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Last night I went to an escape room with Sneppers, Ratty, and two new friends we'll call Pup and Nard. (I know, I know, but for some reason this friend serves some real "Nard Dog" energy.) It was a fun time! The story is we've been sent into the bunker of a scientist who built the world's first free-thinking AI. Afraid of how it would be received, she locked it away for 30 years -- where it's been learning and developing in complete isolation. Now, we're to dive in and retrieve the AI core for the government to have some sweet new technology.
My favorite moment was when we were in the Church of Robotology, stuck in front of a door you needed to be level 9 to enter. We had done enough puzzles to reach level 6, but there was nothing else in the room to interact with. Until...
The digital display with our level number was on the wall. Curious, I checked if it moved -- and it did! I turned the 6 over to a 9, which got us into the control room! Afterward, Nard remarked "It's a good thing we had someone good with lateral thinking," which felt like getting a gold star from the teacher.
Monday night I was playing in Ratty's "Advanced 5th Edition" game as my satyr barbarian, Keogolas Shaggyhoof. Without meaning to, Keo has become this weird expression of my ADHD. He grew up in a cloistered elven society where he was *extra*, even for a satyr. Though he has love and support from his family he knows somehow he's fundamentally "different", and he's searching for a place in the world where he fits. In the meantime, he tries really hard to be "aligned" with the values of the culture he's in. Ultimately Keo believes his tie to the Dreaming/Feywild is stronger than most, and that his destiny is to metamorphise into a "true" fae.
At the table, Keo comes across an earnest mess -- like most of my characters. :) I don't think I appreciated how much of my frustration with communication is wrapped up in him, or this feeling that my tempo is irrevocably out of sync with the world around me. And I think because I haven't really...touched those feelings in a long time, they can be difficult to manage while you know, playing a game.
Ratty had set our party out on a murder mystery, something we're not well suited for. I know that our DM has some nerves about running something like this for a number of reasons, and I also know that my brain works very differently from his. A question that makes sense for me to ask will often catch him by surprise enough to throw him off his game.
So I'm trying to hang back, let our mage and druid collect and sort clues, or have our ranger put details together. But I'm also the party's face, so the expectation is that I talk to the witnesses and victims. Only...it's one of those nights where it feels like I have to eat shit if I say *anything*. Pretty early on I decide that the only way to get through this is to check out as much as possible and draw no attention -- which I can't do because I'm expected to interview people. I was frustrated to the point of tears. It was not fun.
The "lateral thinking" comment crystallized something that I didn't have words for before. I don't think I appreciate how MUCH of my thinking is disordered -- or at least, how natural it is for me to think laterally.
I've heard this called "knight's move thinking", where internally you're moving from point a to point b to point c but your conversation partner just hears "You said A, I respond C", without any idea there IS a B. Over time I've internalized that I'll have to explain connections I make because for other people my brain is a black box that can sometimes spit out unpredictable results. When someone expresses surprise or indicates a comment is weird/unusual, my reaction is to explain exactly how I got there -- whether they were joking or not.
Because a thing I've noticed is that we *really* don't like having our trains of thought broken. This might be a projection, but I see the flash of anger that immediately follows confusion at my comments. Most of the time I accept it, but at times where I'm trying to...earnestly engage and be understood, it feels like this rejection.
People often talk about lateral thinking as one of the "superpowers" of ADHD, but that really hasn't been my experience. It means that I get exceptionally stressed out about plotting stories, because how can I be sure character motivations, deductions, and actions that make sense to me will come across that way to others? What if I build a story around something that could be easily solved, only I can't see the solution because it's in a blind spot? It feels like someone finding the thing that sends the whole house of cards tumbling down is an inevitability.
It means having to constantly work at being where other people are, and having to check your impulses to say things that sound crazy but make sense to you. It also means stumbling into this sensitive, vulnerable part of yourself when you just thought you were making a D&D character.
For every 6 I get to flip in an escape room, there's an evening where I feel like a punching bag at a table of friends because I just can't follow their patterns. I've never learned how to express my thinking in a way easy for others to understand, which balls-out sucks for a storyteller. I can't trust that the things I put out into the world can be reasonably seen in the way I intended, at least not without feeling like I have to explain every single step that leads from one thing to the other.
But is that just a feeling and not a fact? Am I distrustful of my writing or my audience? How much of this is just...the friction of being alive and something I should have a thicker skin for?
And what do I do if it feels like my presence in a game is more a problem/annoyance than a benefit? I get this feeling in his other game, too, where it's either be quiet or say/do something dumb and eat shit. I know it's *mostly* the typical dynamic but in these situations specifically, where I've tapped into this still-beating tender-queer heart I didn't know I had, it feels like it's being punched back into the shadows from whence it came.
OK. I think the issue is that I walked into these games with one idea when other shit came up at the table. With my firbolg druid, it was the little kid-me who loved plants and animals and felt more part of that world than any other. I didn't know I was trying to get to that place with him in retrospect, and it felt like the (game) world responded in Werner Herzog's voice: "This thing that you love is indifferent to your worship because it lacks the capacity to do anything but advance its own needs. You have chosen a lonely and blinkered path in which no will mourn your passing and the nature you so loved will erase you from existence without a spare thought."
But now I have the rest of the campaign to go! While acknowledgements of mistakes were made all around, there's still a little part of me that feels like Charlie Brown about to kick the football. And when I stumble into the SAME situation about a DIFFERENT thing with Keo, it makes that voice noticeably louder.
I didn't set out to make Keo my avatar for my neurodivergent brain, but here he is. And mostly I can laugh about the way he tries and fails to impress people, or how often he comes barreling in to abruptly change the mood of a room. It IS nice to be noogied about your flaws every now and then.
But also -- could this happen *every* time I make a character, where I uncover some other tender part of myself that is too sensitive to be looked at right away? If so much of my creative process uses a part of my brain that *also* makes it stressful and difficult, how can I find an equilibrium that feels sustainable? Am I just overthinking this?
I don't want to put my friends in a situation where I'm accidentally, vaguely sensitive about the way I'm treated in some circumstances but not in others -- the nuances of which depend on my own internal brain weather. So if I get to the point where I have an ask, I really want it to be specific. Until then, this is all mine to manage.
Maybe the answer is having a different outlet for those uncovered tender-queer feelings, like writing a cozy AU with Filbert and his Forest Buddies or writing a LitRPG where an ADHD college kid inhabits the body of a satyr barbarian from time to time. For sure, learning how to truly be understood by others is only going to come from practice.
Which is why it's so important to do this every day. It's just nice to have a space where you can try to order your thoughts, set them down in a way you can observe them.
Oh well. Back to work.
My favorite moment was when we were in the Church of Robotology, stuck in front of a door you needed to be level 9 to enter. We had done enough puzzles to reach level 6, but there was nothing else in the room to interact with. Until...
The digital display with our level number was on the wall. Curious, I checked if it moved -- and it did! I turned the 6 over to a 9, which got us into the control room! Afterward, Nard remarked "It's a good thing we had someone good with lateral thinking," which felt like getting a gold star from the teacher.
Monday night I was playing in Ratty's "Advanced 5th Edition" game as my satyr barbarian, Keogolas Shaggyhoof. Without meaning to, Keo has become this weird expression of my ADHD. He grew up in a cloistered elven society where he was *extra*, even for a satyr. Though he has love and support from his family he knows somehow he's fundamentally "different", and he's searching for a place in the world where he fits. In the meantime, he tries really hard to be "aligned" with the values of the culture he's in. Ultimately Keo believes his tie to the Dreaming/Feywild is stronger than most, and that his destiny is to metamorphise into a "true" fae.
At the table, Keo comes across an earnest mess -- like most of my characters. :) I don't think I appreciated how much of my frustration with communication is wrapped up in him, or this feeling that my tempo is irrevocably out of sync with the world around me. And I think because I haven't really...touched those feelings in a long time, they can be difficult to manage while you know, playing a game.
Ratty had set our party out on a murder mystery, something we're not well suited for. I know that our DM has some nerves about running something like this for a number of reasons, and I also know that my brain works very differently from his. A question that makes sense for me to ask will often catch him by surprise enough to throw him off his game.
So I'm trying to hang back, let our mage and druid collect and sort clues, or have our ranger put details together. But I'm also the party's face, so the expectation is that I talk to the witnesses and victims. Only...it's one of those nights where it feels like I have to eat shit if I say *anything*. Pretty early on I decide that the only way to get through this is to check out as much as possible and draw no attention -- which I can't do because I'm expected to interview people. I was frustrated to the point of tears. It was not fun.
The "lateral thinking" comment crystallized something that I didn't have words for before. I don't think I appreciate how MUCH of my thinking is disordered -- or at least, how natural it is for me to think laterally.
I've heard this called "knight's move thinking", where internally you're moving from point a to point b to point c but your conversation partner just hears "You said A, I respond C", without any idea there IS a B. Over time I've internalized that I'll have to explain connections I make because for other people my brain is a black box that can sometimes spit out unpredictable results. When someone expresses surprise or indicates a comment is weird/unusual, my reaction is to explain exactly how I got there -- whether they were joking or not.
Because a thing I've noticed is that we *really* don't like having our trains of thought broken. This might be a projection, but I see the flash of anger that immediately follows confusion at my comments. Most of the time I accept it, but at times where I'm trying to...earnestly engage and be understood, it feels like this rejection.
People often talk about lateral thinking as one of the "superpowers" of ADHD, but that really hasn't been my experience. It means that I get exceptionally stressed out about plotting stories, because how can I be sure character motivations, deductions, and actions that make sense to me will come across that way to others? What if I build a story around something that could be easily solved, only I can't see the solution because it's in a blind spot? It feels like someone finding the thing that sends the whole house of cards tumbling down is an inevitability.
It means having to constantly work at being where other people are, and having to check your impulses to say things that sound crazy but make sense to you. It also means stumbling into this sensitive, vulnerable part of yourself when you just thought you were making a D&D character.
For every 6 I get to flip in an escape room, there's an evening where I feel like a punching bag at a table of friends because I just can't follow their patterns. I've never learned how to express my thinking in a way easy for others to understand, which balls-out sucks for a storyteller. I can't trust that the things I put out into the world can be reasonably seen in the way I intended, at least not without feeling like I have to explain every single step that leads from one thing to the other.
But is that just a feeling and not a fact? Am I distrustful of my writing or my audience? How much of this is just...the friction of being alive and something I should have a thicker skin for?
And what do I do if it feels like my presence in a game is more a problem/annoyance than a benefit? I get this feeling in his other game, too, where it's either be quiet or say/do something dumb and eat shit. I know it's *mostly* the typical dynamic but in these situations specifically, where I've tapped into this still-beating tender-queer heart I didn't know I had, it feels like it's being punched back into the shadows from whence it came.
OK. I think the issue is that I walked into these games with one idea when other shit came up at the table. With my firbolg druid, it was the little kid-me who loved plants and animals and felt more part of that world than any other. I didn't know I was trying to get to that place with him in retrospect, and it felt like the (game) world responded in Werner Herzog's voice: "This thing that you love is indifferent to your worship because it lacks the capacity to do anything but advance its own needs. You have chosen a lonely and blinkered path in which no will mourn your passing and the nature you so loved will erase you from existence without a spare thought."
But now I have the rest of the campaign to go! While acknowledgements of mistakes were made all around, there's still a little part of me that feels like Charlie Brown about to kick the football. And when I stumble into the SAME situation about a DIFFERENT thing with Keo, it makes that voice noticeably louder.
I didn't set out to make Keo my avatar for my neurodivergent brain, but here he is. And mostly I can laugh about the way he tries and fails to impress people, or how often he comes barreling in to abruptly change the mood of a room. It IS nice to be noogied about your flaws every now and then.
But also -- could this happen *every* time I make a character, where I uncover some other tender part of myself that is too sensitive to be looked at right away? If so much of my creative process uses a part of my brain that *also* makes it stressful and difficult, how can I find an equilibrium that feels sustainable? Am I just overthinking this?
I don't want to put my friends in a situation where I'm accidentally, vaguely sensitive about the way I'm treated in some circumstances but not in others -- the nuances of which depend on my own internal brain weather. So if I get to the point where I have an ask, I really want it to be specific. Until then, this is all mine to manage.
Maybe the answer is having a different outlet for those uncovered tender-queer feelings, like writing a cozy AU with Filbert and his Forest Buddies or writing a LitRPG where an ADHD college kid inhabits the body of a satyr barbarian from time to time. For sure, learning how to truly be understood by others is only going to come from practice.
Which is why it's so important to do this every day. It's just nice to have a space where you can try to order your thoughts, set them down in a way you can observe them.
Oh well. Back to work.
