Gaming, Dyspraxia and Me: How Video Games Helped Me Cope with the World

Hi my name is Rebecca Dawn Gunn, I live in the UK, I support #gamergate, and I have Dyspraxia

My article isn’t so much to defend #gamergate in of itself (I am sure others will carry the torch for me) but to discuss my experiences as a gamer, and how video games actually have enriched my life, just as they are. While also maybe helping people to understand why I, and others, feel so strongly about how the media conducts itself.

To those wondering what Dyspraxia is, this is how the UK National Autistic Society describes it:

“Dyspraxia is a lifelong condition in which a person’s movement and coordination are affected so that both are difficult. This can include coordination of both fine and gross motor skills; for example, the coordination of fine movements for fiddly tasks such as tying shoelaces or the coordination of large limb movements, such as running, hopping, throwing and catching.

Someone who has dyspraxia will often also display difficulties with sequencing and language, and maintaining attention.”

I experienced many of these difficulties as a child, I was made aware quite quickly in school of these differences and other kids noticed too. Because I was different, I became a target for bullying and teachers — frustrated with my difficulties to follow in class, would often pull me up for failing in weekly tests. To add insult to injury, Dyspraxia affecting my motor movements also meant sports was not something I excelled much at, I also couldn’t tie shoelaces or ride a bike. So many physical activities required extra effort, as well as learning. On top of all this, I also found it hard to socialise, it came so easily to others, even to this day, I find it hard to traverse the potential minefield that is social discussion.

Video games required none of these things.

Video Games didn’t require me to agonise over equations I was expected to know, I didn’t have to be physical to play video games, video games were not other people — socially complex in their own right, and not interested in talking — because I had managed to unwittingly say something that upset them, Video games were just video games. I could go home after a hard day trying to do all these things, and know that my Sega Genesis was waiting for me along with my copy of “Sonic the Hedgehog 2”. Eventually Video Games gave me a starting point to relate to many kids socially. It also helped with elements of my Dyspraxia in a more subtle way. I always thought of the “Sonic the Hedgehog” level select code when I couldn’t remember left from right, and learned some motor co-ordination from the precision jumping needed to pass levels in some games.

I related to Sonic a lot — because he had friends like Tails Miles Prower, a fox born with an extra tail & a social exile — till Sonic happened upon him and encouraged him to keep inventing and use his twin tails as motorblades to fly. I wanted to do my best in spite of my own issues too.

I want to stress, while video games were my safe haven from the world, it didn’t stop me being part of the world. I made friends with time, I kept trying to learn in spite of my frustrations at not being able to keep up. My parents encouraged me to keep going, rather than simply accept or give in to the difficulties my disability presented. I’m now a university graduate who has self taught herself a number of programming languages.

A another note, as it’s important later. Nobody I knew growing up or even later in life ever acted like I was unusual for being a gamer. Many female classmates I knew played video games as well as my friends. This increased with the release of the Playstation and titles like “Pokemon”. I never had anyone judge me for my gender. I was simply accepted as is.

I have many fond social memories thanks to gaming, I remember hooking up a Dreamcast in a hotel room so I could play “Power Stone” with friends, giggling with one of my best friends as we played “Dead or Alive”, beating each other up as busty polygon women, and playing “Kirby: Return to Dreamland” with my now-fiancee — working together to finish the game. I even once set up an event to celebrate the 20th anniversary of “Sonic the Hedgehog”’s release with a friend, setting up an open bar event with a playlist purely consisting of music from the series, themed cocktails, and a projector complete with multiplayer Sonic games. Few people will understand why hearing a crowd of people drunkenly singing along to “Escape from the City” from Sonic Adventure 2 makes me a little emotional, but it did.

The greater gaming community generally became my social hub, I felt comfortable online chatting with other people about games and the latest events. My timeline on twitter consisted of people I knew from forums, games writers, various fandom members. However an odd element started creeping into the situation, the writers started becoming more negative about themselves, and writing more and more negative articles about the community. At first I simply accepted it, there are always people who go too far and in the heat of the moment, maybe say or do things that are not really acceptable. But it was a quiet voice that gradually grew louder, with prominent writers becoming more vicious and cynical.

Then “Gamers are Dead” happened. A seemingly co-ordinated release of almost 20 articles from various press outlets within the space of 24 hours. All painting a picture that anyone who associated to the term “gamer” was anti-social, entitled, selfish, and bigoted. That wasn’t the community I knew, that wasn’t my experience with “gamers” at all.

Even if it had just been the articles, I could of maybe ignored it. But the twitters of various writers for games press was set alight in spiteful jabs and comments at anyone who dared to defend the term. It reminded me of what I experienced in school, when people counted me out simply for being different. But even my classmates never attacked me from my interests in gaming.

In addition, gender suddenly became important. Nobody ever cared before who or what I was when it came to games, but suddenly everyone was very worried about “women in gaming” . Even when I would speak to these people who had never cited it an issue before, any explanation that one woman’s experience surely could not be all women’s experience (and certainly was not in my case) and that I had never known gamers to be sexist went ignored.

To explain better why it personally affected me in the way it did, a quote from this study by Yale Child Study Center on Autism and Interests I think explains it best.

“Some children feel very strongly about their interests in such a way that these can impact their mood and motivation in striking ways. For example, a child with interest in cul-de-sacs was profoundly despondent because he had just found out that the street that he lived in, itself a cul-de-sac, was going to be open for traffic because of a newly built connection with an adjacent road. It appeared that a core component of his self-identity (being a cul-de-sac resident) was now being taken away from him”

The study when goes on to summarize

“Thus, circumscribed interests appear to play a multifaceted role in the lives of these children. They seem to help shape their understanding of an otherwise confusing and perplexing social world and to allay anxieties resulting from these challenging situations. It is not surprising therefore that they become so intellectually and emotionally invested in such interests”

This is how I feel about video games, and the other interests I relate to. They are a core part of me, as they have been part of what’s shaped me to be who I am today (as well as my life experiences). Considering I play games for a fair portion of my week, how could I take the attack on “gamer” to be anything other than an attack on me and others?

I and others tried to protest, when we were roundly ignored, we tried to go for their advertisers. Opportunists saw the situation, and shopped the story to a mainstream media who ran with minimal research. Suddenly there were now even articles and news pieces from the BBC, ABC, Huffpost and others running with the stereotype that “Gamers are Dead” presented.

In a way, while maybe others would of just plain walked away, we gave gaming press many chances to talk to us or convince us to give them our clicks and time. Each time any such outreach was slapped away.

I became stressed, angry, upset and fed-up. Paranoid that people would hate me purely because of a hashtag. Sick of being ignored whenever I refuted the claim that the gaming community was sexist. I was diagnosed with moderate depression and anxiety 4 months ago — while there are many reasons for this diagnosis, I feel the events of the past year contributed towards it.

At the same time, I met many people who related with my feelings, and inspired me. People like Jennifer Dawe, Oliver Campbell, Christina Sommers, Paolo Munoz, and many others who all had different experiences, and obstacles — but instead of complaining about their issues, worked hard in spite of them, or handled things in more calm and mature ways than I had previously witnessed.

I learned it’s okay to disagree with people, and that even people who have different opinions don’t have to be rude getting their point across. You can be right-wing and still be human. I also learned I was far from the only woman who felt displaced by recent events.

I started to seriously study coding and work on streaming on twitch and youtube. While many events in the past year still make me a little sad. I feel I am richer for the people I know now as a result of it.

I’ve mostly given up on gaming press as a whole outside sites like NicheGamer, TechRaptor, and The Escapist (who did actually write up a new ethics code in light of #gamergate). My focus now is on promoting them and other good developers and outlets. SPJAirplay helped me to also see there may be a brighter future for journalism.