How Dungeons & Dragons Can Help Members of The Neurodivergent Community

Lucas Maxwell has been working with youth in libraries for over fifteen years. Originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, he is been a highschool librarian in London, UK for over a decade. In 2017 he received the UK’s School Librarian of the Year award and in 2022 he was named the UK Literacy Association’s Reading For Pleasure Teacher Champion. He loves Dungeons & Dragons and is the writer of Let’s Roll: A Guide for Setting up Tabletop Roleplaying Games in Your School or Public Library. You can comply with him on Twitter and on his weblog.

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I’ll begin by saying that I’m not a medical skilled. I’m an autistic faculty librarian who has found Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) as an incredible technique to attain loads of folks, have enjoyable, and create a protected place for youth — particularly those that are neurodiverse. I can solely communicate for myself with this text, actually, however I do know Dungeons and Dragons is useful to the neurodivergent group as a result of I see it every day.

I used to be not identified till my early 40s, and this got here as each a shock and a way of reduction on the similar time. It additionally made me really feel very depressed, particularly for the individual that I used to be after I was younger, who struggled loads however by no means knew tips on how to articulate it or make any sense of the world. I’ve been utilizing Dungeons and Dragons in a college setting with ages 11-19 now for 4 years. The sport began with simply me and 6 college students.

Now, we’re operating our personal Dungeons and Dragons Conventions, and the scholars are play-testing campaigns which have but to be printed. D&D has infiltrated the complete faculty in an incredible approach, and I couldn’t be happier. I wish to share right here what the sport means to me and the way it can assist the neurodivergent group primarily based on what I’ve skilled.

It’s a Social Game

I’ve at all times struggled with social conditions. This consists of making eye contact, participating in small discuss (which I equate to a type of refined torture), and usually feeling like I don’t slot in. Not that you simply have to slot in, however for my whole life, I’ve at all times felt like I don’t belong. As a really younger child, I’d genuinely search my physique for a button that may make me “normal” as a result of I didn’t really feel like I understood what the hell was happening, what I used to be purported to be doing, and tips on how to “act normal.” It felt like an alien spaceship had dropped me off and left me.

I used to be riddled with nervousness as a child, a lot in order that I’d be sick to my abdomen from it. I’d run away from faculty any probability that I bought, and I turned superb at faking diseases. I didn’t attend grade six in any respect after the primary few months of faculty; that is how a lot I hated social conditions. D&D removes this nervousness for me as a result of everybody has arrived for a really particular purpose.

There aren’t any social boundaries to beat or small discuss available. D&D has created a way of group that I’ve by no means been an element of. This is very large to me and loads of different neurodiverse individuals who participate on this sport.

A Dungeons and Dragons set up — Photo courtesy of Lucas Maxwell

Confidence

Relating again to the social nervousness I skilled as a child, what it ended up doing, amongst many different issues, is lowering my self-confidence to nearly nothing. I felt like I couldn’t actually perform on the planet, and I wasn’t unsuitable. I bounced round from job to job, and it was usually a reduction to be fired as a result of it was just like the employer saying out loud what we each knew: I wasn’t minimize out for the job. I additionally suffered from zero confidence when it got here to relationships. I couldn’t perceive tips on how to communicate to folks in a approach that was “normal,” and I nonetheless don’t.

I nonetheless keep away from public locations for probably the most half, and I don’t take pleasure in chatting with folks one-on-one. Has D&D “cured” this for me? Of course not, however what it has executed is made me conscious that I really do possess a particular set of expertise that may make different folks glad. This is a giant deal. It has allowed me to simply accept that I’m a artistic individual and may create one thing that different folks really take pleasure in.

My expertise as a D&D Dungeon Master has helped me discover precise associates, even when I solely communicate to them on-line as soon as per week. They are actually the one associates I’ve, and that’s superb with me as a result of they’re wonderful folks, and I’m grateful they wish to spend time with me.

Routine

Again, I don’t communicate for the complete neurodivergent group, however I personally rely closely on routine, and D&D is all about routines. I can’t inform you how a lot of a reduction it’s to know that after, possibly twice per week, I do know in my mind that I’m going to have loads of enjoyable on a specific day and time. It has made a large distinction in my life.

It is scheduled enjoyable or, as it’s recognized within the medical group, behavioural activation. It will be actually helpful to everybody, but it surely’s particularly helpful to me as somebody who experiences dread and catastrophises every day. D&D flips this for me in some ways. I can at all times depend on the world of D&D as a supply of consolation.

Dungeons and Dragons received’t be a match for each neurodivergent individual. However, for me, it has been a life-saver. It is a supply of fixed consolation and routine, an anxiety-killing machine that generates a ton of creativity.

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