Stephan you are loved by your friends and community

a few days ago i was almost hit by a car and i want to tell you all that as a community you guys mean the fucking world to me. im pretty lucky to be alive, if the car hit me i think it's very likely that it wouldve been lights out for me.

i mean it from the bottom of my heart when i say that you guys have given me some of my greatest memories and have been some of my best friends i've ever had. i am so so so so so lucky to be alive and i'm equally thankful to have you guys to pug/scrim/compete/talk/chill/learn with. thank you all for being awesome

For everyone who is dealing with some mental or life issue or anything else: do not use tf2 as a coping mechanism. It just makes things worse. You try to distract yourself but slowly it creeps in. In my case it manifests in terms of depression and, in game, in terms of a lot of dumb shit talk and tilt that just further estranges you from the people you are friends with and everyone else. A dream of getting better and actually being considered "good" will only take you so far. I don't know what it will take for me to get better, but like I said, please do not do what I've done.

I don't think that's a problem with TF2 so much as the people you're playing with and the attitude you have towards the game. There's a way to play competitively without getting super angry and fuming at people.

I kinda use TF2 as a coping mechanism, or just to hide from shit. I don't think escapism is the worst thing. Depends on your circumstances and what you value.

there is a difference between escapism and not progressing in life. as long as you keep progressing in life you can use escapism all you want.

im doing exactly that :(

=

you should try picking up a hobby that doesn't/minimally involves using a computer like reading or going for walks or maybe a musical instrument if you have the funds to purchase one. i spend most of the day playing music (when im not in class lmao) and it feels really good to not spend so much of my time just staring into a screen.

yeah, if you can get into something else that gives you less frustration and more long-term satisfaction that's great. think about seeing/talking to someone if you feel like there are bigger problems in your life. not trying to psychoanalyze you though, gaming can just be addictive to some people regardless of other things.
i find it super addicting too for the same reasons. i like the comfort and immersion and constant intense nervous overstimulation.

i dont know what it is but tf2 just makes me agitated and upset these days, and when i take it out on other players it only makes the game worse for everyone i play with. if i start playing the game in a bad mood it comes out in how well i play and how i treat people, which is awful and not ok.

in a combination of the issues i had with team structuring and my own minimal self-confidence, i tilted, soft-threw, or otherwise dragged my feet through about a month of cumber scrims. i wasnt enjoying playing any of them (wubs found this out immediately, poor guy was team therapist), and for a while i kinda dreaded opening tf2 just to play an awful scrim that would make me feel worse. i only wasted my teams time when i couldve addressed the issues earlier and made the scrims worth something. we had our issues, but my teammates didnt deserve that.

the other day i was up 10-5 against someone in solly v solly ammomod when they went pyro. instead of handling the situation in a decent way i removed and flamed him. i dont know why this was my first option and i instantly regretted it, but the issue still stands that knee-jerk bm is something i dont know why i do, and i really wished i didnt. truth be told, i really dont want to yell at anyone or start shit, which makes the fact that i do bm, and how little control i seem to have over it, even more upsetting to me. yall are really cool people and dont need the worst pocket in open™ going off on you like that.

i could probably assume that this post's just gonna be the next juju apology thread, where the next time i start getting moody and acting up you'll all point and laugh, but i genuinely hate how ive been acting. I've just felt empty irl for the better part of a year, and i decided to...

...to give me something to feel less shitty about, which was a huge mistake. ive had a lot of friends tell me to just seek therapy which sounds like a good first step, but i dont know where to start.

i miss the 2016 gritoma that couldnt hit shit but he enjoyed playing tf2 and enjoyed playing games with other people and couldnt understand why people would bm so he didnt.

i really want to thank you for putting a lot of my own concerns into words. at least i know that im not alone in feeling this way about the game.

i apologize for the long unnecessary emo retard essay. good morning east coast :)

I've been teamless this season so instead of just playing tf2 I decided to fill my free time between classes by working almost full-time. God, taking a break from TF2 has been one of the best things that's happened to me.

If you ever feel like you can't improve or find enjoyment in the game, take a season off. Not just being teamless, but actually almost entirely stop playing TF2. You can still hang out with your TF2 friends, taking a season off might not magically make you better (it didn't for me!) but it will certainly help you find interest in the game again. It kinda resets your entire view of the game and its community. I've never felt better about playing TF2 and I'm hyped to return next season, something which I had dearly missed these last few seasons where playing was just a daily chore.

Take a break!

So I have only one friend and all we did together was take extremely long walks. About 6 months ago we went hiking on a mountain and liked it and we were hyped to go on a few more in the summer. A week after the hike I got drunk and injured my knee, an injury that I still have and will continue having for about 6 more months despite the first doctor's initial estimation of 2 weeks. So since I couldn't walk, I only met with him 3 times in the summer and he also invited me to spend a week on an island with him and some of his friends which was the only time I was invited to something like that and I couldn't go. I also had to quit swimming that I was starting to really enjoy. This is the summer that was supposed to be the last one that I allowed myself to not get a job and just have fun before I start uni and do adult stuff. At least I still had tf2 though and played as much as I could but it still really fucking sucked. Now that I moved out for uni my dad wouldn't let me take the laptop with me. So I have no friends, I can't swim, and I can't play tf2 which were all the things I did for fun. I have absolutely no social skills to make any friends and no money to drown the boredom with drugs or alcohol. I spend a significant portion of the day starring at nothing waiting for time to pass. I never knew it was possible to be this bored for such a long period of time.

I know how it is to have a knee injury longer than you should. If I might make a suggestion, if you can find a group of friends even in a shitty mobile game, it'll help you stave off lonliness and boredom.

I've been playing this game competitively for a little over two years now and I've not improved a single bit since I started practicing. All of my teams have either died in the first few weeks or been full of throwing memers excepting the newbie mix team I played s27 of ESEA with. I love TF2, but over time I've had less fun with the game part of the game and started only caring about being good and doing well in leagues. I get very upset because I have thousands of hours and several seasons of ESEA but I'm still low open. TF2 is one of the important things in my life and I'm a perfectionist so being so bad at it really bothers me.

i had these same problems of being frustrated about the game like cin and others but I didnt quit at the time. Instead i kept joining teams and leaving them within the first few weeks of the season.
When I did take a break it did me a whole lot of good (only in terms of how happy i was). Now i can come back and enjoy the game again

The only problem with that is that it is extremely difficult to get back into the game, and i dont mean skill wise. I havent really believed it myself in the past but i do have a lot of friends tell me that it's really who you know in this game. I really feel just as good or better than i was when i was at my peak on bird noises, but this season (and many others) it has been rough finding a team. I wanted to play so bad i joined a team a couple days before registration ended and of course that didnt go well and i quit 3 weeks in again.
I think anyone that wants to take a break and is planning to come back in the future should consider this

It's a feeling of being forgotten in a way, or maybe im totally inaccurate when judging my skill level, but i still practice and I dont know how many people even know that. I am exploring other classes to broaden my opportunities (+ i genuinely like playing each class) but i still get casted as a soldier, only get soldier tryouts and usually only for teams that I feel that im above (again i might be misjudging my skill level here). Perhaps I should network more but idk that just feels so fake a lot of the time

do not pug, simply play 30 minutes to one hour before your scrims doing things you enjoy (mge, pubs, jump maps, etc.)
or just get on and talk to your team. do this until you feel less burnt.

on a different note, what I found that helps when feeling like this is just taking a break. if every aspect of a game is pissing you off/irritating you, take a break for however long you'd like. don't let a game feel like a chore when it's meant to be played for fun.
(of course the above isn't very doable because you're on a team, but just a thought for after this current season.)

of course, as hellbent said, after a hiatus, you may not be at your prime, but you'll be renewed, which will make you improve further beyond the level that you left at.

well for me it's that you can get back to your prime that's not so much a problem it's just getting people to believe in you as a player again is very difficult. A lot of the players i knew well stopped playing too so it's just an environment where u feel out of the conversation

I know how you feel, back when I was still into TF2 I was in your exact situation. It's just a matter of putting yourself out there socially and it's going to be awkward and hard at first, especially if you were as socially awkward as I was. I don't know your exact situation but what I did was just try to put myself out there as much as possible. For example, if I was in a class where I didn't know anybody and the teacher made us get into groups, instead of just sitting there alone like I usually would, I would ask another group if I could work with them and introduce myself. I'd also make an effort to say hi to acquaintances whenever I saw them in the hallway instead of just avoiding eye contact, just trying to be friendly makes people a lot more willing to talk to you.

It probably sounds cringe but it was really a struggle for me to do those things back then, but it just takes practice like any other thing and I believe that you can do it :).

im honestly the worst at being social or its just the people in my skool i have nothing in common with. no one plays tf2 at my skool and the only friend i had that played tf2 went to ow and told me to fuck off when i went up to him, to gladly tell him im a hl player, and that hurts after not seeing him for like 2 years. i dont talk to other people at all because they arent interesting at all, i just see the same fortnite + rap kids. kids in my skool just always constantly bother me with "whats the answer for 12?" like, damn im a actual person not a answer machine.

and im worried of how good i actually am, with a dream to reach im or maybe invite. some matches i just feed completely and others i pump out fat damage.

oh yea and this kid pretended to be my friend and claims that he plays tf2 but never adds me on steam or talks about it
god i love high skool

I feel you man, i hate these pinheads so much

poo

Dropped out in September. Could've went on, but it was only a matter of time before I ran out of options and would be forced to quit. My grades weren't improving and progress was too slow

Luckily the people at my student job are cool and I can work there fulltime until I decide what to do. Can change things about my contract easily if I decide to start a different degree and stuff. Lots of social interaction as well which I was lacking after I fell behind my friends who were struggling a lot less than I was.
Working fulltime for now. Probably looking into something IT related and keeping the current job halftime once that starts.

I'm alright with the current events. Would've loved to get the chemistry degree, but going to college has made my body start to react very negatively towards stress. I initially changed campus because I thought I was allergic to some tree that was blossoming (I have hay fever). it turned out later it was the stress from going to class that was making me ill

I'm happier now

my grandfather, someone i was very close to, passed away, my grades are almost unsaveable in college, tf2 has been making me into an angrier person because my medication prescription ran out a month or so ago and ive just been making my life more unhealthy by playing it all the time, i keep losing my friends because of my own volition, and the only game ive ever been even semi decent at is no longer fun to me anymore. i find myself lost in trying to find something i would be interested in, and if i can even convince myself to even pretend to be interested in something for a little bit, i feel like a sack of shit trying to practice because i feel like it's too late to be good at anything. i know realistically that doesn't make any sense, 21 is not that old, but i wanted to have a satisfying youth since my childhood was terrible, and i am venting these frustrations on TFTV because no one else would ever want to listen anyway, and if they did they wouldn't care

to top it all off, i played the worst tf2 of my life in our playoff match and am probably just getting clowned on by everyone deservingly

I transferred schools to pursue a different degree and get away from the toxic environment I was feeling at my old one. Now that I am down here, living on my own outside of a college town (new school is an urban campus in Detroit) with no close friends around I'm super lonely and only have my online friends to be around outside of talking to people from work or my classes.

While I cherish the friends I have and the good times we spent together I know that the amount of time I spent online is negatively impacting my grades and work ethic, but if I take a breather and back away from steam for a bit I get disconnect with the only people I talk to on a regular basis. I know I could be helping myself by joining some extracurricular activities or doing whatever interest me, but I have to work and go to school full time.

I'm 21 and I feel I have made basically zero progress in my two years of higher education. Just feeling helpless.

too much detergent on my clothes it hurts my nose feel bad

my girlfriend is an incredible person and I don't feel like I deserve her anymore. I'm not good at video games anymore. I feel like I'm getting dumber and I keep getting angry that I can't do all the little things I used to be able to do. I feel washed up and I'm only 20. I'm just sad.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/525835964841459715/528523954546016266/simp.png

i really wanted to play this season cause invite was looking fat but my internet is just straight up too shit to do so.

for all my fellow canadians out there, #fuckrogers

im probably at the lowest point in happiness ive probably ever been in. im usually a very happy person so this feels so weird to me
idk what to do about it

my childhood home has gradually turned into "room at my parents house i sleep in 3 weeks a year" over the last 3 years