I originally posted a version of this on r/ADHD and r/DarkSouls, but I wanted to revisit it. It’s been 5 years (!) and I still feel very much the same.
I play a lot of video games, but I’m in no way a “hardcore” gamer. I generally play on Normal difficulty because I assume that’s how the developers intended the game to be played and have no drive to “challenge myself.” I’m easily frustrated and generally play games to relax.
I bought Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition in May, 2014 largely due to the many people in my circle telling me that I was missing out by not playing it. I immediately threw myself at it with gusto, because if a game gives me a character creator I’m generally more forgiving of any of the perceived issues it has. It’s a notoriously difficult game, I knew that going in, but more and more I started feeling like there was a maliciousness in the design. I perceived a mean-spirited intention in the way the game would throw something at you simply to shout “GOTCHA!” in its ominous, red-lettered YOU DIED screen. But I made progress, inching my way forward, grinding my teeth the whole way.
But 12 hours later, I was well and truly stuck. I had finally conquered the Roof Gargoyles and rung the first bell. The next step was to make my way into The Depths, which meant facing the Capra Demon, considered by many to be the most unfair mini-boss encounter. You need to navigate an incredibly tight space, while dodging two vicious dogs and a 3 meter tall monstrosity wielding swords the size of my character. Over and over I died to those damn dogs, often before I could get a swing in. I was so angry. I looked up the fight online, waded through the ever-helpful “Git Gud” comments and found people who were giving good advice that my hands just wouldn’t follow.
Eventually, somehow, after hours of banging my head against the problem, I did it. I don’t even remember how, but I got past it. And after that fight, the next few encounters seemed like a breeze. Until I stepped into a hole and fell into a pit full of Basilisks.
If you’re not aware, the Basilisks are googly-eyed frog fellas that emit a gas that causes the CURSE status effect. If your CURSE meter fills up, you die immediately, regardless of how much health you have. And when you revive, your maximum health is cut in half, with only a few very out-of-the-way methods of ridding yourself of the curse.
After dying to this Basilisk trap, with my already meager health in tatters, I quit and uninstalled the game. This game isn’t fun, I said to myself. I’m miserable. I hate myself. I hate this game. I hate everyone that told me to play this. This is just another stupid gate-keeping thing gamer-bros use to make themselves feel better about being losers.
A few year later, I got my ADHD-C (Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder – Combined type) diagnosis. And suddenly so much of my life started making sense. I started learning coping mechanisms to help with the emotional issues I was experiencing. I also found medication that worked for me, it was like taking gauze off of my eyes and seeing the world clearly for the first time.
Part of learning about ADHD was also finding out certain “quirks” of mine were normal, documented aspects of the disorder. My lack of awareness when it came to time, or losing things I had in my hand two minutes ago, not being able to understand what people were saying when there was a lot of stimulation going on in the room. And finding out about RSD has literally changed how I understand myself and my interactions.
Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD) is an aspect of ADHD that isn’t commonly discussed. We all know about ADHD people being easily distracted or acting abnormally. But what isn’t often brought up is how much the RSD aspect of ADHD is as much, if not more of a problem as all the other symptoms combined. None of the professionals I spoke to about my ADHD brought up RSD, I found out about it with my own research into my disorder. And ADHD materials often skip over it completely.
People have often told me that I take things far too personally, or that I’m really hard on myself. I don’t take compliments on-board and I hold myself to an impossible standard. I always thought it was just because I was depressed, or because I craved acknowledgment from a parental figure that I lacked as a child.
But RSD means that I do not process rejection or failure normally.
My wife, who does not have ADHD, will drop in a glass and be a little annoyed, I drop a glass and it will literally ruin my day. I will spend the entire day using that broken glass as proof of my stupidity.
I also can’t watch cringe-comedy, Michael Scott literally makes me run out of the room. I can’t stand it, everything in my body wants me to get away from the uncomfortable social situation. RSD made me into an anxious wreck of a person.
So when Dark Souls proclaimed YOU DIED across the screen, I felt a physical fight-or-flight response as well as a torrent of thoughts in line with “God you’re so fucking stupid, you’re useless, this game sucks, you suck even more because you can’t even play this game right, you should just kill yourself”. It’s like having a forum full of edgy 13 year olds in your brain at all times. It’s not great.
But finding out that this is what I have, that it’s abnormal and not a universal experience… it’s changed my life and how I interact with the world. When I feel that chorus of voices go off in my head, I step back and look at all the steps I took to get to that point. I’m more willing to try and to fail, because knowing the hurt is coming and that it’s not real, it makes it so much easier to bear.
It took me 69 hours to beat Dark Souls for the first time on August 5th, 2020. That was after I had to restart from the beginning again after I reached the infamous Ornstein and Smough, as I realized that my frustration was originating from a poor character build. I sighed and tried again, beat them on my second try with the new build.
The second time took me just under 40 hours to beat the whole game. I was a convert to the series, and to Souls-like games in general. I have since beaten Dark Souls III several times and have almost finished Elden Ring. Much to my regret, I don’t have a PlayStation to play Bloodborne. (We don’t talk about Dark Souls 2)
Dark Souls isn’t bad, it isn’t unfair, and it isn’t all the things I said to myself. I’m not stupid or useless, my brain is just wired differently. And understanding that wiring has helped me overcome this hurdle and enjoy a truly memorable experience.
Thank you for reading, I hope this helps someone finish their Dark Souls equivalent.
