Author: chadwickbaldwin

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About chadwickbaldwin

A Canadian teacher in China

Dungeons & Dragons & Me.

Autism, Basic D&D (circa 1990), Games, , , , Leave a comment

It feels strange to talk about this, so please be kind as you read.

When I was young, I had a very hard time making and keeping friends. In elementary school I was accepted by my younger brother’s friends, but did not completely fit in there. I was the big kid that asked the younger kids a lot of questions.

When I was in Junior High (What we called Middle School), I had a friend. We will call him Rick. I discovered much later that Rick was pretending. He was always doing and saying things to make me look bad so people would laugh at me. I didn’t notice, because Rick smiled when near me and asked me questions, and ate lunch with me. He laughed near me. I thought he was laughing with me, but discovered later that it was at me.

Around this time, my oldest brother was part of a group of High Schoolers who played Dungeons and Dragons. They often played at our house in the basement. I would sit and watch them, and they eventually invited me to play, much to my brother’s dismay.

These older guys made me feel welcome. At that time, D&D was not a popular game. It was the kind of thing people got bullied for playing. But these guys accepted me, truly.

After a few months, I went and bought the basic boxed set with my allowance. (The Red Box Set). The game was amazing because it opened up opportunities to try things without being ridiculed. As an autistic person, the fear of making a mistake, or saying the wrong thing can be paralyzing. We are always afraid that we will do the wrong thing. We fear being assaulted verbally or emotionally by others for mistakes.

No it is not an irrational fear. We get this fear because of experience. We have received criticism for everything, and nothing. Growing up, it felt that I could do no right. My family were always cautious abotu saying things near me, my school mates chastised me for playing wrong. My teachers, were nice, but were always correcting me for things I didn’t understand.

Anyways, Dungeons and Dragons allowed me to try things out in a game of imagination. If it was a mistake, the other players wouldn’t pick on me or tease me. I would find out the logical conclusion to my actions, and then we would move on. No problems.

I tried running games for Rick. He hated the game, and wanted nothing but to hurt people in the game. For those in the know, he would be called a MurderHobo. For those not, in the games of imagination, he would describe burning down orphanages, and stabbing people in the street. As an empathic person, this would horrify me. I would have actual nightmares after playing with him. So I stopped.

My younger brother and his friends were interested in playing, and that was great. I ran the games more than I played them. These guys wanted to help people in the game. They were people with a good moral compass. And so I played with them. Rick still hung out with me at school. He even convinced me to run a game for a few other people and him.

That was a mistake. We were making characters one time for the new game, and the three of them began discussing something. I did not understand what they were talking about, even though they did not hide it. Eventually, 10 minutes in, I realized they are talking about how to physically torture me. When I protested, they said it was a joke. I left. I never talked to them again.

So now I was just entering High School, and I had no friends of my own at school. My younger brother was in Junior High with his friends. I never felt so alone. I recognized a couple of people from my grade 1 year. I moved a lot when I was a kid, so was relieved to see them again. But when I tried to become friends with them, I was told by a teacher that I had scared them. I was to leave them alone.

So I had this game I could play after school, and that got me through Grade 10. No friends.

Grade 11 is when I met my first friends that I had not borrowed from my brothers. They invited me to watch Japanese cartoons at lunch, and I invited them to play Dungeons and Dragons. (Actually a version of the game I had made myself.) And most of these people I still consider friends, even though I don’t talk to them often. Some I only talk to every couple of years.

When I came across a Kickstarter 6 or 7 years ago called Critical Core, I had to invest. This was D&D written in a way to help Autistic kids learn to interact with others. I bought my set. Covid hit, and I honestly didn’t think I would every get it because of the issues caused by the pandemic. But they sent me a Digital copy, and then a physical copy.

Critical Core is what I needed when I was young. I urge you all to look it over. The people who designed this care. They get it. They understand how hard life can be for kids like me. And they want to make it better. No they did not sponsor this. I doubt they will ever find out I wrote this.

Now I am back, and as an adult at the job I have, D&D was my go to stress relief. Except this year, I have nobody to play with again. And so I write here. Schedules and life have fallen apart. Work feels more like work, and is a lot heavier. But no time to play.

It sucks.

No time to think.

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I have been witnessing somethings lately that make me reflect on some personal difficulties.

Time to think.

I have several students in my class that need time to think. If you ask them a direct question, they stop and they process before they can answer. If this was at my old school, I would attribute it to a language barrier. This may still be the case with these boys. However, knowing these students I don’t believe it is. Below are a couple examples, but there are several other examples I could use.

In one case, a girl was upset that the boy had fidgeted with something on her desk. She laid into him, first in English wanting to know why he had been touching her things. When he couldn’t answer, she switched languages to Chinese and demanded the same thing. The boy stayed quiet, but you could see the gears turning. I calmed the girl down, and let the boy have time to think. He was able to respond to her and apologize. He could even and explain. But he couldn’t do it when she was so upset. Her anger short circuited his speaking.

A teacher was upset about a different boy in another case. He did not wait for the instructions in a class. Instead, he ran off to play a game. Which made things harder for everyone else. The boy was trying to listen, but to do so, he was looking at the ground. He also wasn’t answering the questions. The teacher kept demanding that the boy look at him, so the boy would, but then he would look down. When the teacher finished talking it took the boy a good 30 seconds to a minute to respond. Which was too long for the teacher, who was expecting an answer right away. I stood nearby. To give the child a moment to think, I asked the teacher for information, as this was my student. When he was done, the boy had enough time to process and speak.

I am not stating that either of these boys are autistic. I am not capable of diagnosing them. I do have suspicions though due to many things I have seen. But I know that autistic people cannot listen well if we have to look someone in the eye. Looking into someone’s eyes is like staring into someone’s soul. And if that person is angry, its a scary place to look at. I also know that the emotions around an autistic person can overpower our ability to think well and respond. Despite people believing autistic people don’t feel emotions, we do. Some of us, feel them physically. This weight causes us to freeze up.

That’s called Selective Mutism.

The misconception with this term is the word Selective. This gives the impression that it is chosen by the autistic person. Often this is not a choice. The anxiety of a situation gets so bad that we can’t say much of anything at all. Some people with Selective Mutism, cannot talk when in unfamiliar places or near strangers. But at home with family they talk just fine.

I had a situation last week. There was a child I was worried about. On Friday, I had checked my schedule and asked the parent to come talk on the following Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday were going to be busy days. I had an observation scheduled for Monday. I would be emotionally ready and prepared by Wednesday. On Monday my administrator came in, there was a problem, but no specifics. Then my principal came in to see if I had time, again no specifics. Early afternoon, My Vice Principal asked someone to cover my recess duty work, so I would have time.

I went into the meeting. The father I had a scheduled meeting with for Wednesday had a complaint that needed immediate attention. My admin wanted to brief me on the situation. Immediately after that meeting, the same vice principal came in to do my class observation. I was not my best and felt I was all over the place.

After school, the parent arrives, and we have the meeting. He is very upset, about the situation. I had not yet had time to process, and all I could do was try to make notes. I could not respond well, if at all to the situation. Near the end of the meeting, I said something that should have been said at the beginning of the meeting.

The father left, happy that his situation was being dealt with. I left, still unsure of what was happening.

You see, even though I had been warned of the meeting 2 hours before. I had two classes. During that time, I was either being observed or handling large groups of children effectively. I had not had even 5 minutes to myself. I agreed to things, but still don’t know what they are.

If we had kept the Wednesday meeting I would have been more effective.

When someone tells you that they don’t even have time to think, it sounds like just an idiom. To autistic people it may be the literal truth. We need time to process. don’t expect an honest response if you don’t let us. And if we don’t respond right away, give us more time. We just want to give the best answer possible. And if emotions are involved, it takes double or triple time for us to respond.

My mind tries to process the emotions, and the words separate. Which is spoken because of the emotion? Which is perspective? Which is factual truth? Which is the question actually being asked? Is there a question being asked? Do they want me to answer? How can I answer in a way that will not cause more emotion? Can I answer honestly? Do they want an honest response? Will I keep my job by answering this question? Will I cause more problems by answering this question? How can I ? These questions and more need to be sorted out before I can begin to respond. And if I have not sorted out the purpose for the question or meeting, that takes priority.

Shrimp: My Best Frenemy.

Autism, Daily Life, Musings, , , , , , , , Leave a comment

As an Autistic, food can be a difficult topic. A lot of people don’t understand how we can be so “picky”. I wish it were as simple as that. Let me start with my difficulties, and how I either get around them, or not.

Texture is important.

For many people the most important thing is that food tastes, smells, or looks good. These three senses dominate the decision of whether they will eat something or not. For me, one of the things that is foremost is texture.

Mashed food feels like mud. Thick, slimy, fresh from the sewage, mud. it is disgusting. That feeling overpowers any taste that is available. There are so many foods I just can’t force myself to eat: mashed potatoes, pumpkin, guacamole, red-bean paste, etc.

Some of these foods, I just can’t force myself to eat, like pumpkin. Others, I can if they are diluted, or mixed with something. Mashed potatoes with gravy is edible, but if I can avoid it I will.

Sweet Vegetables are an oxymoron.

Every time someone has convinced me to try a sweet vegetable, it wasn’t. Sweet potatoes, nope. and those are often cooked in a way that feels like mush. (See above). red-bean, ick; sweet-peas, yuck; sweet corn, tastes rotten. The thing is, sweet fruit tastes amazing. Every single sweet vegetable has come across as rotten in my mouth.

Mushy sweet vegetables are a no-go. No sweet potato, no red-beans, no sweet pea soup (shudder). but I can gag down sweet corn if I need to. Unless it is in that horrendous white milky sauce they always can it with…

The Eyes have it.

Anything that can look at me while I eat it, makes me shudder. My first memory of this phenomenon occurred in Korea. A friend invited me to join his family for dinner. They had fish soup. It smelled delicious, and I was looking forward to trying it. But as soon as that fish head bobbed up to the top of the pot, nope. I had nightmares of that thing for days. I believe I had everything but the soup that day, which was awkward.

Rambutans and peeled grapes look like eyeballs. Rambutans even have the eye lashes. so you can imagine these things being eaten my a monster, as they slurp down intestines and other body parts. At my old school they had rambutans for lunches sometimes. My coworkers tried to get me to eat some. I almost puked.

Bloody Bones, are for wraiths.

I love me a good fried chicken, or fried ribs. but if I ever have bones in a stew or a soup, I can’t eat it. The moisture dripping off the bones feels like I am eating a newly dead body. I cringe at the thought.

The other thing with food like this is the icky fingers. Every time I pick up wet, slimy, or sauce-covered food with my fingers, I quickly clean my hands afterward. Having sticky or wet fingers is disgusting. I dislike playing with my children’s slime in much the same way.

Ribs, or meats in sauces, I can eat if I have a lot of tissue nearby. If you put the bones in my soup, you will first see me pulling it out with my utensils. For these foods, the taste is not overpowered by the concept of death. The slimy feeling on my fingers is manageable with tissue. Alternatively, I can use one of those lime-water bowls to dip my fingers in, which removes the grease and slime.

Shrimp.

As you can imagine, shelling shrimp is horrifying for me. My hands get wet and slimy. I have to look at the eyes of the critter. Then I must behead it and rip its tiny legs off. I almost hear it squeal.

But shrimp is one of my favorite foods.

First it was fried shrimp, because I had no problems with heads, shells, or juice. Then shrimp rings with cocktail sauce, and finally boiled or souped shrimp.

Two techniques I have used to eat wet shrimp. I can either shell the guy and use a lot of tissue paper. Or just don’t shell it and eat the whole thing.

I have been known to use a whole pack of tissue during a meal with shrimp involved. I had to clean my hands every 20 seconds of shelling. This used to drive a couple of my old coworkers nuts. I’m sure it looks horrid too.

When I eat the shrimp un-shelled, I first eat the head. This way, it is not watching me. Shrimp heads hurt. They stab the inside of your mouth. Sometimes, I am lucky. I can remove the head with a spoon without making a mess on my hands or clothes. However, it is not always possible. This has gotten me weird looks at places. I mean at a restaurant, you can’t use a whole pack of tissue. My only other choice is this. When people you’re with watch you crunch down on the shell, they give you weird looks.

Routines.

My wife and I have very different thoughts on this. There are times I would love to have the same food over and over again for months straight. I have no problem with the dishes in my home that we eat. My wife, gets bored of the same old things.

Since we changed catering companies at the school I work at, I have been delighted. Everyday I can have Salad and Pasta. They offer these meals every day. When I have had a tough morning, I can sit and eat my usual food. It’s amazing. I pick up little side dishes from the daily side dish section. These add a bit of pizzazz to my meal. I still love the repetitiveness.

On the day I had my Meltdown, I know I would have stayed calmer if they had more salad. They should not have changed my pasta from the standard with bolognese sauce. Instead, they offered green noodles with bits of leaf. Food is just one of many factors that I navigate on a regular basis. When I am in completely new or overwhelming situations, certain foods (and time to enjoy properly) can help me reset.