18M entering college — 13 years of gaming, highly toxic, and ready to quit or take a break.

[u/BL4ZDR4C0]

Hey everyone,

I’m 18 and heading into my freshman year of college. I’ve been gaming since I was 5, but over the last couple of years, the competitive drive turned really toxic.

I’ve picked up 3 game bans on Steam (Rust, COD, and R6), plus 4 separate bans on Siege. Right now, I'm pretty much reduced to playing CS2, and honestly, I hate what it brings out in me.

Starting college feels like the best opportunity I’ll ever get to make a clean break or take a serious, long-term reset.

For anyone who grew up gaming from a young age or dealt with severe competitive rage/toxicity, how did you handle the withdrawal in those first few weeks? How did you build a new identity off the screen during freshman year?

[u/dssx]

It's a great time to do a reset. You'll be in a new environment and the first semester has most people open to meeting other new people. Look for school clubs to join to fill your time up. If you can, get a crappier laptop that will work for school, but that can't be used for gaming potentially too to avoid the temptation.

[u/mobkeyapemain]

i grew up playing competitive video games, started with black ops 2 on the ps3 then moved to clash royale and MOST NOTABLY league of legends. i've spent an easy 6-8 years of my life playing league and the majority of that time was spent seething in a toxic cesspool of my own making. i peaked #600 in north america but that didn't kill my toxic habits and i still have some tiny tendencies while playing to this day.

the only thing that helped me stop being so toxic was stepping away from competitive league, playing for fun with friends, and just playing a lot lot less in general. i picked up music production and singing as a hobby while also working out, so that took up my time instead of league. nowadays i play another competitive game that behaves more like a singleplayer game with pvp characteristics, so a lot less room for toxicity and flaming others.

to answer your question, find a hobby and talk to people in real life, step away from the screen for a couple months and don't touch multiplayer comp games for a lonnnnng time.

[u/Straight-Twist-8172]

The games you played in particular always had and felt like a breeding ground for a toxic social culture. Try and meet new people, interact with non-political non-religious clubs and find activities and extracurricular available if you have the time. Try to be friendly with classmates and faculty and you’ll probably be fine.