gAmeDHD

Niki Fakhoori
October 3, 2026

It took decades for all my childhood symptoms that were dismissed as quirkiness and laziness to get pieced together as ADHD. This included my forgetfulness. There are only two subjects I can remember with ease. One is the shame I feel whenever I’m caught off-guard, exposed as a fraud for my inability to remember something important or that I supposedly care about: 

• An undergrad professor laughing in front of the entire class, saying: “It’s just funny how you say you like the artist so much but can’t remember his name.” 
• A boss commenting on a workshop I led: “I’m surprised you can’t remember what subject that workshop was about.” 
• My father berating me for needing a reminder about what day the garbage gets taken: “It’s been the same every week for over ten years!” 

The other subject is Pokémon, my special interest.¹ Special interests—and all the knowledge and dedication that come with them—have their advantages. But in conjunction with ADHD’s adverse effects on working memory, a special interest might seem like someone’s only interest. No matter how much I loved a game, I usually can’t discuss it on the spot without some sort of preparation if it isn’t a Pokémon title.² 

This has a negative impact on my public identity as a video game fan. It’s still common for people to want to determine if someone’s a “real fan” of something or not, and the easiest way to do that is to interrogate them for requisite knowledge. To grill them with trivia questions that can easily be marked right or wrong. It doesn’t count as playing a game if the player can’t remember all of it. 

Beyond my public identity as a video game fan, I’ve also wondered what this means for my identity overall. What kind of person am I, really, if what I can remember with consistency is so limited? 

“You don’t know much of anything, do you?” It was my father’s favorite response whenever I didn’t have an answer to one of his questions. 

But I do know a lot about Pokémon, and I’m always excited to learn even more. Most of my knowledge stems from my experiences playing the games and engaging with the series’ communities, which I then write about in order to synthesize and formulate an even more concrete opinion. But there are rare occasions when I’ll know something instinctively, ahead of time. One such example was that I would love Pokémon Black and White, and that N would be my favorite character. 

Amidst a backdrop of fans’ vitriol that somehow managed to seep its way out of the internet and into my high school,³ I was beyond excited to play Pokémon Black Version in 2011. The fresh, urban region of Unova and all the new Pokémon⁴ had me more invested than any of the previous games. But what I was most eager to experience was the story with its new characters, especially N. 

I was interested in N even before Black and White released in Japan.⁵ I spent countless hours scouring internet forums for blurry photographs of magazines for new game announcements. My feelings escalated when I finally had the English-language edition of Black Version in my hands. From the moment players meet him, it’s clear N is unusual. He says he can understand what the player’s Pokémon are saying, and he speaks at a breakneck pace.⁶ He asks if people are holding Pokémon back from their true potential by confining them in Poké Balls and telling them what to do, an ethical dilemma that the series had never posed before. But I was most fascinated by the way his ambitions clash and blend with the world and people around him. 

N has the spirit of a rival and the bite of a villain,⁷ an interplay that brings him closer to and pushes him away from the player. Other rivals in the series want to become the greatest Trainer, like the player, because that’s what’s expected of them.⁸ N, on the other hand, wants to become the greatest Trainer so he’ll have enough influence to convince everyone to release their Pokémon, thus stopping the cycle of what he believes is Pokémon oppression (and, by extension, the Pokémon series) forever. 

Despite this stark opposition, N’s connection to the player is reinforced by him obtaining a legendary Pokémon⁹ the same way the player does. This alliance illustrates the strength of his convictions rather than the “correctness” of them, however, as the world around him invalidates his beliefs. He insists that people only hurt Pokémon, but where’s his proof? Everyone knows Pokémon love being with people, especially the player who has to make the voluntary decision to play the games. And while battles are physically violent, Pokémon aren’t hurt to the point where it’s considered abusive.¹⁰

N sees the same world the player does, a world in which people and Pokémon bring out the best in each other. He meets the player and their allies, all characters who are portrayed as innately loving towards Pokémon, even when they lose battles and would have reason to feel frustrated. N even shows brief moments of this understanding, admitting that the legendary Pokémon choose to be with their Trainers and aren’t captured against their will.¹¹ And yet he still believes that people and Pokémon should be permanently separated. How could anyone be so blind to the truth? 

Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker Patrick Teahan describes childhood trauma as “trauma to our perception.” Childhood trauma survivors deceive themselves into believing what would seem clearly untrue to an outside observer.¹² This gets compounded by living with neurodevelopmental disorders such as (but in no way limited to) ADHD. In this world, everyone is treated as neurotypical until proven neurodivergent, which leads to the assumption that when someone is struggling it’s due to a failing on their part rather than due to an undiagnosed condition.¹³ They’re just too lazy. They shouldn’t need help for (what are societally considered) simple tasks. They just need to apply themselves more and everything will turn out “right.” And since no one introduced the possibility of any alternatives, the person likely won’t realize that the system they’re functioning within is designed to function against them. Instead, the only thing that seems “wrong” is themselves. 

As Teahan puts it, “How bad [your childhood was] won’t hit home until you hear a safe person’s reaction to your story.” It takes exposure to other perspectives for someone to realize their upbringing wasn’t healthy, or that their challenges may be due to undiagnosed ADHD.¹⁴ If I hadn’t explored other points of view, I may have never realized that it was even possible for me to have ADHD. 

Exploring those points of view isn’t always easy, either. Due to how normalized ableism is, describing the struggles I faced felt unrealistic, even after discovering they were symptoms of ADHD. I can only imagine how much like a half-assed excuse “Sometimes my brain just won’t let me do what I want or need to do” sounds to someone who maintains complete control over their executive functioning.¹⁵

Finding a way to describe my C-PTSD was just as tricky. At times I’d feel as voiceless as a Pokémon silent protagonist, and Black Version validated that feeling. Throughout the game, N’s father Ghetsis takes numerous opportunities to inform the player that he was the one who implanted the idea of Pokémon liberation in N’s mind. It always stood out to me that Ghetsis only speaks of this when the player is alone; as a silent protagonist, they couldn’t tell anyone what they knew, even if they wanted to. Maybe no one would believe them, even if they could speak. 

I never felt comfortable talking about my home life, especially about my father. While there were certain moments that stuck with me, I couldn’t remember most of my day-to-day with pinpoint accuracy.¹⁶ For some reason, many people expect court-admissible evidence even when talking in a casual setting about abusive behaviors, not unlike how fans sometimes expect Jeopardy!-level trivia mastery before considering someone else a “real fan.”

Sometimes, people don’t get the opportunity to bring up “proof.” In one memory that sticks with me, I’m at a party with my father’s family friends. My father, the point of attention in the room as he always was, was turning me into the butt of a joke, mocking me for not having my driver’s license at age 16. I don’t know what possessed me, but I felt I couldn’t stay silent. I turned to the man sitting next to me and began explaining that after enough times of my father grabbing the wheel to turn the car into oncoming traffic and yelling at me to “go” at red lights, I could no longer sit in the driver’s seat without freezing up. He responded, “I know your father. I don’t believe he would ever do that.” 

In an attempt to be fair when I really don’t need to be, I recognize that it can be hard to believe the kind of person my father was at home. When I’m feeling especially disconnected from myself, even I think he sounds more like a Saturday morning cartoon villain than a real person, as unrealistic as my ADHD.  

But Black Version helped me see the error of my perspective. As the game nears its finale, the player enters the castle N was raised in. It’s then that the reason why N has such a twisted perspective becomes as clear as the water flowing into the indoor channels. Amidst the marble columns and deep navy tiles, the player learns that Ghetsis locked N away from outside influences so he could impose any beliefs upon N that he wanted. And N would have no frame of reference—or reason—to question any of it. 

The location where the player sees just how literal Ghetsis’ imprisonment of N was stands in stark contrast to the rest of the dignified chambers of the castle. Although N is a young adult, his room is still a child’s playroom filled with all sorts of toys and nothing else that would facilitate healthy development.¹⁷ Looking around and interacting with the room’s props felt like looking at a fun house mirror’s distorted reflection of my own room:

Rare Candy, a treat for Pokémon but not for human consumption, scattered around with no trace of human meals in sight.	Candy wrappers and plastic bottles littered on the floor, simple and unhealthy eats so I could avoid going downstairs18 and crossing my father’s path.
Scratch marks on the walls left by tormented Pokémon lashing out in fear and repressed rage.	A splintered door frame from when my father punched my door down in an uncontrollable frenzy.
No bed, no table, no seating, no place of comfort or rest.	An old, bare mattress that served as my bed, chair, and desk all in one.

N couldn’t react to my story, but I certainly reacted to his. Observing N’s difficulty to adapt to and accept the world right in front of him because of his childhood trauma empowered me to see the truth of my own experiences. N feels more like the protagonist of Black and White than the player character, since he is the one who matures and changes over the course of the story.¹⁹ But Black Version, and N, helped me embrace, as cliché as it is, that I’m the protagonist of my own life. Black and White assert that people and Pokémon are better together than apart, and that people need to come into contact with different perspectives in order to grow into the best version of themselves. From there, they can begin that scary, challenging, but ultimately necessary journey of healing that only the individual can embark on. At the game’s end, N expresses how he has to put in the work to heal, regardless of the choices of his abuser Ghetsis, and leaves, taking a literal leap into the unknown beyond his crumbling castle walls, to do just that. His departure demonstrated how only I could take the strides to move forward, to improve myself and become the person I wanted to become regardless of my fallible memory or how my own father treated me. 

Still, epiphanies introduce additional challenges. I started to feel embarrassed that it was a Pokémon game, a game for children, that helped me have these realizations. Worse, it was a Pokémon game I played as a high schooler getting ready to graduate within a few months. At that age, I was supposed to be mature.²⁰ I was expected to have my life together enough to make decisions with irrevocable consequences for my future, just like I was supposed to be neurotypical. Didn’t most people have these sorts of revelations in early childhood with their first video games? 

But again Black Version supported me. N, too, is a young adult at the start of the game,²¹ going through similar experiences as me, and anyone in a similar situation. In the years following, I would go through this trial again, but instead regarding my ADHD diagnosis. I was in my 30’s—although people are now getting diagnosed even later—and having to confront the life changes and feelings that come with that knowledge. 

Do “most people” really have their lives together at the end of high school? If so, I’m not “most people”—but I’d wager that most people aren’t “most people,” either. They’re individuals pushed to conform to standards that very well may be preventing them from realizing the ways they’re different. Those same standards stopped me from recognizing my ADHD sooner, but once I believed it was possible, I was able to open many more of life’s doors.

The easy answer is “ourselves.” It’s what I wanted the answer to be as I became more comfortable with not letting other people invalidate²² my experiences. It was obvious that the way I thought of my father and the way he thought of himself were very different, but I could accept that our truths didn’t align. Now, however, I would hear my mother ask my father, after he had called her by an incorrect name, “Who are you?” And I would hear his reply: “I don’t know.” 

In the sequels to Black and White, Black Version 2 and White Version 2, Ghetsis also experiences cognitive decline. His ever-loyal henchmen, the Shadow Triad, express that Ghetsis “can’t do anything anymore” and that his “heart” has been “lost.” In the Japanese script, the specific word used for “heart” is kokoro, which comes with the complexity of being synonymous with the mind and spirit. The idea that the heart, mind, and spirit are connected is beautiful. It showcases how actions, feelings, and sense of self are all woven together to form an individual, an identity. But it also opens the potential that if one part is “lost,” the others are lost alongside it.

When I played Black 2 as a young adult just getting used to college life away from home, I never imagined something even remotely similar would happen to anyone I knew. Ten or so years later, when my father was diagnosed with dementia, I looked back to Black 2 and didn’t find the sort of consolation I had with Black Version. It doesn’t even seem as though N knows what happens to Ghetsis at the end of Black 2 or White 2. 

The only chance for resolution between N and Ghetsis could be in the mobile game, Pokémon Masters EX, which brings together Pokémon characters from across all the mainline games. But Ghetsis’ appearance is from before his cognitive decline. N’s reaction to teaming up with Ghetsis is to mutter, “I still have hope for you.” Every childhood trauma survivor, myself included, has, at least for some period of time, hoped that their unloving parent would change, would somehow realize the error of their ways and put in the work to become the loving, healthy parent that all children need and deserve. For N in Masters, there’s still a chance, although N admits it’s so unlikely it might as well be impossible. In Black 2 and White 2, that hope is lost, as there is no way to retrieve Ghetsis’ lost heart. And there was no way for my father to recover what he was losing, either. 

The more time passed, the more he lost of what made him himself. But every so often, he’d crack a joke, just like before. Just like those rare moments when he wasn’t being cruel to us, when he was being a good dad who could make his family laugh. I don’t remember what jokes he told as he sat in his wheelchair, but I have to admit, they were funny. He was still himself, even if he couldn’t remember. It didn’t undo how he treated us, but no amount of healing undoes the past, either. All anyone can do is keep moving forward. 

We are comprised of our misremembrances just as much as we are comprised of what we incorrectly think we remember with the utmost clarity. Even if we think we lack the necessary components to define who we are, they are always within us, no matter how difficult it may seem to reach them. Like N, we must act from the heart, not to prove ourselves to anyone, but in hopes of improving ourselves and, in the process, improving the world around us. 

1.  It also makes the few seconds—which always feel like hours—it takes to remember something, on the off chance the detail isn’t conjured up immediately, all the more painful. ↩︎
2. Imagine my surprise when, after wondering why the characters seemed so familiar in a game I was watching a friend play for the first time, I checked what I thought was my untouched copy and found I had completed it years ago. ↩︎
3. “They should have stopped making Pokémon games after Red and Blue. I mean, a Pokémon based on a flounder? That’s so stupid” is just one of the many things I heard my classmates say in the weeks leading up to Black and White’s release. ↩︎
4. Yes, even that wonderful flounder Pokémon. ↩︎
5. Pokémon games didn’t release simultaneously worldwide back then. ↩︎
6. Even when you choose the fastest text speed setting, N’s dialogue will always display one notch higher. ↩︎
7. N blends these facets of his identity together so well that most fans didn’t consider him a “rival” (instead prioritizing his villain status) until he was featured with the series’ other, clearly defined rivals in the 2020 “GOTCHA!” music video. ↩︎
8. This includes one of the other rivals in Black and White, Cheren. ↩︎
9. And he is the first NPC in the series to do so. ↩︎
10. It’s less like dogfighting, more like organized boxing. It can still be dangerous, but less so under controlled circumstances. ↩︎
11. The legendary Pokémon of Black and White have incredibly high catch rates compared to previous legendary Pokémon in the series, meaning they’re easier to catch in general. What many fans see as an attempt to make the game easier for little kids, I see as the gameplay reinforcing the idea that the legendary Pokémon chooses to partner with the player. ↩︎
12. Like being a complete failure because of a B on a report card. All the other grades being As are irrelevant. ↩︎
13. Or that they come from a toxic family. ↩︎
14. This is why I don’t adhere to the idea that self-diagnosis is “wrong” or “bad.” You have to self-diagnose before seeking a medical diagnosis. Many people tend to forget this because diagnoses usually happen in childhood, but the process is the same even then: a non-doctor (usually a guardian or teacher) gives their own diagnosis of the child (by recognizing that something about them is “different”), which prompts the guardian to take the child to a doctor for their diagnosis. ↩︎
15. And, to be blunt, who hasn’t given enough consideration to just how different life experiences can be. ↩︎
16. This symptom is seen in both ADHD and C-PTSD. ↩︎
17. In the games’ sequels, you also learn that Ghetsis isn’t N’s biological father. Rather, he abducted N from the forest where he lived when he was a toddler, captured him like a Trainer catches a Pokémon. If the inside of Poké Balls were anything like N’s room, is there any wonder N spends most of Black and White thinking they’re bad for Pokémon? ↩︎
18. I wasn’t allowed to have a trash can in my room. One of my most validating memories comes from a college art professor insisting that yes, everyone should have a trash can near their work space so they don’t have to break their flow state to get up and throw things away. ↩︎
19. You could say Black and White are N’s Bildungsroman. ↩︎
20. I can still hear my father asking me “When will you grow up?” whenever he caught me playing a Pokémon game. ↩︎
21. Notably, Black and White’s player characters and N were the oldest main characters in the series to date. It’s by design that it wasn’t the usual 11-year-olds going on the journey this time around. ↩︎
22. Or even validate—I’m the only person who needs to do that. ↩︎