Breaking the Cycle: How to Recognize and Eliminate our own Leveling Behaviors

Every teenager, regardless of neurotype, has an increased drive to prove their own autonomy, and increased autonomy awareness.  It’s a developmental norm, just as it is for toddlers and preschoolers.  For kids who have been autonomy centered all along, the teenage years can turn into a battle ground of monumental proportions.

A lot of common, everyday language people use to communicate has a leveling component to it.  Our “invisible and unquestioned social contract” is built around assumed hierarchy and the obligation most believe is inherent in living in close proximity to other people.  Add to this dynamic that closer we are, the more we believe we are owed cooperation and support, with the primary family unit having the deepest sense of innate obligation.  The everyday language we use with each other tends to work as a reinforcer of those invisible social agreements, along with assumed hierarchies (like “I am in charge of my child, I am in charge of my employees”).  These invisible assumptions and how they emerge in our language is true in the workplace, with friends, and in all relationships.

Regardless of neurotype, adults “level against” other people consistently, in largely unconscious ways.   PDA'ers tend to be extremely sensitive and reactive to language that implies hierarchy, whether it be tone, hidden meaning, choice of words, or sometimes all three.  People often communicate displeasure and approval in ways that are more subtle than praise and scolding, such as through backhanded compliments and sarcasm. These “leveling through language” approaches are particularly damaging to relationships with PDA’ers because it puts us on constant guard, and in defense mode. 

The first step is to be conscious of all the ways we level language against others, and take removing those levers seriously. 

 Fictional demo scenario: let’s say 16 year old Joey’s mom, Anita, lets Joey know that Aunt Camila is visiting, and will arrive at around noon.  She says “Aunt Camila is visiting today at around noon.  Be sure to stop in and say hi?” She makes it a request and an implied demand all at once, and leaves no space for refusal without conflict. If Joey says no, he will need to justify it, and “I don’t feel like it” is not going to be justification enough for his mom.  Joey fits an internalized PDA'er profile, and he is generally conflict averse, and so he looks away and nods while inwardly resenting the request.  He even resigns himself to “saying hi,” which he knows means engaging in a few minutes of surface small talk “to be polite,” but he doesn’t really want to do any of it. It's the weekend, it was a long and exhausting week, and he just wants to find a way to unwind and relax by himself.

Joey then gets wrapped up in playing a video game, and forgets about Aunt Camila and his mother’s request entirely.  It’s not like he told himself “I’m not doing that,” it’s more like his brain decided the task was distasteful and it went squarely into the “discard” pile as soon as he shifted his attention to his game. 

He wanders into the kitchen at around 1:30, opens the fridge, and seems surprised to see Aunt Camila sitting at the kitchen table.  Mom is feeling frustrated, because in her mind, she asked Joey to do something simple and easy, he agreed to do it, and then he didn’t. In her mind, Joey was being thoughtless and selfish in not following through on her demand.  The first thing out of her mouth to Joey is “so nice of you to finally join us” along with an eye roll in Aunt Camila’s direction, which Joey misses, since his head is in the fridge.  It doesn’t matter though, because Anita’s sarcastic tone comes through loud and clear to Joey’s tone sensitive PDA’er ears.  

The hierarchical and social demands in this simple interaction have a lot of layers. Mom feels like it is her right to expect that Joey will agree to her request to “say hi” to Aunt Camila, mostly because of that hidden and unquestioned social hierarchy.  “You are a member of my family, you are my son, and as such, I have the right to expect you to do things I ask you to do.” She tells herself her expectation is reasonable, and she might even engage in “tit for tat” type thinking, it’s not so much to ask, considering all the things I do for him.  And yes, it likely is true that Anita does a lot of things for Joey, to the point of being exhausted herself, and then unconsciously expects to be paid back in gratitude.  This, too, is leveling behavior, when Anita thinks “you owe me so I expect you will…” and this belief strips autonomy before she even opens her mouth, because Joey is largely aware his mom feels this way.  Awareness of her judgment, censure and disapproval is felt as an unrelenting and unjust demand.  

Looking at this interaction through an autonomy focused lens, this request might have landed better with Joey if Anita’s mindset and approach was more like, 

• “Joey, I’d be grateful if you have a minute to say hi and play the smalltalk game with Aunt Camila, but if you don’t, I’ll assume you were busy and that’s okay too.” 

• “I’m making a request, but if it ends up not happening, I’m not going to be bothered by it or upset with you.” 

• “I know this is an annoying thing to ask, and I recognize that you’d be doing me a favor.”

• “A ‘no’ answer is entirely reasonable, and you don’t have to justify it.”

• “You already know that if you don’t show up, I will assume you were busy or distracted, I won’t take it personally, and I won’t bring it up again.”

This underlying mindset and the resulting messaging is what autonomy focused collaboration looks like between two people.  “You don’t owe me this.  I approach you in a way that acknowledges your autonomy and your right to say no.  I’d appreciate your help, if you have the energy for it.”  And if applicable, “thanks for agreeing.  This is important to me, so would it be okay if I also sent you a text reminder, so you don’t have to remember when the time comes?  I want to make it easy for you.”  This kind of thinking, “this is my priority, I am taking ownership of my own problem, so I’m going to do what I can to take responsibility and set us both up for success” saves Anita from later feeling like “if I mattered more to Joey, he would have remembered.”  It saves Anita from equating good executive functioning with love, and it saves Joey from the shame of not remembering, and the weight of that shame, of always disappointing his mom.  

As it happened, though, Anita wasn’t seeing any of this through an autonomy focused lens.  Anita asked, Joey said yes, and in her mind, that means that when Joey forgot, Joey is at fault and deserves to be punished, if only with critical words, a biting tone, sarcasm, and scorn.  

In order to get to this place of belief, Anita needed to first believe she had the right to demand Joey show up, and an equal right to be annoyed at him when he didn’t.

The hidden message behind “so nice of you to finally join us” is both “you deserve to be scolded for being late”, and maybe also a deeper “I’m annoyed that you hide away playing video games all the time, so everytime you spend so long in solitude, every time you don’t choose to spend ‘enough’ time with family, I’m going to find a way to express my disapproval.” 

Disapproval and judgment creates a high demand environment even if nothing is explicitly demanded.  Add to this the implication and expectation inherent within “so nice of you to finally join us” that Joey is indeed “joining them” rather than just stopping in for a bite to eat. All of this, beginning to end, is rooted in the invisible social contract, and in hierarchical assumptions about the right we have to demand things of others, and of our children.  This can also be problematic in relationships which on their surface are equitable, such as marriage or friendship, and these assumptions of both intent and obligation can do a lot of damage for adult PDAers, too.  

The surface intention of “so nice of you to finally join us” might also be to praise Joey’s “good behavior” of joining Anita and Aunt Camila in the kitchen, even in the event Anita sincerely meant it as praise. But praise can also be a trigger.  Negative or positive, any judgment of behavior is an attempt to reinforce social norms and hierarchy, and to push a person to compliance, and such, judgment strips autonomy.  

This kind of sarcasm serves double duty when it comes to stripping autonomy, because it’s like we’re saying “this is behavior I approve or disapprove of, and because of my place in your life, that should matter to you enough to change”. For autonomy sensitive people, “so nice of you to finally join us” might feel like an intolerable slap in the face, for all of the reasons listed above. 

Joey isn’t detailing any of this in his mind, and he couldn’t explain why he is so annoyed at that moment, other than “ugh, my mom is so annoying”.  He just knows he has the urge to snap back at his mother and do something unexpected, something she would consider “rude” and a violation of the social order. Being conflict averse, Joey holds these feelings and urges inside and doesn’t visibly react.  Instead, he ignores his mother entirely, smiles tightly at Aunt Camila, and says “hello, nice to see you” as he grabs a drink from the fridge.  He closes the fridge and darts away, saying, “sorry I’m in the middle of something” as he exits.  Joey knows his mother will be furious he didn't stay to smile and chat, but he also knows she won’t make a scene, and he takes a shameful satisfaction in thwarting her, in seeking to balance out the power dynamics. It doesn't feel good to him in the moment, but it does feel necessary. He also knows he is setting himself up to be lectured about how “impolite” he was later, but in that moment he does not care enough to avoid that.  He is frustrated, trying to stay calm, and thinking “this is what she deserves.” He’s also likely feeling misjudged and misunderstood.

To someone who is less autonomy focused than Joey, even though they may understand the hidden meaning and censure behind the words, it might land in a more neutral kind of way, and they might be able to shrug it off.  “That’s just mom,” they might say, “whatever,” instead of walking away frustrated and then avoiding her as much as possible moving forward, giving curt one word answers for the next two weeks.  Avoiding and ignoring are equalizing behaviors that avoids confrontation, and seems to me they are a reasonable choice for Joey to make.  

Whether it is conscious on Joey’s part or not, every interaction with his mom where she assumes she has the unquestionable right to demand cooperation may lead to Joey pulling back further, and being more self protective.  And though Anita doesn’t know why (because this whole dynamic is invisible to her, and she keeps believing she is justified in her own equalizing reactions) she is continually creating and driving this cycle of disconnection, anxiety and resentment.  So long as Anita continues to approach Joey from this “you owe me” mentality, the relationship is likely to end up in a state of permanent pushback, where Joey is irritated with his mom before he even walks in the room.  Then mom is annoyed that Joey is so sullen, and she makes sarcastic comments as a matter of course.  “Hello there you, looks like the vampire came out for some sun!”  She tells herself she’s being funny and playful, tells herself she is hoping to make a connection with Joey, but she’s equalizing against him in the process, still trying to communicate her disapproval in non-direct ways. Anita is upset with Joey, needs him to know it, and doesn’t like confrontation all that much, either.  Joey "hears" her loud and clear, and the cycle continues.

When it comes to making snarky comments with other people, it’s worth remembering that a joke is only funny if everyone is laughing.  If Anita then responds defensively and says, “you’re so sensitive, you can’t take a joke,” she is again pushing against Joey’s autonomy by criticizing him, by labeling him as “sensitive.”  When this becomes their everyday dynamic, it would be no wonder if Joey is quick to get upset or irritated, or even quick to feel overwhelmed and close to the edge any time he does want to talk to his mom about a problem. Leveling in language is so common as to be ubiquitous.  For many people, leveling exists in some form in the majority of  interactions, especially if there is any underlying or ongoing unexpressed frustration. For people who are particularly autonomy sensitive, these kinds of interactions can be isolating at best, and at worst, can lead to elevated stress and misery, along with elevated and constant reactivity. 

Learning collaborative skills inevitably includes a certain amount of “unlearning”, and consciously recognizing and seeking to eliminate our own leveling behaviors, once we start to recognize them.  I find the more I keep the idea of “leveling awareness” in mind, the more empowered I am to express myself in more direct, PDA friendly ways.