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Bomir
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

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Joined: 27 Feb 2013
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 66

15 Jan 2015, 7:15 pm

Hello everyone. I have had a problem since I was very little and being an Aspie exacerbates what an otherwise normal person could unwind as an adult and deal with. Although I maintain general control over most all of my emotions I lose control when I lose at something and people are watching. I am so terrified of losing that I get mad, at both myself and anyone on my team that I think wasn't giving 100% or even worse, if I thought they were goofing off. I've even gone so far as to report other players to officials on minor offenses to make it very clear that that player was to blame and should "learn a lesson". It's a totally out of control rage and I do and say things I really regret. But I feel totally out of control with this emotion compared to other emotions.

It stems from my childhood. I have a younger brother who although only 2 years younger (almost to the day) was always about 50% my size. My parents and extended family would constantly make us compete against each other and tease me unmercifully if I ever lost to him as everyone always thought I was bigger and smarter and therefore me losing was a point of entertainment. To make matters worse he joined every single sports team and competitive event I was in growing up. I would do my best to hide the days of competition from my parents in the rare case I wasn't competing against him so that I could just do my personal best and be proud of myself. However, this was maybe 10% of the time. The rest of the time I'd get an earful on how I could have done XXX better or how my brother almost beat me. It was just exhausting to always have to be better and I hated being teased by the adults so badly. If I was having a bad day or competition I always had to come up with an excuse whether it would be my fault or a teammate. I even went so far as to purposefully severely injure myself in races if I felt I was doing poorly.

Now that I am an adult I have been to therapy for anger. I flat out refuse to do anything competitive with my brother (much to our parents' ire). However, I now have a knee jerk reaction to get mad, defensive and accusatory when I lose at something. It's basically a rage level and I know that behind it all is me still being terrified that people will think less of me even though its just a simple friendly game. An interesting caveat of this is that in a non-spectated competition I'm perfectly fine if I lose. I've gotten to the point where I no longer do competitive stuff because I am so ashamed of myself and how I lash out. However, I know it's all in my head and I long to fix it. But I can't seem to unwind the fear induced rage moments. Any advice is greatly appreciated.



aradesh
Raven
Raven

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Joined: 9 Jan 2015
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Posts: 103

16 Jan 2015, 8:40 am

I used to be a bit of a bad loser, and expected to excell at most games I partook in when I was a child. However I started playing chess online when I was a teenager, and every day my ass was routinely handed to me by better players. I found that this acclimatized me to losing and I ended up seeing value in losing graciously. If my opponents were really nice and gracious when losing, I saw that as a very admirable trait and one which I wanted to replicate.

Also a sport which I am a fan of is called "snooker" and often very good deserving players lose due to bad luck, and seeing those who are the best at something lose, and lose graciously has also been a good role model for me.

So maybe you could try getting into some skill based online board game, or hobby, where there will be many people much better than you, or become a fan of snooker.

When I lose at something my reaction is to be gracious, and then go away and practice and try to make sure I win next time.