I lost a Shadow Game at some point
I can't play competitive games anymore in any capacity, I just can't do it. Somewhere along the way I developed a really unhealthy attachment to results and now some really bad emotions are attached to the whole idea, instead of games just being a fun thing you can do with friends like how it's supposed to be. The idea of climbing up a ladder is so compelling to me and some competition is healthy sometimes probably but if I start to lose even a little bit it all just falls apart.
Most chess grandmasters have something like a 40-50% win rate, which is to be expected since they're playing against other super high level players. They're obviously still good at what they do, so losing shouldn't actually reflect poorly on a person at all. It's literally fine to lose sometimes, I know this...and yet...
When it comes to games, the kind of incredible genius who just wins easily every time does exist, sort of. Sonicfox and Daigo and whoever else is winning fighting game tournaments now, they all have a really good sense for what works and what doesn't, so they can pretty much pick up anything and do well. Chess guys are doing things that look like nonsense but are actually good, you get the idea. Obviously 90% or more of that is study and practice but the fact remains that they're picking things up much more effectively than I am. Even on a less grandiose level, there have been people who started playing a game at the same time as me, or even much later, only to completely eclipse me within just a few months. Meanwhile I only get worse at typing, forget combos I used to know, neglect half the chessboard while my opponent is looking 3 steps ahead, etc.
So whenever I lose I can't help thinking of my opponent as the same "type" as this ideal top player. Why can they stay calm under pressure and pick the correct option in an eighth of a second with full justification after the match, while I can't even explain what I did in a match 30 seconds ago? How is there such a massive gulf between me and everyone above me? I'm not just losing to my opponent, I'm losing to everyone higher on the leaderboard than me by not being one of them, by not being this type of person who "gets it", as if splitting things into a binary like that is healthy or true to life at all.
That negative spiral extends into the rest of my life, and I feel predestined for failure. Why am I wrong about everything when there are people who are just right about everything? Why can't I draw like the people who intrinsically understand forms and create freely? Why were all my career choices so catastrophically wrong when others fell in love with different fields that, well, maybe nobody made the right choice there actually. The point being, instead of games being fun I'm stressed out fighting for my life to avoid falling into this cycle, even in like air hockey or something that doesn't matter at all.
When I was actively playing fighting games this victimization mentality got to the point where I would anticipate a 50/50 reset at the end of being comboed, let's say I would have to guess between blocking left or right in a particularly nasty setup where that really is the only way out. In that instance I would pick the opposite of what I thought the answer would be because surely if I thought it was right it would actually be wrong.
This is a textbook example of being my own worst enemy, in addition to whatever fighting game layers of subterfuge are going on I have to spend additional time second guessing myself and create another layer in my mental stack to work through. It literally only helps my opponent to put myself at a disadvantage by thinking this way.
So why do I do it? Well, I don't anymore. I've been banished to the woods so I'm retired from online games, which is probably for the best even though I do miss playing games and having fun...but I do think these highly volatile feelings and results-obsessed mindset stem from a baseline level of negativity and an inferiority complex that extends into every aspect of my life. Any competition at all activates it, whether it's Nanaca Crash or eye tests or jackbox in some cases, even not being picked to do a job or not getting a bunch of likes on my post. It's now even extended to art, there are people way better than me in drawpiles and I don't know how to get on their level. Steadily moving forward only gets me so far so quickly when the negative spiral is right behind me, but that's what everyone else does!
The only way forward is to ignore this negative spiral, but at the same time "some people are just total ass at everything and that's ok" isn't a worldview I can get behind. I want to believe that there are no hard walls and that anyone can get where they want to go by finding the right way and putting in the time and effort, but I haven't been able to find that for myself. I don't know the way my brain best absorbs and retains information, so it doesn't, and I fall behind again.
I'm just so tired of falling to pieces and undergoing the arduous process of reforming and then falling apart again immediately. I just want to get a bit of self confidence and I wish games could help but it just isn't fun. I want to have fun again, but I don't know how.