As in the title – maybe this is not a suitable kind of post, but I think that mental strength is one of the most important, if not the most important aspects of League. And at the same time the one, that I completely fail at.

To give you some context: I'm 33 yo, I’ve been playing for over 11 years. I’m and ADC player. I spent over 15000 (fifteen thousand hours) on this game, more than anything else in my life. Most of this time was spent in bronze/iron fighting constant, painful, overwhelming feeling of helplessness, fear, self-doubt, tilt, frustration, autopilot. I can’t play this game the way it should be played anymore and it’s getting worse and worse every month. I’ve never been good, I’ve never even been medicore but there were times when I was in silver, fighting for gold, feeling that I’m learning and that I can improve. This time is long gone. Now I lose my composure at the slightest disadvantage. The enemy seems to be kiting well – I start sweating (literally), miss 10 cs in a row, my hands start shaking. I miss a cs? It’s the same and it leads to another missed cs. I die to a gank? My mind shutdowns. I get pressured? I’m melting. I can’t play vs anyone even slightly better. My mistakes, which I make over and over and over again, play in my mind in a constant loop. I remember games from 5-7 years ago when I was so badly beaten in game, that it’s burned in my mind. I’m afraid of taking risks, I’m afraid of trading, I’m afraid of dying, I’m afraid of teamfights, I’m afraid of Xerath and Shaco. I’m afraid to look at the stats after the game to see I did the least damage in both teams, sometimes supports included. I’m afraid to let my duo down (and I let her down constantly). I’m afraid to admit I wasted most of my life on this.

It spread to other aspects of my life too - for example when I got destroyed in a chess game once, I haven't played a single game for the next 8 months, still feeling this defeat inside me.

This mental aspect is probably the main (though not exclusive) reason I can’t improve anymore at anything. My play got visibly worse during last year and while my duo, who I introduced to League a year ago keeps improving and is already silver-high bronze, I keep going down. I don’t remember when I had a good game for the last time, when I won the lane, when I contributed to victory. I don’t. I spent dozens of hours watching my replays and I can't even see my mistakes anymore . I spent hundreds of hours in custom games practicing csing and I still can't get past 6-7/min in a game. I lose every lane I play, no matter who I'm playing and who I'm facing.

People train different things in League – csing, combos, skillshots etc. The mechanical aspect of the game. People also educate themselves, and gain knowledge of the game. But how do you train your mind? How do you manage to convince yourself to keep going, especially when things go very bad? What do you do to reset, to forget about bad things? Or maybe you analyze them until you find the issue? Do you brush your mistakes off or they get stuck in your brain? How do you build confidence in your skill, in your decisions? How do you manage to play aggressive? Where do you find the courage? How do you learn form your mistakes, not let them bring you down even more?

I’m a loser, I’ve been a loser for years but I don’t want to live like that anymore, at least in League. Thank you for your experience and advice.

And this is not a rant after some particular lost game. I've been writing this post paragraph after paragraph for the last 10 days or so and it's a summary of months of my thoughts. If this is not a right place for that, I'd be glad for showing me the correct subreddit. Thanks.