Gaming rage and anger management - please help - Page 18

On May 11 2013 14:49 Jrocker152 wrote:

100% agreed.

Anyway, have you seen "The Greatest Game"? (Golf movie, Shia ?LeBeouf?)?

I recommend.


Finally, what general area do you live in- about driving. This can lead to a therapeutic vent possibility, so... I'm not being a creeper, I doth swear. My location is all over TL anyway.

On May 11 2013 17:00 Lauriel wrote:


Let me clarify the "debilitation."

In that moment, when I'm actually raging, I'm debilitated. I'm not capable of functioning like a human being should because I'm seething so hard. That part doesn't last for too terribly long (maybe a few minutes). The residual anger lasts for a bit longer than that. However, it's not as if my life is impacted by this daily.

To be fair, this is the internet, and I knew going into this that there would be several if not many people who would tell me I'm schizophrenic, psychotic, have a split personality, or various other armchair psychological evaluations. Again, everyone is welcomed to their opinion, but you'll just have to take my word for it that those things simply aren't part of the equation. I've studied enough psychology, and lived my life long enough to know what triggers what in my life, and I know that SC2 (or something related to SC2) is what the root of it is. I do appreciate the opinions, however. <3

On May 11 2013 17:22 GhandiEAGLE wrote:
The huge thing for me is, always go INTO the game with the right attitude. Decide you're going to be nice, and your mindset will be a blessing. Trust me, I had the EXACT same problem.

On May 11 2013 17:14 Lauriel wrote:
Incidentally, I've had *many* pms from players voicing the same problem I have, and even run into people on the ladder who have mentioned this thread and wished me well. I'm glad this thread has been helpful to more players than just me, and it's nice to know that there are others (and many others, apparently!) who are in a similar boat.

Good on you, Team Liquid. Just creating, reading, and responding in this thread has really given me a better mindset for starcraft, at least for the time being. Hopefully it continues!

On May 11 2013 17:25 VasHeR wrote:

A key piece of information missing, I think, is how much etc (how many days per week, games per session, how many losses until you're really raging, how some wins may offset it....). Did you even say what league you're in? It's kinda hard to assess the situation.
Without all info I might need, I'm just doin the best I can here, but here's another suggestion...
Short version: It sounds like you haven't lost (played) enough. Go lose more, almost intentionally
Long version: I'm upper-mid masters, and I still am way more concerned with improving my overall level of play than I am with wins/losses. There is so much to learn and practice in sc2. Go try ridiculous strategies and tactics, and s&t's that you rarely use even when you know it is likely to make you lose. I used to go 1 base collosus all-ins every pvp I played. Then I saw some pros doing speed prism immortal drops while expanding and it looked fun. So I did that for a bunch of games and lost a lot. In fact, the first time I did it, I lost my warp prism and the 2 immortals in it because I confused the hotkey for unloading units with the war3 hotkey. I've tested out so many different ways of doing a forge first, or early 2 gate pressure (not all-in, more like Co**atEx style), and it's very important to learn little things like pylon positioning and scouting patterns. I get really mad when I lose without learning from it.
There have been games when I felt like I played a really solid game and was never outmaneuvered, but I still lost. Then I go through the replay and see things like 'I could have taken my 4th base sooner, I should have transferred probes sooner, I was banking too much money, I needed more gateways, I should have just retreated back to my base after I took out that expo, etc...' If there truly was nothing wrong with your play, then my hat is off to you, Nestea.
Also, grandmasters still lose to 6pools and proxy gates on a daily basis. So you will always be able to direct some measure of your anger at Blizzard.

On May 11 2013 17:41 Nublakhan wrote:
My apologies, this is a long thread, and I haven't read all of the posts, but I covered the first 10 as best I could for the time being. Many of these have been mentioned at some point prior, but this has basically been my own path for coping with anger.

Firstly, learning to recognize when you get angry, and using that to mitigate the circumstances you leave yourself in. If you're angry in situations where you're losing and you feel it's from not being able to practice the style you're looking for, it can described as similar to a gambler losing most of their bank and feeling they need to continue to recover the losses. If I flip a coin 5 times and it always comes up tails, folks become certain the next flip will be heads; because it's about time for it to not be tails, it's about time that you'll hit that big win, it's about time that you'll hit somebody you'll stomp with that strategy. Learn to recognize beforehand when it’s time to think about walking away.

Second, work to stop manifesting anger. By providing an outlet that makes you feel good for manifesting angry behaviors (hitting things, screaming), you provide yourself with rewards for being angry. It'll only lead to more anger. There have been some studies on this… I recall one involving ‘spiking’ a drink with a distasteful substance. They created a situation to frustrate the subjects, then asked one group to hit a pillow and the other group could not. The subjects then were able to add the substance to a drink that would be served to the one that angered them. The group hitting the pillows added more. I think the suggestions of exercise is a good one, as you can/will associate the positive feeling of using your pent up energy more with the exercise than anger, while still allowing you to deal with adrenaline surge. If you focus on doing an exercise correctly and perfecting form, it will help remove your focus from exclusively on the loss, and you may find yourself calming more quickly when you aren’t dwelling on the issue. This is basically the “count to 10” method when dealing with anger.

Lastly, try to approach the situation from another angle once you’ve calmed down. I’ve found my own moments of post-anger coping have led to feeling more logical and empathetic overall. Work on identifying what exactly it was that was angering you (not being able to practice in the style you wanted), and either work towards other methods than can help you accomplish that end (practice partners), or come up with your plan B when plan A becomes not an option. This is basically doing the same as a post-game analysis. Try to associate the loss with the situation or action instead of internalizing it as a failure of your own. This is less finger-pointing (it’s THEIR fault) than it is problem solving what is under your control. I think analyzing in this way is where you are before you eventually make a decision that you have to stop doing something entirely.

I think any type of professional help will help the most with the first and last items. My mindset is similar to yours in that it’s the last option for me. I simply don’t like the idea of exposing myself on a regular basis to somebody I’m paying to listen to me. It feels like the farthest thing from being genuine. And forget medications I would no doubt be prescribed. Often times being able to vent a situation will help, even with no actionable response from who you’re talking to.

I’ll provide an example of how this works through in my own head. For myself, I typically found myself angry when stuck in situations I felt I had no escape from. So I typically drive myself to and from events alone. Recently I attended a family event, and carpooled with a sibling to save my own gas. When I was ready to go home to sleep, they weren’t. I was pretty livid about it. I ended up whining about it for about 5 minutes, then got myself to focus on something else. I think in this case it was how the basic units of starcraft interact with each other to create a balance, and if that balance could be shown mathematically. How could that be proven, and what would I have to do to quantize something even as trivial as vision? What are the best methods to compare the speed of something that isn’t affected by obstacles vs something that is (or, how to quantize flight and special movement modes)? I have to face the fact I’m a nerd and focusing on a logical problem is more appealing to me than exercise. In the end, they thought I was angrier during the 40 minute drive home at 2 am and refused to talk to them (I had been starting work at 6 am this particular week, I was tired as hell, and I’ll admit I get short with folks when I’m tired). Later on, I found the situation was as simple as they hadn’t realized my start schedule the week prior, in addition to my parents being wholly unable to communicate a time table that left me at an event I would have otherwise not attended knowing how late I would be there. So I’m learning to let them know when I intend to leave if I travel with them.

15 years ago, and ignoring the fact I was too young to drive at the time, this situation would have likely ended up with my being angered at being forced to attend a family event. Then probably hitting my sibling hard enough to make them double over before putting a crack or hole in one nearby wooden object. And finally my just being pissed for a week at how they wouldn’t let me go home. For me, just having a plan in place of when and how I can leave manages most of my behavior for this regard.

/sorry for the wall, I tried to be thorough with my intents for this.

On May 11 2013 18:13 sabas123 wrote:

being addicted to chemicals and not being able to cope with losing are 2 completly diffrent things imo.

On May 11 2013 18:05 Lauriel wrote:


I'm a low-mid masters player with about 5200 games under my belt.

The number of losses that it takes seems to depend, though if you asked me what the determining factors were/are I couldn't tell you. Any sustained losing streak though could potentially be enough to get me pretty angry. I'd say 5 is a good number.