My experience with League of Legends, addiction, and mental health

What follows are just my experiences of how LoL blended with my life, for the worst. I do this trying to reach out to some people who might have the same issues as I do, and as well as seeking some advice from people that might have gone through the same ordeals.

I started playing LoL casualy about 4 years ago, and I didn't get into the game until I started playing another MOBA and met a friend. He and I bonded and decided to move to League of Legends, and at that moment I was going through the stress of a break up with my former girlfriend, the loss of a pet, and my mother presenting signs of heart disease. My friend is a very temperamental person, and it was pretty much from him that I learned how to be toxic when games didn't go our way; once, on the other MOBA (Smite), he blocked me after a defeat and re added me hours later. I guess he was dealing with his own problems, as I also have very fond memories of him.

Months later we met another player, a girl, who became our friend, and things started getting more personal between the three of us, even exchanging phone numbers. I used to think the girl was about my age and I started feeling interested on her, despite the fact I'm from LAN and both of them are from NA (I still play on NA servers). Later I found out she was about 7 years younger than me (my friend was also younger, I was the only "adult" of the bunch) and felt awkward. They misunderstood the situation and started growing distant, and at that point I became obsessed with making them close to me again, even tried getting forcibly into rankeds to show them I was "worth" their friendship, I became terribly obsessed with LoL, cancelled personal compromises, started lowering my grades at college and even having suicidal thoughts about their rejection and my value as a human being, forgetting about my "real life" friends. I made it into Silver IV, and tried to become Gold to efirther impress them, however I ended up falling into Bronze V and my depression and suicidal thoughts increased, as well as my agressivenes and toxicity towards other LoL players.

After some time trying to become a beter player to impress them, they started being incredibly mean to me; I was developing an obsessive disorder, trying to be cool to them and sending them continous messages during matches, further giving them the impression I was nuts (and by then I was, for real). In the end we broke our relationships and I stopped playing, and one month later I attempted suicide after my mother almost had a heart attack.

I started going into counceling and taking medicines, and LoL stayed away from my life for a while. In fact, in counceling, my visits were often about my former friends, but I never talked about how aggressive I became on the game.

After some time I came back to start fresh, and I started faring quite good without the pressure of being good for others. I finally met a girl and became engaged with her, I finished my college, and my life seemed perfect... Until I started with problems finding a job and getting my professional degree. I don't live in the US, as stated above; the college system where I live is quite unfair to most people and even after graduation you are not recognized as a professional until you pretty much write a book and it gets approved by the Office of Education, a process that can take years. My girlfriend lives far away and we've met face to face just once, for a long month, and she asked me to move to her country with her family, which I accepted.

Unable to fully graduate, saving money and getting a job, I started sinking into LoL again, even hiding freom my girlfriend to play it, as she hates this game. I started becoing somber, a bully, an intentional feeder, harrassing players in /all chat and on lobby. My win ratio was always bad (currently 40 more loses than victories) and I could never climb out of bronze, no matter what I tried. Even when I tried to be nice, I started being paired with people as toxic as I am, and even worse. I started playing every day, saying I was sick so I could avoid social compromises, and even stopped eating at my usual time so I could play longer.

To make things worse, I got hacked and my account got closed, my summoner name was changed and Riot didn't wanted to restore it.

Every time I got a new champion, I failed hard. Got Xayah and Kled and I've only won 4 games out of 10 I've played as them (With Kled, at least); last night I got Irelia and I deprived myself from sleep, saying I wouldn't go to bed until I won with her; started playing at 11:00pm and fell asleep at 5:00 am, having deprived myself from sleep last night researching Irelia guides and looking at videos, only to fail to imitate what was shown and even following the advice, I wasn't good enough.

Today my nerves broke down when a Shen left during a game we were winning to make himself a sandwitch, opening top lane completely and allowing for a swift defeat. I started hitting myself as this happened... And finally, during my last match, I played Cho Gath against Ryze, and the whole enemy team outplayed us so much I just closed the game... and started crying.

I felt so ashamed of myself, for falling that low, not as a player, but as a person. I uninstalled LoL.

I am seeking counceling again, as it's affected me in many negative ways. I think Mental Health is very important and is often overlooked by the big companies, placing it second to its product (the profesional scene is full of dramas and mental health issues that are never really adressed), and in my honest opnion, I think one of the factors Riot has left aside the most is the possibility of building the game for a better social experience; stuff like Mastery Icon flaunting and Rank Splash Frames are just the tip of the iceberg of what I think is a system that invites people to, one way or another, flaunt and be toxic to each other.

Long post, I apologize, and thanks for reading.