Playing some Valorant re-opened some mental wounds. Not sure how to progress.
Recently got a kick for Valorant after about three years of not playing any esports game. Played a few Deathmatch rounds and realized my skills have greatly diminished. I said "my time of being able to play these games has passed lol" in my main group chat, and was grilled on it by my friends. Long story short, the conversation exposed that I never truly recovered from my failure, and it broke me a little. It was like someone struck a nerve.
From age 14 to 23, I grinded different games to try and become a high-level player. This didn't materialize, never getting past the lowest rank levels in any game I tried. The worst was League, of which took me three years to reach Silver despite playing three ranked games a day, watching my demos back, and getting coached by a challenger player. Every loss was painful, every misplay was a further acknowledgement that I was a complete failure. After three years of never reaching the bare-minimum, I uninstalled League and didn't touch an esports game until now.
Being reminded of my failure hurts, like an old wound opening up. I realize that I never conquered that trauma, so it sat there like a skeleton in my closet. Now that I acknowledge the pain is there, I don't know how to get past it.
The most obvious solution to me is to get back in the saddle and try again, but that sounds like potential to get broken down again. Has anyone here experienced those feelings? Avoidance does nothing, because it will come back, so how do you push through? Thank you!