[2022] This game made me realise I can overcome my disability

I have moderate ADHD (predominantly inattentive), which basically means it impacts me a lot. I only got diagnosed when I was 18 but it's impacted me throughout my entire life. I think really slowly, my reaction speeds are lacking, my situational awareness doesn't exist, switching attention takes relatively ages, my short term memory is garbage and I zone out constantly, even when I find something engaging. This ain't a sob story, my life's still pretty great and the good comes with the bad, but I used to worry that I would never be able to do so many things because of my weak points. I always knew I was different, I always seemed to be slow, never noticing things around me, having crappy memory and lacking attention to detail. I worried that I'd never be able to have most jobs that need the skills I lack, like quick thinking, short term memory or attention. I've played video games my whole life but always sucked at them relative to how much I play because of my natural skill set.

Given my lack of reaction speeds, attention switching, situational awareness and quick thinking, you'd think I'd suck at this game. And I did. Fortunately, the easier difficulties are very forgiving and this game is just so much fun that I kept playing. I suggested it to my friend and we played a whole bunch together. I'd never tried champion yet because the challenge was daunting (and I was a Sienna main who didn't think he could deal with ranged friendly fire being on) but my mate got me to try it and the challenge was exciting. Narrowly surviving death, wrecking stormvermin, slowly improving every time I played. Fast forward to about 300 hours in and I was sucking at legend runs instead. Once again, the challenge was exciting and I kept playing it with my friend until we could do legend book runs semi-consistently. At this point, we got some of our other friends into the game and while I was helping them to improve, I realised that I had managed to achieve a level of situational awareness, quick thinking, memory and attention switching I never thought possible. I noticed that I was doing things like unconsciously noting a skavenslave disappearing off the left side of my screen, remembering the fact that it was there and getting ready to attack my left side or dodge right. I still have the same weaknesses I've always had but my brain has adapted to overcome this. I have no idea how but I'm pretty damn cracked at this game now if I do say so myself. I'm no Core, not even close, but I can solo legend book runs with bots pretty easily, rarely take trash damage, can analyse hordes for attacking enemies and more. The only difficulties I still face in the game are things that are challenges to everyone, not ones that are made worse by my ADHD, it barely affects my ability in the game. It made me realise that while my weaknesses will never go away, I can overcome them and work around them. I also realised that I'd done the same thing with driving cars, as I have good situational awareness when driving and can make decisions quickly.

I became a maths tutor and while I do struggle in some aspects, I have some real strengths too. The more practice I got, the less my weaknesses held me back as I adapted around them and made many processes automatic. While I'll never be as good at some things as other people, that doesn't mean I can't be a great tutor by utilising my strengths and working around my weaknesses. I don't tutor maths during the summer holidays because I'm not evil, so these holidays I got a job doing pizza delivery. Previously I would've been too worried that I wouldn't cut it since the job relies on working memory and quick thinking, but this game made me realise that while it'll be hard for me, I can do it. Been working there for almost a month now and have only messed up one delivery out of over a hundred.

So thanks Fatshark, you've made me realise that I'm capable of so much more than I thought.