Welcome to PDA: Resistance and Resilience with Marni Kammersell and Chris Wells. Join us for conversations based on lived experience that explore the pervasive drive for autonomy, also known as pathological demand avoidance (PDA). Together, we examine the emotional logic of resistance, the complexity of internal and external demands, and how to live in integrity with this way of being in the world. <br/><br/><a href="https://pdapodcast.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">pdapodcast.substack.com</a>
PDA: Resistance and Resilience
Claim This Podcastby Marni Kammersell and Chris Wells
4.9(13 reviews)
13 episodes
Updated Daily
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Podcast Authority
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Quality8
Social90
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Engagement32
Podcast Overview
Welcome to PDA: Resistance and Resilience with Marni Kammersell and Chris Wells. Join us for conversations based on lived experience that explore the pervasive drive for autonomy, also known as pathological demand avoidance (PDA). Together, we examine the emotional logic of resistance, the complexity of internal and external demands, and how to live in integrity with this way of being in the world. <br/><br/><a href="https://pdapodcast.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">pdapodcast.substack.com</a>
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
6/17/2025
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Recent Episodes
June 1, 2026
The Dirtbag Ethos
<p>In episode 13, Blake Boles joins Marni and Chris to talk about self-directed living and the search for purpose outside conventional systems. Founder of Unschool Adventures, Blake has spent since 2008 taking teens who don’t go to school on international trips, and has written several books on self-directed learning—most recently Dirtbag Rich: High Freedom, Low Income, Deep Purpose. He reclaims “dirtbag” as a term of endearment for someone so committed to what they love that they refuse to surrender all their time to conventional work, and reframes it around a trifecta of time, money, and purpose.</p><p>The conversation turns to Blake’s work with neurodivergent teens—many of whom get labeled ADHD, oppositional, or autistic in a classroom but thrive when given autonomy and real responsibility. Blake argues it’s the one-size-fits-all system that manufactures so many of these labels, and makes the case for a thousand small educational experiments rather than one replacement system. The threads of autonomy and freedom run straight through to PDA experience, as Chris and Marni push into gaming as a legitimate social world, meeting kids where they are, and Blake’s defense of calculated risk and the “one-way ticket” as a counterweight to communities built solely around safety. The episode closes on his challenge to the “cult of retirement” and his belief that a life of more time and more purpose is hard to strike but real.</p><p><strong>Links from this episode:</strong></p><p>* Blake’s Writing </p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.blakeboles.com/dbr/">Dirtbag Rich</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.blakeboles.com/y/">Why Are You Still Sending Your Kids to School?</a></p><p>* Blake’s Substack, <a target="_blank" href="https://letters.blakeboles.com/">The Adventures of Blake</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://letters.blakeboles.com/p/avoiding-the-cult-of-retirement">“Avoiding the Cult of Retirement”</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dirtbag-rich/id1777389619">Dirtbag Rich podcast</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/off-trail-learning/id976183057">Off Trail Learning podcast</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ng/podcast/xander-macswan-on-video-games/id976183057?i=1000376999000">Episode with Xander Macswan on Video Games</a></p><p>* Blake’s travel company for teens, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.unschooladventures.com/">Unschool Adventures</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nbtsc.org/">Not Back to School Camp</a></p><p><strong>Connect With Us</strong></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://wanderingbrightly.substack.com/">Wandering Brightly</a> with Marni Kammersell</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.positivedisintegration.org/">Positive Disintegration</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://cosmiccheersquad.substack.com/">cosmic cheer squad</a> with Chris Wells</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://pdapodcast.substack.com/">PDA: Resistance and Resilience</a> on Substack</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/pda_r_and_r/">Follow us on Instagram</a></p><p>If you enjoyed this episode on Apple or Spotify, please remember to click on the stars and leave a rating or write a review. Thank you!</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to PDA: Resistance and Resilience at <a href="https://pdapodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4">pdapodcast.substack.com/subscribe</a>
May 12, 2026
Inside the PDA Experience Report
<p>Content note: This episode includes brief discussion of suicidal ideation, mental health crises, school avoidance and truancy proceedings, and harmful behavioral interventions.</p><p>In episode 12, Marni and Chris are joined by Diane Gould and Melissa McKenzie of PDA North America to talk about the <a target="_blank" href="https://learn.pdanorthamerica.org/products/digital_downloads/pda-experience-survey-full-report">PDA Experience Report</a>: the first large-scale study of PDA lived experience in North America. Nearly 2,200 caregivers and PDA adults responded in just a month. Diane is the executive director and founder of PDA North America and a licensed clinical social worker; Melissa is a clinical psychologist and research scientist. Both credit the larger team behind the report, including Marni, who served as a final reviewer.</p><p>Diane shares the origin of PDA North America, including the first conference held in Chicago the week before the world shut down in March 2020. The conversation then turns to what the report shows: the gap between caregiver perception and adult PDAer self-report (including underreported suicidal ideation), the near-universal endorsement of sensory sensitivity among adult PDAers, an 87.7% rate of school avoidance or refusal, and the financial hardship that shows up across the adult sample. They sit with the limits of the data, too—the whiteness of the sample, the mistrust of research in marginalized communities, and the real reasons the low-demand approach may not feel safe or accessible to families who don’t have the privilege to drop demands.</p><p>Diane and Melissa close by talking about where PDA North America is headed next: more qualitative work, in-depth interviews with people from communities the survey didn’t reach, and a continued effort to help families act on what the report shows. </p><p>PDA day (May 13) is this week, and PDA North America is hosting a full day of community programming. </p><p><strong>Links mentioned in the episode:</strong></p><p>* The <a target="_blank" href="https://learn.pdanorthamerica.org/products/digital_downloads/pda-experience-survey-full-report">PDA Experience Report</a> </p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://pdanorthamerica.org/">PDA North America</a> </p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://pdanorthamerica.org/pda-day/">PDA Day</a> </p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://open.substack.com/pub/pdapodcast/p/mentoring-pdaers-with-trust-and-curiosity?r=2xu6y&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web">Episode 8: Mentoring PDAers With Trust and Curiosity</a> with Amy Clark</p><p><strong>Connect With Us</strong></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://wanderingbrightly.substack.com/">Wandering Brightly</a> with Marni Kammersell</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.positivedisintegration.org/">Positive Disintegration</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://cosmiccheersquad.substack.com/">cosmic cheer squad</a> with Chris Wells</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://pdapodcast.substack.com/">PDA: Resistance and Resilience</a> on Substack</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/pda_r_and_r/">Follow us on Instagram</a></p><p>If you enjoyed this episode on Apple or Spotify, please remember to click on the stars and leave a rating or write a review. Thank you!</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to PDA: Resistance and Resilience at <a href="https://pdapodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4">pdapodcast.substack.com/subscribe</a>
May 5, 2026
Caregiving as a PDAer
<p>After an extended break from recording, Marni and Chris return in episode 11 to talk about the reason for the gap: caregiving. Chris shares about supporting their friend and mentor, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.positivedisintegration.org/p/who-is-michael">Michael M. Piechowski</a>. The conversation moves from Chris’s specific experience into a wider exploration of what caregiving asks of PDAers, why the “selfish PDAer” stereotype gets it so wrong, and how the demands of caregiving land differently when they’re ones you’ve chosen.</p><p>Chris and Marni discuss how PDAers they know are often deeply giving and compassionate caregivers, and Marni introduces Rabbi Shoshana’s circle of arrows model—where demands are imagined as arrows from outside a safe inner circle—as a way of understanding how the people we invite into our circle change the shape of caregiving entirely. They sit with the difference between caregiving for infants and elders, the importance of receiving care gracefully, and the cultural lie of full independence that Disability Studies has helped Marni name.</p><p>The conversation also turns personal. Chris reflects on the contrast between caregiving for Michael now and being unable to be present for their father at the end of his life, and how watching their mother care for their father shaped what they later grew into. They talk about intellectual overexcitability as both a complication and a gift in caregiving, the identity rupture of new parenthood, and how interoception and embodiment have changed what they can offer over the past two decades. And they close with Michael’s own wisdom about cyclical dark times, staying present, and taking care of yourself.</p><p>* Rabbi Shoshana’s <a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DXxd1H8Ecce/">circle of arrow</a>s model </p><p>* Marni’s <a target="_blank" href="https://wanderingbrightly.substack.com/p/rhythm-not-schedule-in-home-education?r=2xu6y&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true">piece on the teenage years</a></p><p><strong>Connect With Us</strong></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://wanderingbrightly.substack.com/">Wandering Brightly</a> with Marni Kammersell</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.positivedisintegration.org/">Positive Disintegration</a> with Chris Wells</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://pdapodcast.substack.com/">PDA: Resistance and Resilience</a> on Substack</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/pda_r_and_r/">Follow us on Instagram</a></p><p>If you enjoyed this episode on Apple or Spotify, please remember to click on the stars and leave a rating or write a review. Thank you!</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to PDA: Resistance and Resilience at <a href="https://pdapodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4">pdapodcast.substack.com/subscribe</a>
13 total episodes available
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