods, or eat out, buy new clothes or try a different style.” Even moving the demand to a different time of day can help. Showering before bed or having cereal for dinner, I do this a lot. I’m learning, but I’m never gonna have a fixed bedtime.

I have a suggestion, you know, a suggested bedtime. Maybe some days I’ll do it, maybe not. It’s probably better to have the suggestion there than to have nothing there. The light is supposed to go out at quarter past ten. Has the light gone out at quarter past ten once so far this year? Probably not. Doesn’t really happen.

There is no pressure, and there has to legitimately be no pressure. And that is kind of a way that a lot of PDAs recommend interacting with PDA children: literally, you have no expectations of them. And not just in a superficial way of, “You can do whatever you want,” but I’m kind of hinting that you should do this particular thing, like literally just, “I do not have expectations of you.”

This is a safe place. You do what you need to do. I’ll kind of lead by example and I’ll make sure you’re not doing anything that’s actually going to seriously harm yourself. But you have freedom here, you have safety here.

Number five: using role play or fantasy. This is a common trait in autistic PDA young people. I used to walk around the playground flapping my hands. Why was I not diagnosed thinking about the other children on the playground and giving them names if they were characters?

Deciding in my head what jobs they were gonna have when they were older and trying to imagine their futures. And that was what got me through the boredom and kind of helped you to disconnect and get out of your body and the anxiety. It sounds a bit sad; it makes me sad to think about, but it is a nice feeling.

You know, I really love this quote from Rico: "I find chores easier when I pretend I’m being filmed for TV. I adopt a character, say a cleaner, and pretend I’m doing the job for TV. I’ll imagine cameras following me everywhere, watching me, what I’m doing, and that people are asking me questions or commenting on my actions."

How many people here have fantasies of being interviewed about their opinions all the time? Me. I don’t know. I think it’s a way for me to work through what I think about things in my head. Yeah, I love this. I can totally imagine this working.

And when I used to work at Lush, what really worked for me while I was there was imagining that it was my shop. And that probably helped me from a roleplay perspective and also from an autonomy perspective. I pretended that it was my little quaint bath bomb shop that I owned.

And particularly when I got left alone on the shop floor. That was nice because I really couldn't pretend it was just my little shop. And I think it makes you a better worker thinking like that as well because, you know, you care about this business. This is your business.

Now, it sounds kind of silly, it might make you feel kind of childish, but like, who the hell cares? You know, it can make you feel safer, I think, because maybe we don't always entirely trust ourselves to get everything perfectly right just the way we want it to be. But maybe, you know, when we’re pretending to be someone else, there’s a little bit less pressure.

And maybe your brain sees it as, like, it’s not real. It’s not entirely real. So there isn’t as much of a need for it to send out panic. Number six: I’d say keeping a sense of humor is really important. I personally have quite an intense, serious side to my personality.

Who's the side that’s quite rigid and highly strong and uptight, and that’s probably, you know, the crippling anxiety of PDA. But I think it’s important to try and keep a sense of humor about it when you can. I spoke about this a bit in a recent TikTok reaction video that I did.

I reacted to quite a few of Paig Lell’s TikToks about being PDA, which were really interesting. She had one about reading menus and how struggling to read menus is kind of a PDA thing. I’ll leave a link to that video down below if you want to watch it.

I spoke about there how sometimes if my husband asks me to do something, he understands. Like, you know, if he says, "Meghan, I’m on the toilet and I don’t have any toilet roll in here. Will you get me some from the other bathroom?" I might have to swear at him in order to get it done.

And that kind of helps to equalize things for my brain. It’s like, okay, you did this for him, but you got one up on him. But it’s like a joke. We laugh at it every time you don’t. You making him late to bed every time you exist. You ruin my life.

Look, the amount of things I do around this house. I haven’t sat down all day. He knows that that’s just a stupid thing that my brain does. He knows that I’d love him and I would do anything for him and I will do things that he hasn't asked me to do all the time for him.

And we both support each other and care for each other. It really helps that we’re able to laugh at it. To laugh at me sometimes, it kind of creates a bit of distance. You’re able to see, no, this is a physiological reaction I have. This is not my fault.

Number seven: body doubling is something you may have heard the ADHD community talk about. Basically, you know, it can create accountability if you do something that you don’t really want to do side by side with somebody else. And you can kind of keep yourself on track if it’s the right person.

Someone is not going to lead you astray. Sometimes you can watch cute videos on YouTube and take a break. It’s okay; a little bit of procrastination is normal. You kind of keep each other on track. And it can also, for PDAs, I think really create a sense of safety, particularly if that person helps you a little bit.

Even if it’s just in a small way. Even if I’m doing something stressing me out and I say to someone, “Could you please get me some water?” And they get me a glass of water. I just feel a little bit more okay, like someone else is there with me. It’s not just me alone against this world.

There are other people here who are willing to support me. And obviously, this depends on having supportive people in your life. But if you don’t have that right now, you know, maybe that’s something you can work towards. And there are people out there who will accept you for who you are.

So keep going. And it is possible to, you know, get by without it for sure. But it definitely helps. And there’s a lovely quote on the PDA society that a demand shared is a demand halved. It’s like ironic because, you know, I am an independent person.

I like things done my way. I’m a perfectionist. I think we just would want to do things ourselves every second of the day and we might have strong opinions about how we feel like things should be done. You know, and some people may feel like, yeah, they don’t want any help, but I don’t feel like that.

I feel like I need other people and I can achieve so much more if I feel like I’m not on my own. And I think that’s one of the reasons why I struggled so much with studying, which I talked about in the burnout video, because it’s just you; it’s your name on that exam paper.

It is completely soloing, and therefore all of the pressure is kind of bearing down on you. Number eight: I really love a lot of what Elizabeth Gilbert has to say. In her book Big Magic, she shares this quote. I think it’s from her mom: "Done is better than good."

I personally feel like PDA for me has a lot to do with perfectionism. I know there are other PDAs who also feel like perfectionism could be one of the underlying causes for PDA as well as potentially uncertainty. And when we worry that what we’re going to make is not going to be perfect, it might make us just not want to do it and not want to try at all.

And I think this is where that quote can really be helpful. Done is better than good. Doing something is better than doing nothing, even if it isn’t perfect. That is how most people, most neurotypical people operate through life and succeed and manage just fine.

I think we can be quite black and white about doing things right and making the right decision, and we have to overthink things, and that just often doesn’t exist. It’s just like, do something and do it some sort of way. It doesn’t have to be amazing.

Number nine: I personally love batching tasks together and kind of gluing similar tasks that I have to do together and doing it in one chunk. Obviously, with being autistic, we can get kind of tunnel visioned, stuck in doing something, and transitions are difficult.

And particularly when you have PDA, the transition to another task—that other task is probably some sort of demand—and then you’ve got to psych yourself up to do something new all over again. Whereas if you’re already in something and in the flow of doing it and you’ve made the effort to get over that initial hump of the demand avoidance, it’s probably good to stay there for a while and get a significant amount done before you stop and then have to restart again another time.

Now, obviously, you kind of still need to make sure you look after yourself and eat and all those things, which are also all demands. For me, I think minimizing those transition periods throughout my day is really helpful.

If I had to every single day do heaps and heaps of little tasks, I think I would find that frustrating. I prefer to just have choice over what I do. But then once I’m in something, if I feel like staying in that thing, then not kind of saying, "Oh, no, no, no, you wrote down that you need to do this other thing now."

And then having to stop, slam on the brakes, do this whole transition and dance, and probably procrastinate a while before moving into this next task. You know, I just feel like it can waste time.

Number ten: you may be thinking, like, what do you do when you really have to do something? I suppose it’s kind of just like ripping a plaster off. And I tend to kind of try and swing my body out of bed quickly, like, before my brain can catch up.

Like, just swing my legs over the side, get out quick before my brain catches up with what I’m doing. I do this with phone calls as well. I really don’t want to call someone, and I’m staring at the number on the screen, and I’m overthinking, like, "Okay, what am I gonna say in this? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and what are they gonna say?"

And all the uncertainty and whatever. And then I just press the button before my brain can catch up. And then it’s calling them, and I just do it, and it’s not fun.

And I think minimizing the amount of time in the day you’re doing this, kind of ripping the plaster off, just do it. Just go for it anyway, even though it feels horrible, it’s probably gonna help because I think doing it too much can contribute towards burnout.

That’s how I lived a lot in my life as a child and as a teen, and it made me deeply unhappy. As my granny would have said, sometimes it’s a necessity that has to be done. I think you can liken it to like skydiving. You’re looking down at how long there is to fall, you take a deep breath, and then before your brain has the chance to talk you out of it, you jump.

You’re already doing it! Before you know it, you’re already out of bed. Sometimes you may be tempted to get back into it, but no, you’re out. You’re out. You’re free falling. The day has begun.

I also want to remind you here that you can do things even when you don’t feel ready to do them. And you can do things even when you feel anxious. Anxiety for me can often feel like a sense of doom and foreboding, and like there’s something written in the universe telling me that this is going to go wrong.

I’m definitely going to fail; that is a fact. My brain can be screaming, “No, no, no, no,” and I can do it, and it can be fine, and it can be the best decision I’ve ever made. That isn’t right; that isn’t a message from the universe. It is just our anxiety as a PDA.

And it is possible. Obviously, again, you need to be careful with burnout and not just completely ignore yourself. And it can be tricky to kind of balance, you know, when is the time to push through and when is the time to step back. But I do want to say most things that I’ve done in my life, I have not felt convinced that it’s gonna be a success.

I felt very convinced of the opposite when I first filmed my few videos for this channel. I felt sick to my stomach the whole time. I had thoughts like, “You’re an idiot. What are you doing? Why are you wasting your time doing this? No one’s gonna watch it.”

There are loads of other people with videos already. It’s built this wonderful community, and I’m having a great time, and I’m so glad to be here. I’m really glad that I ignored myself. You can do stuff while being anxious, and it can be much better than your brain is telling you it’s gonna be, if that makes any sense.

I remember hearing a quote. I think it was a documentary about Misty Copeland, the ballerina. And she was talking about how she didn’t believe in herself. And there’s that whole Henry Ford quote: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

That whole thing. Well, I always think I can’t, you know, and sometimes I can. You don’t have to be an optimist to succeed in this world. I’ve found I kind of wish I was one.

Still, number eleven: the PDA Society recommends mindfulness and meditation. And I personally have found this helpful, and I know members of my family have as well. I used to find the ideal rage-inducingly annoying when I was younger.

And then when I had my son, I had some pretty nasty health stuff that came off and chronic things. I ended up turning to meditation, and it took me a while to get into it. I think the first time I tried to meditate, I had a bit of a panic attack because I was having to focus on my breathing.

But I carried on because I was in such a desperate place at that time that I was willing to try anything, and I found it helpful. I think it helps you kind of unlock this part of your brain that views things from a more zoomed-out perspective. When my husband asked me to do something, I might think, “Ah, that’s making me feel irritated.”

A kind of an itching under the skin feeling. That’s interesting. And you’re observing and you’re acknowledging, and you’re not invalidating your emotions and thinking, “I shouldn’t feel like this. Let me try and change it.”

You’re just like, “Oh, it is what it is; this is it.” And sometimes you’re kind of viewing yourself from a wiser part of yourself. And I think that can be really helpful for PDAs.

Me making this phone call makes me feel like I’m about to die or about to jump out of an airplane. That’s interesting. And it can help you to maybe be able to see it a little bit more objectively. I’d recommend giving it a go.

I quite enjoyed the book The Happiness Trap, which I’ll leave a link to down below. It’s obviously written for a neurotypical audience; it would be great if they could adapt it one day to be more neurodivergent friendly. But I think a lot of the principles are relevant.

I obviously think we have to be a bit more careful about burnout. I read it because I was on holiday, and I struggle with holidays. I think it’s because it’s the expectation to have a good time. It feels like time’s running out almost to have a good time, and that can stress me out.

And often I have been really anxious throughout trips, and when I think about them, I just kind of remember the churning anxiety and I’m like, “Jesus, should I even go on holiday anymore? You know, is it even worth it?” But I had a really great time, and I think because I’d read this book when I had negative thoughts about, you know, how the trip was going wrong and things like that, I think, “Oh, interesting, I’m thinking this. Thanks brain for that thought.”

And that actually really helped me throughout the trip. So who knows, you might find it helpful too. Sally Cat PDA has also spoken about how a small group mindfulness course helped her. And also, compassion-focused therapy, which I’ve never tried myself but sounds like something that could work for PDA. We do need some compassion; I can see how that would kind of make you feel safe.

At number 12, the PDA Society recommends demand-free time. For me personally, this is one that I struggle with. But I think it’s really important again to try and avoid burnout. It can be really hard, particularly in this economic climate. Demand-free time—what are you talking about?

But I think it’s necessary for recovery, even if it’s just a little bit. Even if it’s just, you know, three minutes to maybe go and do a bit of mindfulness. But maybe that feels like too much of a demand, so it’s three minutes to just do whatever. Because even things that we like to do can feel like a demand.

I’ll often think to myself, I’m gonna read for an hour before bed and then have a procrastination hour instead and not actually read. Because for some reason the idea of reading feels a bit funny. And I don’t want to read the book that I’m super into. Can we explain?

I often feel like everything I do in my life needs to have a purpose and needs to have a reason, otherwise it’s frivolous and silly, and it doesn’t count for anything. And it’s just like, it’s purposeful to rest.

To have time where you don’t expect anything of yourself because it gives you more energy, more spoons, if you will, to put into another day. And if you don’t, you’re gonna end up in burnout, which could take you a long time to recover from, and that isn’t productive or useful in any way.

Time where you have no expectations of yourself, particularly if you have a life where there are a lot of expectations of you. Do you not think there are no expectations? You don’t even have to brush your teeth. It’s fine.

If you haven’t seen my other videos about PDA, I’ve one about like the core traits of PDA, kind of the diagnostic criteria, if you will. I also have one where I go through a PDA Test which has 50 questions and you get a score at the end of it. I have one where I talk about how PDA actually feels from the inside, from my perspective and from things that other PDAs have shared online.

And as I said, I have the TikTok reaction video where I kind of respond to Paig L El's TikToks about discovering that she fits the PDA profile of autism, which I think could be really relatable to a lot of people. And she talks about menus, and why can we not order food from a menu? Why do we malfunction? We have to read a menu. It’s so true.