I’m sitting here with a razor blade because I feel like I deserve to be punished; however, I made a commitment to my counselor to not punish myself for two months, and I have neither someone to talk to nor anywhere to go for support, therefore I am writing this in the hopes that maybe someone can help me feel better, because I have nowhere else to go.

What has been frustrating me is chess. I’ve been playing chess for 9 years since I taught myself how to when I was 12 years old, and I have recently decided to take it more seriously to become better. What I discovered was that I have a 100% failure rating on Chess.com’s tactical trainer and a level of 850 in total, meaning that I have basically achieved nothing in the last decade and am as terrible at it now as I was then, hence the desire for a punishment. It wouldn’t have been the first time I have.

I’ve tried so hard to become better and be descent at chess, and then to repeatedly fail without any sense of accomplishment or achievement from the beginning I must say is a painful experience, one that is reminiscent of women and socializing.

In fact chess and women have much in common with each other for me - although I like them, they’re both complicated, and I seem to be a universal failure with both. In my entire life I have not ever approached or otherwise talked to a woman in person that liked me. No matter where I am, who I talk to, or what I say, I will either be rejected, rebuffed, shunned, ostracized, insulted, ignored, or taken advantage of by women. Most of my social life is spent talking to imaginary friends because I have spent almost all of my life unable to find anyone at all that I can spend time with and that can actually like me.

I do the best that I can to sound attractive, smart, interesting, sensitive, and demonstrate all the other alleged redeeming qualities that I have, the fact of the matter is that I never succeed and am never enough. Chess and everything else I want to be good at but am not and overall most things in life are the same way it seems. I have studied, practiced, asked others, I have really tried and I really want to be better, similar to how I would really like friends, but I have achieved nothing, fail recurrently, and have not improved at all.

And I have been left to my own devices to handle all the immense pain that I have bottled inside of me - brutal and recurrent self-inflicted punishments to myself that have left me horribly scarred.

Yet others wonder why I have no confidence? What is there for me to be confident about? That I tried? What a comfort that is. Doesn’t that make everything better? Shunned, rejected, lose, fail, drop out, but I tried. Now I feel better.

Why shouldn’t I be punished?

[Trippin2.0]

You shouldn't be punished bcoz you've done absolutely nothing wrong.
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I know it's difficult, coping with the urges, what has helped me is to snap a rubber band on my wrist everytime I catch myself thinking about it. If the urges are major, I hold ice.
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Please remember you are worthy.
I'm sorry if I'm not much help, but know that I'm here for you.

[Sannah]

Hi Mr. V, welcome to PC. I'm sorry that you are in distress and are frustrated with yourself. Have you been discussing this stuff with your counselor?

[WePow]

It sounds like you are already punishing yourself emotionally.
Sometimes physical displays to ourselves are only reflecting what pain is already there on the inside.

Maybe you are trying too hard at both chess and women? What would happen if you put those two things out of reach for a while?