Players with disabilities, represent & share your feels!

[Ceridwenae]

I don't know if this counts as a disability, but I have a phobia of thunderstorms. I cannot play when there is one, and if I find myself caught by surprise while playing I have to log off immediately and then try to track the thunderstorm to see how close it is, if its pretty close I'll hide, and if it's overhead I am basically a shaking, sobbing mess in a wardrobe somewhere. In fact right now I am not playing because there's one near-by ish, and I am trying to distract myself by scrolling through the forums on my phone, while I wait for it to pass.
My cat shares my phobia and is hiding under the bed :/

It's good common sense you're espousing there, though, even if manifests perhaps more forcibly than you'd like. Everyone should log off when there's a thunderstorm, preferably before if possible. Being on your phone or tablet (not on charge) is fine though. Unless you have surge protection, you should unplug your PC (if you play on PC, though I believe this will follow for Playstations/TV too) completely as well - and even if you do have surge protection, sometimes it's not all it's cracked up to be. Protect your tech! It is the right thing to do.

Your cat is behaving smartly too (my cat is right next to me telling me to pass this info on to you this as well!). Make sure the furry sweetie has hugs and attention, maybe a treat, after a storm passes.

Certainly at this time of year where I live, I have to keep an eye on the weather forecast (and being a bit of a geek for weather, that's not the end of the world!) and plan accordingly. For example, I know I have severe thunderstorms forecast all day tomorrow, so I'm going to be bored AF when my "work" day is over. I need to periodically check online in my workday too, so meh. One time, lightning actually struck our power lines just outside the house, and my husband's old computer went bye-bye, so we're just super careful to unplug everything as a standard.

I don't know if you can message people directly in this forum, or I'd say you can pm me anytime you're worried about storms and we could chat it out. In lieu of that, *hugs* Welcome to the club.

And that's also for everyone posting in the thread. You are all amazing, wonderful people. I'm glad you're all here and sharing.

[NekoHina]

Nessa, I am terrified of thunderstorms myself. I live in part of “tornado alley” and I am even more scared of those. So if there is any chance of storms, I will not even sleep at night so that I can keep a watch on the radar. That has actually worked well for my parents once. We had been tracking a storm system for hours as it moved through another state and both my husband and I said that if it held together it would hit near them. It was so scary because this system dropped numerous tornadoes in every community it hit and then some. A few were minor and a couple were deadly. But sure enough, about 3am in the morning it was closing in on my parents and we could tell on the radar and from it’s track that it was going to be very near them if not on top of them. We called and got them up and into and interior room even before the sirens went off.

The storm actually did a “breathing in” phase and did fairly minor damage beginning less than a half mile from their house. About 15 more minutes later, it got itself together again and made one more large hit before it was done for the night. It had been devastating. I think 5 people were killed in all. It just made me more afraid of the storms, but also more confident about reading the radar. ^^

But to quote Shion from Xenosaga, “I hate thunder!” I have since I was a little girl and I just hit the big 5-0, so I suppose I will always be afraid of it. I am certainly not ashamed to be. I totally respect the power that nature has.

[Kelani]

I suffer from sever Fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis and need a wheelchair to get out and about, which I don't do very often as I also suffer from severe anxiety and if I don't take my meds for anxiety I then start to suffer from severe migraines.

I also have a social disorder, which I'm currently undergoing an assessment for ASD. I don't know whether I have autism but I had a really hard time growing up, finding it difficult to make friends and people bullying me. Even my parents would often say that I was "odd" and in the words of my father "she's an odd-on, if she were a dog, I'd take her out the back-yard and shoot her, course, can't do that can I!?" I was diagnosed with something as a child but I was never told what it was and my parents have been adamant that they were never told anything. Though, my parents will always deny anything ever happened if it makes them look in a bad light.

Needless to say, I also suffer from Chronic Depression. I'm waiting for my second appointment for my ASD assessment, they said that it might be ASD or it might be a mental health disorder that I have, so I really don't know just yet.

[OhnoozeMyToes]

Just OCD and ADD....just wanted to say hi and I love you guys.

[Yllania]

I have a severe anxiety disorder which brings with it the daily panic attacks with no rhyme or reason, I can be having the time of my life then oops, I suddenly cant breathe, my body goes cold and the severe nerve pain starts and I start to freak out. Sometimes I can force myself through these, other times it gets bad enough where I need to go to the ER so it can make mmo gaming tricky. Ive been getting better recently though there are rare times Ill need to leave and I feel like crap about it, most people have been understanding though.

I also have severe depression recurrent, but honestly between the two Id rather deal with that than my constant damn anxiety which made them diagnose me with agoraphobia for about a year or two because I wouldnt leave my house much because I was afraid of getting an anxiety attack out in the open among people. Ive dealt with depression a long time so Im kind of used to it? The panic attack stuff has only been like the last 8 years and were still not sure why they randomly started.

[Side-Eye]

Gosh after reading the serious stuff some of you guys are dealing with, I hesitate to post mine, but maybe a few others have similar situations and reading here they'll not feel as isolated.

I have severe hearing loss -- and while it doesn't hamper me much in face-to-face contact with people (lip reading is a life skill), there have been games that I wasn't able to play because people expected everyone in groups/raids to live chat with mic. Even with volume maxed, it's next to impossible for me to catch everything being said, and when multiple people are trying to talk it flusters and distracts me to the point of a panic attack.

I'm glad most folks in FF seem to be okay with text chat for the majority of content. I don't bother with the highest-end (savage) stuff because I'd imagine communicating verbally is pretty commonplace for the upper tier raiders... and I'm fine with that limitation.

[Gihwezi]

Just OCD and ADD....just wanted to say hi and I love you guys.

Hello, we love you too! <3

[XenabelleS]

I have Wilson's Disease which is a genetic disorder that has left me with a tremor in my right hand and changes to my voice. In this game, that means I use my shaky right hand on the arrow keys for movement while my left hand does everything else (ie mouse and hotkeys).

It's frustrating because I can't get out of most AOEs in dungeons (ie Titan) so I am reluctant to even try anything Extreme or Savage until it is past expansion content. I'm also not always solid on my rotation so I have difficulty at times meeting the dps checks in solo instances.

Up until now I have mained SMN as I almost always choose a pet class so that the enemies can be hitting something else while I focus on damage. But with the 5.0 changes to Titan I no longer believe that class is survivable in the open world (at least while levelling without a heal) so I have switched to RDM which has one.

[DamianFatale]

Fetal Alcohol syndrome. DPS is inaccessible for me, because I can't process the rotations mentally. I play healer well instead.

[Lexi]

Aww! Omg! My eyes actually teared up reading this.

We're here for you!

Same!! I’m super sensitive it peoples feelings. I want to hug you both now!