Anger issues in online games

[moda__]

I know this probably seems like a weird thing to post about, but I love playing video games quite a bit. However when I lose I feel seething rage and don't really know what to do as I don't want to be toxic. It's not your typical irritating when I lose I want to rip someones head off every time, I think it might be a fragile ego thing or having a huge ego. Mixed with being super competitive, but I want to know hot to enjoy playing video game without feeling super fucking mad when I lose one game or a player on my team is playing bad, again I think it's important to clarify I get much much more angry than the average person much much more quickly and really want to stop but dont know how.

[Michael569]

I hate competitive games for the same reason, they make me pretty irritated and I'd always leave pissed and unhappy. Why not play something you'll actually enjoy, accept and that will make you feel good afterwards. Plenty of beautiful and complex games out there that don't rush you and that can even stimulate your creativity, planning, time management skills etc. 

I don't know if there is any technique of acceptance for being killed by teenagers in MW2 50 times an hour and being called twat and noob. 

[Rajneeshpuram]

8 hours ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

I know this one too well.

The problem is that you don't play it in order to have fun. There is a deeper reason for why you are playing these games. If it was about having fun you wouldn't be playing them because they anger you so much.

Ask yourself: Why can't I have fun loosing?

What is the thing keeping you from enjoying a game, no matter what? Isn't that what games are supposed to be about? Having fun? What's the point in playing a game if it makes you angry?

 

Let's take a closer look at anger:

People often see anger as something that comes from the outside.

"This person makes me angry. That guy made me angry. I am angry because of this and that."

In your case video games "make" you angry.

That is simply a distraction by your ego.

Anger is just a reaction to pain.

 

Somewhere deep down within you, there is insecurity. Fear. Maybe you are perfectionist and loosing confronts you with the reality of you not being perfect? Maybe, deep down, you feel inferior to other people and loosing confronts you with that feeling of inferiority?

Whatever it is, loosing brings it forth. Something within you is in pain, whenever you loose.

Here is a short story, just to make a point. Note that this is just one very specific option, out of thousands of possibilities.

Somewhere within you, you feel like you aren't good enough. Maybe it's your parents fault, maybe it's because of your teachers or maybe because of your peers. Deep down within your unconscious mind, there is a belief. A belief that you aren't worthy. That you, as a person, have no worth. That's where the perfectionism begins. Since you belief that you have no worth, you will try to compensate that feeling of unworthiness. You will try everything in order to proof to yourself that you are in fact a worthy human being.

Some people do so by playing video games. They play video games, especially competitive ones like CSGO and LoL, with no end in sight. They become real good at that game just to proof to themselves that they are a worthy human being.

Once you adapt that mindset, playing video games stops being fun. You don't do it for fun, you do it just to proof a point to yourself. You play that video game again and again. 10 hours. 50 hours. 100 hours. 250 hour. 500 hours. You just keep playing.

You become better and better. Every time you win, every time you dominate someone else you get a feeling of achievement. You feel like you are worth something. (I mean it's just a video game, but this is exactly what goes on in the minds of a lot of people)

But... you won't win all the time. Nobody is perfect. Everybody looses at some point.

Now, every time you loose it just confirms your unconscious belief about you being a worthless person. It might not be a problem if you loose once, but let's say you loose two or three times in a row. This will cause you a lot of pain. Maybe you are one of those people that create an entire personality around being a "gamer". Maybe you take it very seriously. And right now you are loosing again and again and again. This is a problem for you. It just confirms to you that you are worthless again and again and again. And this in return makes you want to play more, just to proof that you are NOT worthless.

You have put so much time and effort into playing video games. It's your everything! And now you are in so much pain. You see, the problem is that people don't want to face their pain. They spend so much time playing video games, watching TV, going to parties and doing drugs, just to get away from the pain. And so do you.

You could choose to inspect the pain that comes up when you loose, but that isn't what you want. In fact, the entire reason you play this game is just so that you can make the pain of feeling worthless go away. That's why you want to be so good. But now the pain is back. What do you do? You become angry!

You blame your opponents! Those damn hackers! Or perhaps yours team? Damn noobs! But... It's all just a distraction. Distracting you from the fact that it's YOUR pain. You are responsible for it! But you don't want to face it. You don't want to look inwards and inspect that pain. So you look in the opposite direction. You look outwards. You blame everybody else.

That is the essential problem. Just do this one thing: Recognize that it's YOUR pain and take responsibility for it! Even if your team mates are actually the reason you've lost, don't blame them. They didn't make you angry. You just ARE angry, because of something that is happening within you!

Meditate. Introspect, self-reflect. Try to observe yourself whenever you feel this pain. Does it happen with video games only? Can you feel this anger outside of video games too? Are there other things that anger you? What do they have in common with video games?

Try to connect the dots. Get a bigger picture of your anger and your pain.

It's a slow process, but it's the most efficient thing you can do!

Most of the time is a injustice issue.

-You give your 100% in a pvp match and your team mates are afking or doesnt effort enough, or simply trolling or wintrade. You think I'm wasting my energy and these idiots are making me lose.

That's the reason why I get angry in videogames. Id love to come to my teammates house and slap them.

Enemys cheating?... meeh it doesnt make me angry because I can download hacks too if i want.

[Nahm]

@moda__

The feeling has nothing to do with loss. Notice, there isn’t anything actually lost. The feeling has to do with continuing to believe in loss. You’re playing a game. The point is fun, enjoyment. Why expect robbing yourself of the only point would feel good? 

[Farnaby]

@Rajneeshpuram Hey! I think @DefinitelyNotARobot pointed you in the right direction. 

What makes you keep playing if you have the feeling that you're wasting your energy? 

Yes, there are trolls in games and it's easy to get tilted in online games. But I'm pretty sure there's always some personal emotional wound that's getting triggered when we get angry while playing a game. 

You have two choices, put all the responsibility on your teammates (who btw will probably keep having games where you feel they're trolling) or you can dig deeper into yourself and see what unhealed aspect in yourself gets triggered when you lose. 

You can also inspect your core beliefs about the world. Do you maybe believe that people will let you down and losing a game confirms this? Or maybe you feel like people should never let you down and value your effort and when they don't you get triggered? 

I reccomend digging deeper instead of blaming your teammates. On a more superficial level you may also be contributing to the lose through your anger in some way (maybe flaming or paying more attention to what your teammates are doing wrong instead of your own plays, etc.).

Games are a valuable source of information about your psychology, if you are willing to look past the obvious. 

[bejapuskas]

On 18. 8. 2020 at 6:26 AM, moda__ said:

I know this probably seems like a weird thing to post about, but I love playing video games quite a bit.

Dream: Video games are weird. Reality: All the mods and Leo secretly playing video games.

What helped me was playing so much that I got sick of it and just stopped playing for a long time, then my healthy playful mindset was revived. The problem these days is that if you are even a tiny bit serious about winning, the competition is so big that if you do not spend 8 hours practicing the game everyday, you probably will not win much. Luckily, there are other fun things to do  

Check out this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClHVl2N3jPEbkNJVx-ItQIQ

[nistake]

13 minutes ago, bejapuskas said:

What helped me was playing so much that I got sick of it and just stopped playing for a long time, then my healthy playful mindset was revived. The problem these days is that if you are even a tiny bit serious about winning, the competition is so big that if you do not spend 8 hours practicing the game everyday, you probably will not win much. Luckily, there are other fun things to do  

Yeah, that's spot on. If you want to win in these online competetive games, you really need to be dedicated and you basically need to spend all of your free time on gaming in order to improve. When you do get on a level where you're able to win the majority of the matches, you realize that you don't actually win anything and it's not fulfilling at all  Quite the catch-22.

You've got 2 options. Either quit gaming all together and look for another fulfilling hobbies or find other games that are not competetive and not designed to win at all costs.

[moda__]

On 8/18/2020 at 3:36 AM, Michael569 said:

I hate competitive games for the same reason, they make me pretty irritated and I'd always leave pissed and unhappy. Why not play something you'll actually enjoy, accept and that will make you feel good afterwards. Plenty of beautiful and complex games out there that don't rush you and that can even stimulate your creativity, planning, time management skills etc. 

I don't know if there is any technique of acceptance for being killed by teenagers in MW2 50 times an hour and being called twat and noob. 

Me and my friend who actually told me to post on here and, who introduced me to leo's channel have been going over these responses and trying to understand myself better. I think I don't enjoy the 1v1 game I play it's more a dopamine grab, which is what makes it super addicting. I'm like addicted to winning no matter what the game is unfortunately so walking away is really hard because it feels like there's not much that can give me the instant gratification that the games im good at do. I love hanging out with friends and watching shows and stuff as well but I can't always do that. I do however have a game I enjoy just to enjoy and I've been trying to play that alot more, it still feels good to win and I sometimes have to try not to get upset when I lose which is what im trying to fix. But I actually enjoy playing it win or lose rather than it being purely a dopa mine grab. 

[moda__]

On 8/18/2020 at 3:52 AM, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

I know this one too well.

The problem is that you don't play it in order to have fun. There is a deeper reason for why you are playing these games. If it was about having fun you wouldn't be playing them because they anger you so much.

Ask yourself: Why can't I have fun loosing?

What is the thing keeping you from enjoying a game, no matter what? Isn't that what games are supposed to be about? Having fun? What's the point in playing a game if it makes you angry?

 

Let's take a closer look at anger:

People often see anger as something that comes from the outside.

"This person makes me angry. That guy made me angry. I am angry because of this and that."

In your case video games "make" you angry.

That is simply a distraction by your ego.

Anger is just a reaction to pain.

 

Somewhere deep down within you, there is insecurity. Fear. Maybe you are perfectionist and loosing confronts you with the reality of you not being perfect? Maybe, deep down, you feel inferior to other people and loosing confronts you with that feeling of inferiority?

Whatever it is, loosing brings it forth. Something within you is in pain, whenever you loose.

Here is a short story, just to make a point. Note that this is just one very specific option, out of thousands of possibilities.

Somewhere within you, you feel like you aren't good enough. Maybe it's your parents fault, maybe it's because of your teachers or maybe because of your peers. Deep down within your unconscious mind, there is a belief. A belief that you aren't worthy. That you, as a person, have no worth. That's where the perfectionism begins. Since you belief that you have no worth, you will try to compensate that feeling of unworthiness. You will try everything in order to proof to yourself that you are in fact a worthy human being.

Some people do so by playing video games. They play video games, especially competitive ones like CSGO and LoL, with no end in sight. They become real good at that game just to proof to themselves that they are a worthy human being.

Once you adapt that mindset, playing video games stops being fun. You don't do it for fun, you do it just to proof a point to yourself. You play that video game again and again. 10 hours. 50 hours. 100 hours. 250 hour. 500 hours. You just keep playing.

You become better and better. Every time you win, every time you dominate someone else you get a feeling of achievement. You feel like you are worth something. (I mean it's just a video game, but this is exactly what goes on in the minds of a lot of people)

But... you won't win all the time. Nobody is perfect. Everybody looses at some point.

Now, every time you loose it just confirms your unconscious belief about you being a worthless person. It might not be a problem if you loose once, but let's say you loose two or three times in a row. This will cause you a lot of pain. Maybe you are one of those people that create an entire personality around being a "gamer". Maybe you take it very seriously. And right now you are loosing again and again and again. This is a problem for you. It just confirms to you that you are worthless again and again and again. And this in return makes you want to play more, just to proof that you are NOT worthless.

You have put so much time and effort into playing video games. It's your everything! And now you are in so much pain. You see, the problem is that people don't want to face their pain. They spend so much time playing video games, watching TV, going to parties and doing drugs, just to get away from the pain. And so do you.

You could choose to inspect the pain that comes up when you loose, but that isn't what you want. In fact, the entire reason you play this game is just so that you can make the pain of feeling worthless go away. That's why you want to be so good. But now the pain is back. What do you do? You become angry!

You blame your opponents! Those damn hackers! Or perhaps yours team? Damn noobs! But... It's all just a distraction. Distracting you from the fact that it's YOUR pain. You are responsible for it! But you don't want to face it. You don't want to look inwards and inspect that pain. So you look in the opposite direction. You look outwards. You blame everybody else.

That is the essential problem. Just do this one thing: Recognize that it's YOUR pain and take responsibility for it! Even if your team mates are actually the reason you've lost, don't blame them. They didn't make you angry. You just ARE angry, because of something that is happening within you!

Meditate. Introspect, self-reflect. Try to observe yourself whenever you feel this pain. Does it happen with video games only? Can you feel this anger outside of video games too? Are there other things that anger you? What do they have in common with video games?

Try to connect the dots. Get a bigger picture of your anger and your pain.

It's a slow process, but it's the most efficient thing you can do!

I've been thinking about this response for multiple days, and watching the video of the girl who talks about understanding our shadow to hope to understand myself a bit more. I think the problem was that I didn't actually enjoy that game particularly, sure I enjoyed winning, but the game itself I stopped enjoying a long time ago. It's a very demanding game called starcraft 2, an rts, I'm grandmaster at it, I however hardly enjoy it and really only play it because I'm good at it and get dopamine when I win. I have another game I've been playing that I actually DO enjoy whether I win or lose, so comparing and contrasting these two helped a bit. I do think I'm a perfectionist, I have trouble finding the core belief of why, I think at some point when I was younger since I'm still in my teens just late teens.  I had a view of extremely low self worth, over time I've been improving myself quite a bit and am completely different than I was like 4-5 years ago. But I still have habits that I had when I had low self worth I think? Like feeling the need to be perfect and never being satisfied, or getting insecure and upset when I lose a game wanting to blame the game or just being really upset and emotional. Probably has something to do with what you said. I self reflect and introspect alot, I'm still having a bit of trouble finding the true reason, as the reason above is just the reason I've hypothesized, not sure if it's the ACTUAL reason. I watched the video you linked and tried that, but it feels like I can't figure it out, even when I'm mad if I just ask myself 'if that were true why does it matter' no answer really comes to mind. I have tried something that is muting my anger in gaming, but idk if it's the answer, I just tell myself consciously that I'm better than everyone else so if someone says im bad or if I lose I won't get mad because I have a higher worth to me than the other person by alot so how could I possibly get mad. It seems silly but it actually has been working and I haven't raged or gotten angry at all using it so far. Maybe the core belief was worthlessness

[moda__]

On 8/18/2020 at 0:35 PM, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

But what is it about? What does "injustice" mean to you?

Check out Teal Swan, she has a couple of good videos about emotions and so on:

This video could be especially helpful here. It's about investigating beliefs and to try to get to their core.

I like the image of beliefs being like a tree. There is the root and there are the branches.

Your anger being about "Injustice" is just one of many branches. Go deeper than that. Ask yourself: Even if it is unjust, what is so bad about injustice? Why is injustice bad/Why does it hurt you so much?

PS. Some of the things she says might sound off-putting and crazy, just try to filter out the good stuff.

Thank you for this video, I watched it and a few other from her, it has helped me look into myself a bit. I feel like it is so hard to figure out why though, when I ask myself this question frame I sometimes can't find an answer in the situation that comes naturally :(. Maybe I just need more practice, I think my core belief might've been a feeling of worthlessness as I highlighted in a response above ,but I'm really not sure.

 

[moda__]

On 8/19/2020 at 6:53 AM, Nahm said:

@moda__

The feeling has nothing to do with loss. Notice, there isn’t anything actually lost. The feeling has to do with continuing to believe in loss. You’re playing a game. The point is fun, enjoyment. Why expect robbing yourself of the only point would feel good? 

I need to remind myself to think of it like this, detachment from results emotionally; in something as trivial as a video game especially. I think I need to find games I actually enjoy more instead of just playing a game to get good and rake in dopamine. It's much harder to do this when you do the latter. 

[Nahm]

3 minutes ago, moda__ said:

I need to remind myself to think of it like this, detachment from results emotionally; in something as trivial as a video game especially.

Well you might say it’s already ‘set up’ perfectly so that you don’t even need to remember or remind yourself. Feeling is always letting you know about how conditional the current perspective is. It’s there from the first day to the last, and you can’t even take it off if you tried, constant guidance we can abide in or even ignore if we choose. (But that ignore-ance is what suffering is ??)

Also, there will be a subtle discord (suffering) in the conditional perspective that an activity such as video games is trivial. The indirect offset in mind would be that there are “BIG THINGS” in life which are not trivial. Feeling will remain unconditional, and there is a good chance you’ll misinterpret perspective & feeling in that regard, believing the not-so-good-feeling is ‘because you’re not good enough’, or ‘can’t do it’....rather than because you’re claiming it’s a “BIG DEAL”.  

3 minutes ago, moda__ said:

I think I need to find games I actually enjoy more instead of just playing a game to get good and rake in dopamine. It's much harder to do this when you do the latter. 

Not harder, funnier, more interesting, more exciting, actual and invigorating......make a dreamboard. 

[Roy]

@moda__ I used to play a lot of online games just until 2 weeks ago I quit cold. I would get angry and pissy too sometimes despite never displaying this kind of behavior anywhere in my life at all. It slowly dwindled down over time but the thing that helped me most when I realized I was being angry was to acknowledge that most of the things in the game were out of control.

Most games are extremely volatile so it doesn't matter how good you are as a player, it's simply too chaotic and things will happen that will trigger you. Games these days are very intense with a lot of moving parts. It's not like playing Pong.

Rather than fighting uphill trying to play perfect and never make mistakes like the social pressure is telling you to do, go with the flow of the game and the things that you find fun.

You might not realize it like I didn't but there is no golden rule that says you have to cave into the idea of always playing "properly". It's a game, play the way YOU want to! And don't fucking apologize for it!

Edited August 22, 2020 by Roy

[fabritio1995]

I want to share my story. I love to play minecraft and I'm always interested in starting a game with new people to share experiences, so I often play on servers. I have no problem meeting new people directly on the server, but sometimes I come across terrible griefers that destroy everything I've done, so I recently created my own server on hosting https://ggservers.com, so I'm waiting for all the adequate and experienced players on my server!

Edited October 17, 2020 by fabritio1995

[Lyubov]

I tend to get grumpy as well while playing competitive online games. I'm getting better at it. I just do my best to let go. I realize that I am in control of how I feel and I contemplate if it is really all that important. I want to give up not caring to win but this is a bit of a contradiction because I haven't gotten good enough to really surrender to this. Taking a deep breathe and reminding yourself you're here to have fun goes a real long way. 

[integral]

I come from this background, competitive gaming and sports, also was a starcraft addict 1 and 2. My experience is exactly like yours, hate losing, emotionally invested in the result and my ability to peek perform.

What got me out of this mind set was real life suffering. Got to get an intimate dose of what really matters and what really doesn't. After that the result no longer mattered. 

Now gaming is for the purpose of fun, exploration or a meditative practice.

- Can i reach a state of deep relaxation at the peak of a chaotic game? When the result matters most? Challenge accepted. 

- Can i remain stoic when my team makes a terrible move. Challenge accepted. Or can i expertly adapt to unexpected behavior?

- Can i really fuck with my opponent in a pvp? Dont try to win, try to do something creative. Play with the goal of creative expression. How clever can i really be?

- Can i learn something new while playing that i dont already know? Challenge accepted. The result is no longer about winning its about weather you can find/discover a new insight. 

- Can i play to draw? Can i drive someone insane with a brutal draw. 

- Can i loss in style?

- Can i notice and appreciate the skill every move my opponent makes? Can i drown in praise for my opponents abilities while in the middle of a heated match and still win? Challenge accepted. 

- How completely can i enjoy every moment of this experience?

Redefine the goal for growth. Its no longer about winning or losing, its about growing. Be strategic about the kind of training you expose your self to. There is good practice and bad practice. 

Edited October 18, 2020 by integral

[Onitsuka]

On 8/18/2020 at 0:26 AM, moda__ said:

I know this probably seems like a weird thing to post about, but I love playing video games quite a bit. 

Not weird at all! It’s like television, social media, anything. They’re designed to trigger deep negative impulses and they work splendidly, just like a drug. I sure have a few bad habits, the Internet for example is 10000x more difficult to quit than cigarettes. Impossible to compare. This week, I avoided social media less a day or so and it did help when I was away from it.

[LeoX8]

@moda__ I know what you are speaking about. Videogames are the perfect recipe for anger, particularly competitive ones. 

Before telling you anything I want you to understand that anger itself IS NOT A BAD THING. It's just an emotion and there are healthy and unhealthy manifestation of it, but the main point here is that you are not a monster, a sociopath or a potential serial killer for this, even if it triggers you easily.

The thing that popped up when I read you message is that you are afraid of feeling it, you feel guilty for feeling it and for you anger is just a thing that is not supposed to happen. But as you experienced it happened. 

If you are a man is normal to be competitive, angry sometimes and desiring to destroy everything, but this is in your nature even if is one of its darkest sides. This doesn't mean that you have to destroy everything but use this exploding rage to take the courage to unleash what you are feeling and say to the thing/person that made you angry the thing that triggers you. 

Try also to take everything that happens to you as your responsability so that you will think about what could you have done before blaming others.

See also the desire that you have for becoming a better and more loving person, love yourself for this.

Summarizing try to find a healthy way to express your anger and don't blame yourself for feeling it. 

I know that one day your life will be brighter

hope this has helped

ps don't waste so much time in videogames, life has a lot to offer you than just pictures that moves around the screen

[lmfao]

@moda__ Play a single player game. Like witcher 3.