When Nervous Systems Collide: Navigating the PDA–RSD Relationship Dance

By Dr. Patty Gently on May 7, 2025

Bright Insight Support Network founder and president Dr. Patricia Gently is a trauma therapist and coach who specializes in EMDR and works with gifted neurodivergent and other marginalized populations. She is an experienced author, educator, and presenter who promotes integrated inclusivity, a holistic understanding of neurodiversity, and information integrity.

When Nervous Systems Collide: Navigating the PDA–RSD Relationship Dance

 

What happens when one partner pulls away from any perceived pressure, and the other feels crushed by any perceived withdrawal?

If you are in a relationship where one partner lives with demand avoidance—Pathological Demand Avoidance or a Pervasive Drive for Autonomy (PDA)—and the other tends toward rejection sensitivity or Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), you may already know: the struggles are not just communication issues. This may be a full-blown nervous system dance. It can be imperfect, challenging, and exhausting. Still, it is workable with understanding and care.

Most articles isolate PDA and RSD in individual profiles or examine how they interact within one person. What happens, though, when these two emotional patterns exist under one roof, in a relationship where both people are trying, caring, hurting, and needing very different things?

Let us look more closely.

PDA and RSD: A Quick Deep Dive

When one partner has PDA and the other has RSD, it creates a unique relational dynamic. Both profiles involve intense emotional responses, though for different reasons, and their interaction can trigger a looping cycle of avoidance and perceived rejection.

What are PDA and RSD, more specifically, though?

PDA is not about being oppositional. It is a deeply wired response to a perceived loss of control. Emotional expectations can be just as activating as external ones. For someone with PDA, a simple request to talk, explain, or reassure can feel like pressure on the system. This response is not about character or attitude; it is a strategy of protection rooted in a need to preserve autonomy and reduce anxiety.

RSD, in contrast, is a profound sensitivity to perceived rejection or criticism. What may feel neutral or inconsequential to one person can feel devastating to another who carries this wiring. Their nervous system interprets distance, silence, or emotional delay as confirmation of being unwanted or unsafe. Again, this is not a flaw. It is a protective mechanism formed to manage fear and attachment insecurity.

Both partners are seeking to adapt to the situation and environment. And when different adaptive attempts collide, they may amplify each other.

I'll explain.

Core Issues That Can Arise When PDA Meets RSD

Mutual Misinterpretation: The PDA partner may avoid perceived demands (even benign ones), which can be experienced by the RSD partner as personal rejection or lack of care. Meanwhile, the RSD partner may seek reassurance or closeness to soothe fears of rejection, which often feels like a demand to the PDA partner, prompting further withdrawal or defiance.

Escalating Emotional Cycles: The RSD partner’s emotional reactivity may be seen as pressure or control by the PDA partner, who then may avoid or resist. This may intensify the RSD partner’s distress. The more upset the RSD partner becomes, the more overwhelmed or cornered the PDA partner may feel, potentially leading to intense avoidance or complete shutdown.

Difficulty with Conflict Repair: PDA often includes distrust of others’ attempts to “manage” or “fix” things, so the PDA partner may resist resolution conversations. In contrast, RSD creates an urgency for repair and reassurance, which means delays in resolution can feel devastating or confirming of fears.

Power Struggles Around Autonomy vs. Connection: The PDA partner needs autonomy and freedom from perceived control and threat. The RSD partner needs emotional security, closeness, and consistent reassurance. These core needs can feel fundamentally incompatible unless both partners develop awareness and tools to manage their internal responses.

The Loop of Misattunement

When an RSD-driven partner senses a rift, they often reach out for reassurance. A simple question like, “Are we okay?" might carry with it layers of urgency and fear. To the PDA partner, that question may land as a demand for emotional performance rather than a gentle check-in. The PDA response might be withdrawal, deflection, or irritation, all in service of regulating emotions suggesting threat.

This, in turn, may confirm the RSD partner’s fears. They may then emotionally escalate in an attempt to clarify or reconnect. The more they reach for connection, the more the PDA partner retreats. The more the PDA partner retreats, the more destabilized and frantic the RSD partner may become. The loop builds on itself, one response feeding the next. For example:

First, the RSD partner senses disconnection and seeks reassurance.

Then the PDA partner experiences the bid for reassurance as a demand and withdraws.

After this withdrawal, the RSD partner escalates with urgency, seeking closeness.

This urgency leaves the PDA partner feeling cornered, causing them to resist more strongly.

After this resistance is noticed, the RSD partner may feel rejected and try harder, or begin to spiral inward.

This spiral and need for support may prompt the PDA partner to detach further or shut down.

And though each person may feel burdened by their own behaviors or those of their partner, the loop tightens. Misattunement becomes a pattern, though not because of a lack of care. This pattern solidifies as each partner presents with discordant strategies for securing safety.

Inner Worlds in Tension

The PDA partner often feels most secure when there is space, choice, and emotional neutrality. Emotional intensity can feel like an intrusion. Requests can feel like traps. Even love, when expressed with urgency, can feel unsafe.

Meanwhile, the RSD partner feels most secure when there is continuity, presence, and reassurance. Space can feel like abandonment. Silence can feel like punishment. Avoidance can feel like proof of being too much.

This difference is not inherently unworkable, though it requires awareness. Without that, both partners are left managing triggers without context.

Navigating Difference with Intention

Relating across the PDA-RSD divide requires moving beyond assumptions and into curiosity. Instead of reacting, each partner can begin to notice their internal state and ask: What am I protecting? What do I actually need in this moment? Rather than relying on bullet-point strategies, the process must be personalized.

Perhaps a note feels less invasive than a conversation.

Maybe it helps to name, ahead of time, that space is needed and when reconnection might be possible.

Or perhaps both partners agree to revisit a tense exchange when both are more regulated, rather than resolving it immediately.

Beyond caring, be curious and creative. And know that pacing becomes central. 

The PDA partner may need time before engaging. The RSD partner may need some acknowledgment during that time to stay grounded. What matters most is not following a script; it's honoring each person’s nervous system while maintaining mutual respect.

What Can Help

Here are strategies that in succession (or out of succession, no pressure 😉) can help with the process of disentangling PDA-RSD conflict patterns:

• Name the Patterns: Both partners benefit from a shared language for what is happening (e.g., “This feels like my RSD is triggered by your need for space” or “I am needing to withdraw so I do not feel controlled”).

  
  

• Third Spaces: Create shared routines or rituals that are neither demands nor reassurance-seeking—neutral connecting zones like quiet parallel play or shared humor.

  
  

• Indirect Communication: Use less direct approaches when addressing emotional needs, such as writing notes or agreeing on “cooldown” signals you co-create.

  
  

• Therapy that Understands Neurodivergence: Ideally, seek support from a practitioner who understands both PDA and RSD in a relational context, not just as separate traits.

  
  

• Mutual Compassion with Boundaries: Each partner needs to recognize the other’s responses as rooted in pain, not hostility, while still taking responsibility for the impact of their own behaviors. Offer unconditional positive regard, as long as the relationship is safe.

What This Work Requires

A relational repair dynamic like this requires some emotional flexibility. It asks for the ability to:

Pause and reflect

Translate behavior rather than take it at face value

Recognize that neither partner is broken

Each partner simply has different needs and processing styles.

For the PDA partner, growth may involve learning to communicate needs without shutting others out entirely. For the RSD partner, it may mean learning to tolerate ambiguity without spiraling into shame. Both must become fluent in their own patterns before they can meet each other in the middle.

And when all else fails, lean in with curiosity, compassion, and creativity. A good dance-off or lip-synch battle may heal many wounds (if you are familiar with the work of Dr. Ross Greene, we call this Plan C).

Final Reflections

Relating across PDA and RSD is not for the faint of heart. It is complex and at times painful. And yet, when both people are willing to learn themselves and one another with compassion, something extraordinary becomes possible, and it's not just coexistence. It is a more honest and adaptive kind of interplay that results in safety and, therefore, intimacy.

What emerges from that work is not perfect harmony. It is rhythm—a negotiated, evolving balance between autonomy and connection.

And not despite the wiring.

Through it.