Tuesday, January 13, 2009

How much to tell?

One of the biggest questions for me to answer for myself was how much I needed to tell guildies, especially raid leaders, about my disability. What do people need to know? What can people handle hearing? The truth is, even though we have made a lot of strides since the 1970's and 80's, there is still prejudice, and sometimes people think you are making excuses or looking for pity.



I applied to my current guild because my husband was in it, they needed a shadow priest, and my guild's raid times no longer fit my life. The guild was progressing through Black Temple (not the best place to have brain lag), so my husband did inform the GM that I have trouble with reaction time. As I raided through Hyjal and BT, some of the effects of the CP became obvious, and I learned to be open about them and accept suggestions.



My internal guidelines for what and how I share:


  1. Is this an excuse or a challenge? If I stand in a fire, poison, or a void zone because I'm not paying attention, the raid leader is rightfully going to see who else is on and replace me. If I'm having a hard time seeing red fissures on an orange background, I need to adjust my settings.

  2. Am I doing everything I can to learn about this fight and my role in it beforehand, so I can anticipate and perhaps mitigate challenges? One of my biggest win moments came when I put down a summoning circle to get myself out of harm's way during the Malygos fight. My fellow warlock tried it and discovered that it is possible to teleport out of vortex.

  3. Am I sharing this to get pity or help/support? Pity is counterproductive. If people pity you, they won't push you to get better, they won't be as likely to offer suggestions, and, above all, they won't respect you. My guildies know that I am feisty, stubborn, and love to see mobs go down.

  4. Do I work outside of raiding times to overcome challenges? I asked guildies to group with me so I could work on running past the frogger slimes in Naxx. I can successfully do it with the same success rate as a neurotypical person. I also tried to get into Thaddius's room to try to jump the platform, but the mobs guarding it respawn.

The last thing I will say is that a positive outlook works wonders. Remember the quote by Henry Ford, "Whether you think you can't or think you can, you're right."

3 comments:

  1. Good to see someone else with a disability playing warcraft and blogging about it. I've recently joined my first raiding guild and am struggling to decide how much to share. Your questions are really helpful and I'll think about them the next time I run into a challenge. Happy blogging, I look forward to read more about abilitycrafting.

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  2. -snugs- You can honestly do anything you want Carol, I trusts you protecting my fragile little tree body.

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  3. Lileia, thank you for your kind words, and I hope we can learn from each other.

    Orbitz! :::::squishy hugs::::: Thank you for your kind words as well, and for your awesome heals when I get myself in trouble.

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