Last reviewed: 04/02/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly When people search autism demand avoidance , they are usually trying to make sense of a pattern that feels bigger than procrastination or stubbornness. Maybe you can do hard things for other people but freeze when the task is your own. Maybe reminders from a partner, boss, or calendar make you feel trapped instead of motivated. Maybe you even avoid things you genuinely want. Many autistic adults and clinicians use PDA as shorthand for a...

Last reviewed: 04/02/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you’re searching " what is ocd" , you may not be looking for a textbook answer. You may be trying to figure out whether what you’re living with has a name: the relentless doubt, the need to check again, the urge to ask for reassurance, or the exhausting feeling that one thought could mean something terrible about you. In plain English, OCD is a pattern of obsessions and compulsions that becomes time-consuming, distressing, and hard to...

Last reviewed: 03/29/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you have ever looked at the PROMIS-29 and wondered why it asks about both pain interference vs pain intensity, you are not overthinking it. Those two scores are related, but they are not interchangeable. The PROMIS-29 includes a separate 0 to 10 pain intensity item plus a pain interference domain because one question captures how strong pain feels, while the other captures how much that pain is disrupting your life.[2][4] That...