Sore loser

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I've found other similar threads but none for over 5 years so just wanted to ask. I've only recently been diagnosed as 'high functioning autistic' at the age of 28. I'm coming to terms with a lot of my 'quirks' and they're starting to make a little more sense.

However, there's one I struggle with. I absolutely fail at being a good loser. It will flip my mood in an absolute instant. I can be having the best time and suddenly the world is against me and everything is terrible. I've broken things and it has obliterated my mood hundreds of times.

Is this something that many people on the spectrum struggle with or am I just being ridiculous? I've always struggled with it since I was very very young and it's ruining my life. I can't do anything even remotely competitive!

Any advice for how to overcome this way of thinking?

Thanks

When young I would get upset but I grew out of it and losing doesn't bother me at all, part of life.

What you perhaps need to try is desensitising yourself from it. Perhaps try playing the lottery which is something you are guaranteed to lose at or, if you don't want to pay to lose play computer Solitare or a similar game at the highest difficulty. Play a few games then leave it and calm down and repeat a few times until it stops bothering you but if it just isn't doing a thing you may have to find another way.

I generally avoid competition if I'll be an also-ran, but I understand that those folks are having fun, racing each other, and/or learning from the experience. I get more upset over theft than an honest loss, though. Sometimes, I "lose" an argument just because the other party has a mental block or other impediment. That's life. Perhaps you could desensitize yourself by just playing games with known odds. Solitaire does not even have a human "winner" to bother you. If you play for a while, you'll see the inevitability of both winning and losing.

I was a very sore loser as a young kid.

I found out it’s good to be competitive....but one has to have perspective on things. You might lose at one thing, but you might be a winner at something else.

Or....you can seek to improve at what you’ve lost at.

I chose not to knock myself out becoming good at sports.....because I learned that I should concentrate on being good at being an adult.

I would just avoid competition. Or try to figure out why it bothers you so much and work on that.

Thanks for the responses. I do try an avoid competition but I make everything competitive. I joined a weight loss football group and used to just get so annoyed when we lost even though it didn't matter.

I struggle with it as I always feel like a lesser person anyway so losing just makes me feel like pond slime which makes me hate myself.

Yes, I have deep lying issues with depression and self loathing

I had a friend who used to enter the very eccentric kinetic sculpture races, where cheating is a privilege, not a right. He was delighted to see that they offered a "mediocrity prize" for coming in half way from first to last, and always tried to win that.

I use to be a sore loser all the way up until about 19 or 20. I was facing my mother in a game and lost and was upset over it.

What helped me get over my competitiveness was that my mother was much older and I had won many times already(not to brag). I thought about how she must've felt me getting all mad and frustrated over one loss and it made me realize that winning all the time is not fun(and losing all the time not fun for the other person) and that I was taking it too seriously and trying to perfectly beat my opponent, all wins no losses. That's when I learned to just have fun and not take it personally.

There will always be someone out there bigger and better than you at something the thing is to not attack yourself and take it personally when you lose. Sometimes you can learn a lot more from losing than you can from winning!

Personally, I learned to accept that I either suck at or I am mediocre at most things competitive. I strive to avoid last place, and accept anywhere from the middle to second to last.

An intensity of focus is an Asperger characteristic. If one is playing a game, it is easy to become so invested in wining that things like what others think of us fades from consideration. The emotional outburst when things do not go the way we expect can be frightening to others.

Consider experimenting with a game like Windows solitaire. A game that has an element of luck can be frustrating because no amount of skill can win the day. As a source of periodic frustration it can be helpful to slowly learn to quit a game when it is apparent that it is un-winable. This can allow you to start to "let go" of things without involving other people in your learning process.

The larger skill to learn is being able to adjust your focus "on the fly". When you can take a moment to consider how others are interacting in the midst of something like a board game, you may have achieved enough control to divest yourself from an investment in only thinking about wining.

Makes sense to me. As a child I couldn't bear to lose a game. As I grew older I learned not to invest so much in the goal and to accept that "you win a few, you lose a few." I still feel a trace of the old "must win" when I perform music and there are other acts for me to compare my popularity with, but I have the grace to accept it quickly when I don't turn out to be the favourite of the event, my "narcissism" is really pretty mild and soon forgotten. Frankly I feel rather ashamed of myself for having such feelings at all, as I like to see myself as a co-operator rather than a competitor, and I like the idea of being content to simply be one important part of an event, but for all that I enjoy pitting my skills against those of others.

i early on learned to avoid competition because i always lost, and by a country mile.

Wasn't the point weight loss?

what he was saying there was that his side didn't lose as much as the other side, so it was a loss at losing weight.

If winning feels all-important, we can't stand the loss of face when we should change course. Life should be lived too fast to always get it right. Software ships when 90% of the bugs are gone, and only ancient code is safe for life-critical work.
I do hate being wrong, but at least I get a turn at it, after correcting my friends so often. They need the relief, and with grace comes humour and bonding. Also, I had a friend who would occasionally send revised information, and I trusted all his stuff far more because of that. That's pretty universal.