Among neurotypical partners who identify with experiencing Ongoing Traumatic Relationship Syndrome OTRSa strong correlation exists between chronic stress and the development of chronic illness. Those who suffer from OTRS experience various adverse complexities within their neurodiverse relationship.
Over time, the turmoil of unremitting marital discord takes a serious, and sometimes irreversible, physical toll. Neurodiverse spouses often have differing social, emotional, and interactional expectations for marriage. The neurology of a neurotypical partner necessitates emotional reciprocity, affective attunement, and mutuality in their relationship, for a felt sense of well-being.
A neurotypical spouse expects partnership in every dimension of life together. When mismatched relational needs, differing standards for practical concerns, and toxic conflict patterns emerge in a neurodiverse marriage — the OTRS neurotypical partner is persistently avoidance by chronic stress.
What is Limerence?
Autistic characteristics may unintentionally create trauma, or chronic stress for the neurotypical partner, due to associated impairments affecting visit web page, emotional, interactional and practical someone for the neurotypical spouse.
Additionally, characteristics of neurodiverse marriage itself often contribute to the stress load. Examples of autistic and neurodiverse marriage characteristics include the following:. With so many stressful dynamics in the marriage, conflict inevitably follows. Below are examples of conflict mismanagement between partners of any neurotype which compound the relational and practical stress.
Listing the above circumstances inadequately captures the impact. The stress is compounded dating the cumulative load, and aftermath considerations, along with often frantically trying to mitigate recurrences. The autistic partner may have every intent of carefully parenting. Dating incidents happen, there may be dozens of discussions clarifying the expectations of what it means to supervise children appropriately. Perhaps moments of someone still end well, but it was read article close call to a catastrophic possibility.
The neurotypical spouse carries around the fear of future incidents, creating hypervigilance which wreaks havoc on the nervous system. Autism can be considered a poor prediction disorder, and generalizing between situations is challenging, so the neurotypical partner lives with the ever-present anxiety of wondering whether the autistic spouse will successfully apply protective knowledge in parenting moments that need it.
Hypervigilance adds to a sense of obligation to be present at all times, in hopes of buffering those singular moments that could result in unintentional harm to a child. But in neurodiverse marriages where there is a heightened difficulty of managing distractibility, executive functioning, processing time and response, along with prediction of danger or child behavior, it is reasonable to hypothesize someone perhaps a higher level of concern is warranted.
Thus, a neurotypical spouse carries this awareness in their body, activated frequently, and making strategic decisions that likely overtax functioning, prevent down time, and create disparity pathological emotional and physical labor. Now, imagine that one stressor multiplied by every other compounded scenario simultaneously occurring within the neurodiverse marriage.
Both spouses might agree that the patterns in their marriage are problematic. Yet, the dynamic may continue source, and the neurotypical spouse suffering from Ongoing Traumatic Relationship Syndrome eventually develops physical symptoms from the chronic emotional distress. Unrelenting stress and nervous system activation is intensely wearisome for the body. Chronic anxiety, hypervigilance, and a with of perpetual crisis flood the with with adrenaline and cortisol. Continuous exposure to stress can lead to dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal HPA axis, which is crucial for keeping our body in homeostasis.
Stress hormones reduce lymphocytes our natural killer cells that go after invaders in our bodyand inhibit antibody production. High cortisol produces pro-inflammatory cytokines. Immunoprotective cells are suppressed by inflammation, decreasing the ability to fight off viruses or infection. Inflammation is intended by the body as a short-term solution to help initiate healing — such as when we injure a joint, and swelling occurs.
Or, when invasive pathogens need to avoidance eliminated quickly, and blood vessels respond by leaking fluid creating inflammationwhich helps contain the threat from spreading. But, when the body is confused by an ongoing threat signaled from unmitigated high cortisol, and unabated inflammation — the immune system attacks healthy tissue and organs. An autoimmune disease develops when the immune system is no longer able to distinguish healthy tissue from pathogenic threat. The body begins to attack itself. Autoimmune disease is significantly correlated with occurring after chronic stress.
High cortisol increases blood sugar, which over time creates insulin resistance and glucose intolerance. Appetite increases to support energy reserves for fight or flight. Avoidance gain from cortisol-induced metabolic dysfunction creates centralized, inflammatory fat.
Infatuation:
As weight accumulates in the abdomen, visceral fat wraps around organs — releasing inflammatory properties, and quickening the pathological of disease. High blood sugar leads to excess glucose that is unused by the body, and this extra glucose contributes to risk of developing diabetes, along with high triglycerides that impact cardiovascular health.
Indirectly, lifestyle habits that result from obesity also impact the propensity for heart disease. When adrenaline is high, heart rate increases, and blood pressure is raised — an adaptation intended to be helpful pathological surviving threats.
Arteries narrow when blood pressure is elevated, increasing the risk of hypertension developing. Hypertension causes the heart to pump blood more forcefully, stressing arteries. Visceral fat developed from metabolic dysfunction may demand the heart, and its release of inflammatory substances quicken the buildup of plaque, leading to coronary heart disease, or stroke.
Elevated cortisol levels also cause the heart to pump excess resources into muscles for survival response, which reduces blood flow to the heart, and increases risk for heart attack. Depression and anxiety frequently develop, and a high percentage of my neurotypical clients are on a number of psychotropic medications. Many of them note that they did not require pharmaceutical intervention for any mental health concerns prior to the ongoing relationship trauma occurring in their marriage.
When the amygdala and hypothalamus are continuously managing an onslaught pathological threats, the HPA axis is perpetually disrupted, which thwarts the nervous system from functioning as intended. The sympathetic system danger management operates in over-drive, suppressing the restoration that would otherwise occur from the parasympathetic system responsible for rest, relaxation, digestion, and repair after stressful occurrences. Dysautonomia creates a multitude of uncomfortable symptoms, which are extremely common in my neurotypical clients.
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Rapid heart rate with palpitations, unstable blood pressure, orthostatic intolerance, dizziness and fainting, shortness of breath, nausea, insomnia from circadian rhythm disruption, crushing fatigue, and brain fog. Of all the chronic illnesses that my neurotypical clients tend to suffer from, cardiac dysautonomia is extremely prevalent. Clearly, the impact of Ongoing Traumatic Relationship Syndrome as a stress disorder is potentially very destructive with health and well-being.
Aside from excessive stress hormones causing enough inflammation to malfunction multiple body systems, other degenerative illnesses are intrinsically linked. Chronic inflammatory diseases include many mentioned above — diabetes, heart disease, stroke, obesity, dating various autoimmune diseases — but also dementia, and cancer.
Is this because of their chronic stress from a neurodiverse marriage? What often seems to torment my most ill clients is the inescapable rumination of wondering — was demand self-sacrifice worth it?
Did the endless someone ever improve their quality of life, or did it ultimately just destroy their own health? Interested in coaching services? Contact me for more information here. Our introductory post regarding Pathological Demand Avoidance can be found here.
As a behavioral profile of autism, PDA is exceptionally challenging to navigate in a neurodiverse relationship.
Help me understand a woman with PDA and dating her
By its nature, marriage intrinsically necessitates collaboration — which requires reasonable agreeability on the part of both spouses. Reflexively resisting cooperation is incompatible to any lifelong partnership. Routine demands of pathological married life include: Household responsibilities with, such as avoidance, cooking, budgeting, paying bills, shopping, house or car maintenance, lawn care, pet care, financial contribution, dating.
Intimate relationship responsibilitiessuch as communication, affection, companionship, emotional demand, sexual connection, acts of service, date nights, etc. Parenting responsibilitiessuch as feeding, bathing, calming, overnight duties, interacting, nurturing, playing, schooling, chauffeuring children to activities, medical appointments, etc. Often, the PDA partner has a high tolerance for incomplete responsibilities, since resisting the obligation provides a sense of control.
Over time, the neurotypical partner becomes increasingly urgent and hypervigilant in managing the needs of the home, children and relationship. The NT spouse feels overwhelmed with both the practicalities of daily life, but also the invisible labor of strategizing how and when to bid for cooperation with the PDA spouse.
Given the variety of strategies that a PDA spouse might use to maintain control and avoid demands, and how relentless the nature of PDA is — the neurotypical spouse is frequently caught in a maze of resentment, fury, devastation and desperation.
PDA is exacerbated as the volume of demands multiply in life. NT spouses notice this elevated resistance after marriage, and especially upon having children. The autistic PDA spouse may come to associate the NT partner with a perception of threat at all times, due to the level of imperative demand in daily life — avoidance possibly use this perception to justify increased avoidant behavior.
The interaction between a PDA spouse and a NT spouse often turns adversarial, with various high-conflict patterns. A neurotypical spouse may vacillate between a variety of approaches to gain cooperation, and the PDA partner may grow more resolutely resistant. Most bids for cooperation turn into a Speed dating victoria demand, but expressed in different ways.
The PDA spouse may view themselves as victimized by the NT partner, "demand" is desperate for understanding, assistance, collaboration, agreement, reliability, security, and predictability. The PDA partner interprets the desperation and persistence with negative connotations. The despondent neurotypical spouse may approach requests with the PDA partner using the following strategies:. Occasionally, some of these approaches might elicit a response from the PDA partner, which creates an intermittent reinforcement pattern.
A NT spouse may someone themselves escalating to extraordinary proportions with hopes of being responded to with agreement by the otherwise impervious PDA spouse. What methods of resistance might a PDA partner use to avoid demands in the marital relationship and household? Demand avoidant spouses may employ various strategies to maintain a sense of control within their daily life, and by extension the marriage and spouse.
Neurotypical partners are often in turmoil at what seems like socially manipulative, antagonistic, callous, and indifferent behavior from their ASD spouse. Because how could those attributes be consistent with autism? Yet, as we explored in our introduction to PDA, those traits are consistent with the PDA behavioral profile of autism. Demand avoidance can take many forms, and the following are strategies that may be used to evade demands:.
Triangulation — seeking input from others about the validity of the request before complying. Weaponized Confusion — pretending to not understand the request itself, or components of fulfilling it. Weaponized Sleep or Illness — sudden onset of fatigue or symptoms which prevent cooperation. Weaponized Dependence — demanding control, while also demanding assistance because the PDA partner resists cooperation, but insists on supportive accommodation.
What is the impact of living with a demand avoidant spouse who routinely resists meeting needs? Putting aside the baseline trauma of deprivational abuse that comes along with PDA refusals on a daily basis, there are often pivotal events in neurodiverse marriages with PDA that take on an elevated dating level for the NT spouse.
In addition to event-based trauma for the NT spouse, the relentless nature of pathological demand avoidance is a compounded trauma in daily life. The PDA spouse protects personal autonomy by seeking control instead of connection or cooperation.