Lord, I feel so painfully all of those things you are saying. I have also felt those exact things. I'll watch videos and do research and drills and elaborate warm up rituals and learn things and practice things and recon and do everything I feel like I reasonably can and I still go on those soul-crushingly long lose streaks or notice that in all the games I win I was clearly being carried by much stronger players. I try not to dwell on it too hard but my brain will still sometimes get into those self-pity cycles where I feel like I have never been good at games like this and was I just foolish to think that would ever change? That I might ever have the chance of playing on a level equal to my friends? Am I just kidding myself thinking I had it in me to make it any further than this?
I wish I had a cure-all answer, because that would mean I have solved the problem for myself too. I have not. But there are a couple things I'm doing that seem to keep me from falling into those spirals as often.
One of them is tracking how far I've come. This is also just part of my general process of improvement, but I have kept a list of things that I want to improve at, and choose one at a time to focus on. Then when I play a game, I don't focus on if I'm winning or losing as much as I focus on that one thing that I'm working on improving, and at the end of the game I judge myself based on how well I did with that thing instead of the actual outcome of the game. It gives you something more within your control to focus on 'winning' at. But here's something I found about that process: sometimes it works as expected, and sometimes it's really hard to focus on the thing you are trying to improve at, especially when there's so much else going on. Sometimes I'll play several games and get frustrated with my own inability to remember to focus on my own personal objective, and I will start feeling even worse. For that reason, I tend to switch focuses fairly frequently. The interesting thing I've noticed is that even focusing on something unsuccessfully for several games seems to still plant that focus in your mind. Without realizing it, more often than not when I go back over the list later, I will realize that I've gotten much better at something that I 'gave up on' focusing on. It's wild how totally invisible your own improvement can be to yourself sometimes.
Anyway, that required too much explanation, but the point is that having that list of things I've improved at has been the most valuable thing for pulling myself out of those pity-cycles, because it's the closest thing that I have to objective proof that I have the capacity to improve, that I've come a lot further than I realize, that it's not hopeless to keep trying.
The other thing that helps me is to try to channel the hopeless/defeated feelings into underdog energy. Yes, I am struggling with this, yes, I am behind compared to others, yes, it feels like I'm at a disadvantage, that maybe I'm not cut out for this and/or have no natural talent for this, and it's brutal and it's difficult and maybe against common sense but I am too stubborn to let that stop me. The more beaten down and hopeless I feel, the more resilience I have the opportunity to show. I'm trying anyway and that's far more than a lot of people do. (YMMV as different people have different things that inspire them, but this works most often for me)
Obviously, if you're no longer having fun, if being better at the game is not something that you want for yourself, if you're only playing for the sake of others in your social circle or any reason other than your own desires, there's absolutely no shame in deciding to put your time and energy elsewhere. Recognizing what you actually want and changing course accordingly is never a weakness. But... most people who don't actually want to get better at something don't care enough to feel upset about about their skill level, let alone go post on a forum about it. Not that it can't happen-- sometimes feeling upset about something really is a sign that you need to evaluate what it's worth it to you. But more often, feeling upset is just the natural result of caring very much about something, knowing that it can be better, and is currently not living up to that potential.. If you didn't have any expectation of your own success, you would not feel upset when you didn't meet it. Thus on some level, however subconscious, you know you have it in you to succeed. To put it in absolutely the cheesiest way possible, the power is already inside you. And if you want it enough to keep trying, you will eventually figure out how to use it.
Anyway, standard "what-works-for-me-may-not-necessarily-work-for-you" disclaimer applies, but there's also a lot of solid, practical, actionable advice in this thread (focus on something else for a while, try other weapons, get someone to review your matches, etc). I guess I focused mostly on the mental aspects since it's something I've had to think about a lot myself, hah. Good luck, and I hope you can find something that works for you.
