issue #4

Why laziness is a myth!

Hello, you beautiful!

I've been lazy with this newsletter and with life overall. But... maybe I wasn't really lazy, but more tired and just had a lack of energy. When I think about it, laziness is actually a myth!

Thanks to all the new subscribers, I can see an increase in new people who have subscribed to this newsletter! I want to give you my warmest welcome. For some of you, this might be the first article you get from me. I'm still figuring out this newsletter and how to be consistent. I'm learning and growing and hopefully, we can grow together. We're not lazy, we're just late to bloom!

Why laziness is a myth

I have autism, in fact, I have the PDA type as well, and PDA stands for Pathological Demand Avoidance. On the surface this can look like laziness explained or worse — to rationalize laziness — but it’s really not. It’s a real thing, a real problem for me.

What is PDA? It’s common in autistic people and it’s when an autistic person experiences overwhelm due to being told to do demanding tasks or conform to societal expectations. It can then result in a sort of paralysis for adults or more commonly in children: a meltdown involving dangerous behavior, shouting, doing the contrary to what was told, or similar things.

This is not a result of bad parenting, it’s a result of a disability.

Let me explain.

It’s against our human nature to be so-called “lazy” or “contrary”. We want to feel productive and naturally to feel productive we also want to be productive. We cannot feel something that we are not. So we want to be productive to feel productive. That feeling cannot be tricked into us!

So if a person procrastinates or acts lazy, it’s almost always an underlying problem. It can be depression, anxiety, or something else. In my case it’s PDA. Sometimes I can’t understand why I cannot be productive enough. Why it can take an entire day to do one simple task… Now I know. It’s called pathological demand avoidance. I didn’t know about this until just recently. Believe me, nobody wants to be this way. Nobody wants to feel like a failure!

I have various PDA-friendly printable journals on my website. Some of them are freebies!

Main takeaways

• Some people with disabilities like autism and ADHD can show symptoms of PDA
• PDA stands for Pathological Demand Avoidance
• Laziness goes against our curious nature
• This is not a result of bad parenting
• Some people have a hard time being productive in today's hustle culture

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See you next time!

xx