Okay, not really, but it's a philosophy that I've held for a while that is really hitting home right now. I have decided that roleplay is a psychiatric exercise.
I'm not talking about the simple little "what would you do" exercises that you use with children or the "empty chair" exercise that you use in counseling. I'm talking about all out, hard core, RPGs - roleplaying games. For those of you not familiar with the genre, I will use the term RPG in this post to refer to any game or hobby that requires one to develop a complex fictitious character, including stats, background, appearance and personality, and then bring that character to life through fluid roleplay. This category includes MUSHes & MOOs, White Wolf games and, of course, Dungeons and Dragons. Some of these games are more roleplay developed than others, but the more developed they are, the better the psychiatric exercise.
Shall I offer an example? Case Study #1: Myself.
I first learned to play D&D when I was in grad school. I had roleplayed online for many years and loved it, but I had always wanted to experience the face-to-face socialization that came with Dungeons and Dragons. I found a group and they became my close friends for the next year and a half - almost as close as the character that came to life every Saturday night.
Her name was Nyara, and she was an outcast. None of this was my doing, really. I had wanted to create a perfect character - doesn't everyone want to do well at something that they are trying for the first time? But to be honest, that wasn't my only reason for wanting a flawless character. The truth is that I was feeling very insecure myself. I was totally on my own. I had a new apartment in a new city in a new state halfway across the country from my home and family. I was at a new school surrounded by other graduate students who all knew more than me, who were much better prepared for 2-4 years locked in a lab than me. I was intimidated, oh, was I. And it didn't help that I had a rough year and a half in general. So, yeah, it was important to me that I have a happy little faerie tale to come to once a week. That didn't so much happen.
Instead, I got Nyara. Through circumstances mostly out of my control, she became a demon-blooded half-drow shadow priestess. CG, of course. An innocent girl, barely a woman, running from forces she could not understand. And all the time, the only other character who trusted her and accepted her was Maxine, the paladin. Of this relationship, I have two important points to make. First, I remember that when Nyara was first revealed, everyone was upset. Eventually, Maxine and Nyara talked and I remember Susi (Maxine's player) telling the GM: "Maxine is only angry with Nyara because Maxine thinks she lied to us. Once she sits down and talks to her, and it comes out that Nyara didn't even know what she is, then Maxine will take Nyara under her wing and protect her." Wow. I'm not even sure what to say about that, except that those words have stuck with me all these years.
The second thing I would point out is that Susi was, in so many ways, the same to me that Maxine was to Nyara. She claimed me as her friend even though we were so different. Her morals, under other circumstances, might have been blaringly different from mine, but she looked at me and saw an innocent little girl who needed support and protection.
Through Nyara, I worked my way through some very dark times. She was a shadowpriestess and she stubbornly insisted that "darkness" is not necessarily evil. It just represents the unknown and so it causes us to fear it. I, meanwhile, was facing plain old darkness. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't do what any other responsible and intelligent young adult should be able to do. Every day was filled with nervousness, anxiety and fear. Not to mention depression. And I can place the fact that I came through it all squarely on the shoulders of God, who gave me the strength to get out of bed each morning, and Nyara, who taught me how to walk through the fire… or rather, the darkest night.
Several years later and in a land far far away… I was in Texas, looking for a job and getting my newly diagnosed ADHD under control. I had found a cool D&D group in my neighborhood and I still rely very much on their friendship and support. I also got involved in an online D&D game with some other friends, and that is where Adriel was born.
Adriel is Nyara's daughter. Raised in the orphanage that Nyara founded, after her mother died giving birth to her, Adriel knows she is different, but she, quite frankly, doesn't care. She has her morals (and they are the same as her mother's), and if you don't like them, well that's not her problem, is it? Adriel is witty and sarcastic and self-confident and a born leader of the other player characters, and of the network of orphans that make up the various cities around her home country. In Adriel, I found exactly what I needed at that time of my life. The stubborn determination to be who I was meant to be - and to figure out who that person was. I didn't now where I was going, but I would get there, darn it! And Adriel helped me get there, both mentally and emotionally.
I just recently came to the realization that there is a very real reason why I had to go through Nyara before I could meet Adriel. It is, I think, parallel to the idea that we need the laments in the book of Psalms as much as we need the praise or thanksgiving psalms. As my professor, Dr. Pitts, put it, "If you are counseling and a man comes in and says, 'I suck. I'm a total loser,' your first response should NOT be 'No, you aren't!' Sometimes we need to be in the mud, to sit in the mud. Until we are ready to get out of the mud. As counselors, we can't pull our patients out of the mud until they are ready. Until then, we have to get into the mud with them." And that is where the lament psalms come in. I believe, now, that it is also where Nyara came in. Everything has a right time and place - even the darkness.
So. Fast forward. Adriel was retired two years ago. I've continued to play D&D, but it's become a game and a social exercise more than anything else. Recently, I began running games for my neighborhood group, and that's been a whole new mindset to learn. My life, too, has slowly been settling, and I'm on the road that (I hope) will get me where God wants me to be.
I am now preparing to join a new online D&D group, and I'm going through the character development process. I've just finished fine-tuning my character background this morning. If you want to read the full thing, it should be available on the game website soon (I'll keep you informed when it is). But the long and short of it is that this is Leah, a girl whose life is filled with unfortunate events, mishaps and accidents. She was given up by her parents to be raised by monks, for whom she caused nothing but trouble, despite her good intentions. She was sent to be trained as a cleric and that was a disaster, so they sent her back to the monks. After a rather large disaster at the abbey, Leah was taken in as a wizard's apprentice and though she did okay, she couldn't master that talent, either. Eventually, she discovered that her magical abilities were inborn and wild and could not be trained like a wizard's abilities are. She set off on her own and... the rest is history. Or it will be soon.
The curious thing that evolved as I wrote Leah's history is the concept of her accidents. To many people, she seems so enormously clumsy. She tries to do something simple and normal and will almost always screw it up. Is it mental? Physical? Or due to the magical tension of her uncontrolled magical abilities? Who knows, but it definitely gives her a hard time, handicapping her in a way that most people can't understand.
Now, let's take a detour. Check out the following exerpt from this story that I posted, several years ago, on the adult_adhd lj community that I'm a member of:
When I was a kid, we had a hill at the end of our court. It was small for a hill (that is, when you are living in the Napa Valley) but you usually had to stop for breath halfway up and it definitely caused a burn in the calves. I feel as though every time someone tells me to "just do it" it's got this negative connotation: "It's just a hill, you just have to get up off your butt and do it. Yes, it's tiring, but everyone else has to do it, it's the way life is. How can you be so lazy/irresponsible/stupid that you can't do what everyone else can do?" Grrr. It's just the connotation that annoys me.
Anyway, I realized that for people with ADD, there is no hill. I can assure you, I've looked and looked and looked: I see no hill. Instead, we get a mountain. And getting over this mountain is not as simple as 'just do it'. We can't just walk up the hill. We have to rock climb up the mountain face. Yes, it's possible. Yes, we can physically do it. But it's not that simple. To make it a way of life, to accomplish what is routine to everyone else, we have to find a way to reorganize our lives and our habits and get the outside support we need so that instead of rock climbing, we have found or carved a mountain trail over the mountain. It'll still be harder than everyone else who just has a hill to walk over, but at least we aren't out there with picks and hammers.
The problem is that for me, with my ADD, I'm currently standing in a valley surrounded by mountains. I'm unemployed and trying to figure out where the job is that'll help me afford to go back to school to get the degree I want to get to the career I want. Everyone's telling me to 'just do it' -- "You have to get a job, Jenn. How hard is it to get a job? You can't live here forever." But I can't figure out what job I'm supposed to find. Everything I've tried I'm not qualified for or won't work with me or doesn't pay nearly enough to support myself, my two cats, and my medical bills. "Just do it?" Hah! Not only am I trying to climb a mountain, I don't even know which direction I'm supposed to be climbing. North? South? East? West? I feel like I manage to mountain climb up one face, only to find that it's completely impassable halfway up and have to come back down and try some other random direction. To make things worse, I also am fighting depression. Which means, while ADD gives me these mountains to overcome, my depression makes these mountains f***ing scary!
I had forgotten about this post until I was putting the finishing touches on Leah's background. And when I went back to read it, I was blown away. Like, totally stunned. Am I the only one who sees the similarities? I don't think so. And so, I realize that my character is once again an unconscious shadow of the frame of mind my life is currently in. I'm finally at a point in my life where I know where I am going and I hope - pray - that I can have the strength and courage and determination to make it there. No more failures, no more switchbacks on that mountain trail. And Leah? She's exactly where I am. She understands where she is, why she is. Now she just has to prove it - to herself, and to everyone else. We both have a long way to go, Leah and I. But we will get there together.
