How do we safely move the PDA threat response through the body for PDA kids and adults?

Children and adults with PDA often experience intense emotional responses that overwhelm their nervous systems. These responses — fight, flight, freeze, and flop — are natural, but without safe outlets, they can lead to trauma or dysregulation. In this post, we’ll explore body-based ways to safely move these threat responses through the body for both PDA kids and adults.

Whenever a person or animal experiences a threat response or strong emotion, there is a felt sensation in the body. Threat responses like fight, flight, flop, and freeze are evolutionarily designed to trigger our bodies to, well, respond to threats so that we can survive the immediate danger. 

In wild animals, these responses happen naturally and without thinking. Watch your pet dog next time you're on a walk. If your dog sees something frightening, or gets into an altercation with another dog, watch what their body does afterwards. You will likely be able to see them shake their body for a moment.

This is the same response that we see in prey animals who sense a predator. A bunny will freeze when she senses she may be in danger, but when the danger passes she will tremble or shake very slightly, or bounce away.

These are physiological ways of moving the energy of threat through the body. It's completing the energetic cycle so that the pent up energy doesn't get stuck in the body.

You're familiar with this if you've ever been so angry that you yell, and the yelling feels good for a moment. The "feeling good" is because your body has physiologically moved the fight response through your voice out of your body. It's the same with a good cry.

Physiologically moving threat out of the body through vocalizing, movement, and/or safe and consensual interaction with another person is a vital part of mental and physical health. 

Unfortunately, mental health, educational, and parenting norms have forgotten this: It is not enough to be aware of our threat responses or to talk about them. We have to physically move them through our body. Humans, with our overthinking brains and social norms, have forgotten how to do this. We even teach our children not to.

But moving threat through is a way of preventing both shock trauma and developmental trauma.

Example: 

When my son was three, he had to have a scope up his nose to check his adenoids. I held him in my lap with his arms at his sides, and it was awful for about 30 seconds. Then it was over. As soon as it was over, I scooped him up in my arms and started bouncing him vigorously around the room. "All DONE! All DONE! You had a noodle up your nose, but now it's All DONE!" I sang. Then I said, "Look, I'm gonna pretend to try and put a noodle in your nose again. But you can PUSH me away!" He batted my hand away over and over, winning very time. This allowed his body to complete what it had been trying to do during the procedure, which was to bat away the doctor's hand. My son was not traumatized by that procedure, and in fact we laughed for months afterwards about the noodle that had to go up his nose and how he batted it away after.

With PDAers, we need to be extra intentional about offering healthy, safe opportunities to move threat response, as well as grief, through the body. Otherwise the PDAer will use unhealthy, unsafe, or nonconsensual strategies to move it through. 

For an adult PDAer, it is ultimately our own responsibility to move threat safely through our own bodies.

Parents of children and teens need to offer healthy opportunities and modeling for kids.

Here's a response I offered to a parent whose young PDA child was consistently insulting her and saying hurtful things due to a lot of pent up anger.

If he's consistently angry, he needs a physiological way to move the anger through his body. Right now he's using hurtful words at you, but we can't expect him to stop that unless he has a good replacement to move the anger out of his body. Punching bags? Wrestling? Pillow fight? An arm wrestling contest with you?

Have you ever tried getting playful - sort of teasing him,, not in a mean way but in a playful way, saying silly insults back at him? Sometimes when kids have a lot of anger at the parent what they're craving is a healthy energetic spar. When the parent collapses or is passive, the kid has no completion to their energetic cycle. If it were me, I'd probably try talking gibberish back at my kid in a kind of clowny silly way that sounded a little like I was insulting him, but mostly like I'm diffusing the energy. Sort of egging him on, move it into a pillow fight, let him win. Essentially... he needs you to provide an opportunity for him to equalize with you in a healthy way.

Safe ways that can move threat response through the body for externalizing PDA children: 

• Punching a pillow in front of your face instead of punching you.

• Pushing you onto soft furniture. Hiding an object.

• Temporarily blocking a door.

• Pillow fighting.

• Wrestling.

• Screaming matches.

• Tug o’ war.

• Moving furniture (heavy pushing can help relieve fight response)

• Making a rule or limit for you to follow

• Shaking dance

• Dancing to loud, rhythmic music

• Jumping on trampoline to loud, rhythmic music (small indoor trampolines like the one I linked to here work just fine)

Safe ways that can move threat response through for externalizing PDA adults:

• Punching a pillow or bed or punching bag

• Wrestling or pillow fight if regulated enough not to injure

• Silent screams

• Screaming alone in the car or alone in the house or into a pillow

• Tug o’ war

• Pushing own body/arms against a wall

• Going on a run

• Controlling something in the physical environment

• Dancing to loud, rhythmic music

‼️ If you are in a relationship with an adult PDAer who is going into meltdowns where you feel unsafe, you get to make a decision about whether this is a relationship you want to stay in.

Just because a partner or friend or family member is neurodivergent and/or disabled does not mean you have to stay in relationship if they abuse or mistreat you. All it means is they may not have the ability to stop.

Internalizing PDAers:

For PDAers who internalize our threat response, unhealthy threat response movement might look like disordered eating, self harm, destroying our own property, going into deep shame, hitting ourselves, pulling our own hair, and negative self-talk or suicidality. 

Essentially, internalized PDAers go into fight or flight mode, but we turn the fight inward because we feel unsafe turning it outward. Or we flee our own body, through falling asleep or dissociating. Or we abandon ourselves by fawning and pleasing others.

If an internalized PDAer is in a meltdown, it can help tremendously to provide: Strong yet safe physical sensations and movement for the threat response to leave the body.

Safe ways that can help internalizing PDAers move threat response through:

• Singing

• Crying (listening to a song that makes you cry can be helpful)

• Shaking or jiggling body while sighing or humming

• Being hugged very tightly

• Rocking back and forth

• Slapping our own bodies or faces but not excessively hard

• Pressing a finger into an object that is sharp enough to give a sharp sensation but not sharp enough to injure us (a stone, a pottery shard, a piece of metal hardware)

• Grabbing our own hair down by the roots and squeezing. This gives soothing strong sensation but does not injure the person's head or pull out the hair.

• Going on a run, if we are regulated enough to be safe

• Dancing or listening to loud, angry music

• It can be very hard for an internalizer to do so, but if we can yell and beat a pillow - safely externalizing the fight response - that can be very cathartic and supportive. 

Somatic Experiencing® is a form of therapy that specializes in this movement of the threat through and out of the body. 

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: What is a threat response?

A threat response is a nervous system reaction—like fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or flop—that occurs frequently in people with Pervasive Drive for Autonomy/ Pathological Demand Avoidance when they sense a loss of autonomy, control, social equality, or co-regulation.

Q: How can I help myself or a PDA loved one calm down?

Using safe somatic tools like dancing, pillow fighting, or pushing against a wall can help the body discharge threat responses.

Q: What if I or my child internalizes the PDA responses by shutting down or collapsing?

Support them with tools like deep pressure, rocking, or music that helps them cry or express emotions safely.