Autistic Anxiety + Killer Anxiety = Panic Attack
I wanted to ask anyone on how to counter The Shaking feeling when I play Killer. Today I literally had a Panic Attack dearing a match. It wasn't that I was playing terrible. There is just so much happening, I get overwhelmed very easily do to my Disability. I never had this happen when I first started playing.
When it happened I felt as if everyone is staring at me. My Anxiety goes to 0 to 1000 in like 2 mins. Im high functioning and what love some Advice on how to deal with this.
Any Advice will be Appreciated
Best Answer
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I see, I get what you're saying.
If it makes you feel any better, I make mistakes. Same for the people that others follow on here (Otz, Hens, Ayrun, JRM).
Even though it's an anxiety inducing thing, once you realize that the majority of the content creators that people watch in these forums make mistakes too - you should know that mistakes are lessons learned.
I'd argue that instead of internalizing it, "I feel horrible for performing so badly." invert that into, "Okay, I did horrible. Let's review the footage and unpack it." - it's why I was such a huge fan of Pain Reliever back in the day. He would review killer and survivor gameplay, give out key moments, and analyze what you sent him and give actionable advice.
I understand that when you first start doing it, you're going to be having bias because you could watch over it and see absolutely nothing wrong - but trust me, no one plays flawlessly in this game. There is no such thing as a perfect Dead By Daylight player.
So, you look at the gameplay - notice that survivors go to shack, you can opt to ignore them entirely. When I played Doctor, as soon as you go to shack I will abandon chase with you. I'm not going to sit around here shocking you repeatedly unless I absolutely need to. You can drop chase, find someone out in the open (this is where Unknown shines) and punish out of position survivors.
Just because a survivor takes you to shack does NOT mean you have to commit to that chase. You can simply say, "I see what you're doing, Meg. I give you a raise, I'm going to go find Sable near water tower on Dead Dawg." - you have to take the mentality that just because a survivor leads you somewhere, you do not have to commit to that chase.
If a survivor is leading you to where a gen pops or leading you away from your three gen, take the injure (if you can) and abandon the chase. This is quite simply (and I punish this as a survivor) the easiest way to lose as killer. You are the power role, you make survivors react to you - not the other way around. Do not let survivors lead you like a dog somewhere, you analyze what they're doing, stop, think it's a waste of your time, take your suitcase with you elsewhere, and find someone weaker to get.
Hopefully this helps!
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I too experience a lot of Killer Anxiety, it is unlike anything when I play Survivor. I've never had a panic attack from it, but I have experienced extreme duress as the game starts and have gotten pretty upset when things go south.
I don't really have much advice to give, but I find that the way I cope with it is by talking out loud to myself or my friends in Voice Chat, doing so kind of lets me experience a physical feedback, especially with friends in chat, and it helps as a means of just feeling like I have support. I think the reason Killer gives so much Anxiety is because you are literally Outnumbered in the Match, with a lot of juggling to do between finding, chasing, downing survivors and preventing gens.
This Youtube Video by TwinsMainSage may help as well, I hope it does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9Hm4v-5GLQ1 -
Do you play in anonymous mode or have limitations on comms?
Might help if you currently feel too vulnerable to negative reception.
My other advice is maybe to set yourself a simple side goal that isn't based objective - like a self imposed quest if you don't currently want to focus on an existing one.
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Sorry for necro, but this has been on my mind lately as my killer anxiety has been very up and down. I am also autistic, although I was diagnosed late in life (and relatively recently) so I struggle to know when my issues pertain to being overwhlemed in general, or if I'm reacting due to the above.
My anxiety comes from both being the centre of attention and the risk of humiliation, which the above-linked video highlights.
I have found some success in dealing with it, so I'll give a few points about it:
- Narrate your game.
This one might feel weird as you're not streaming to anyone (I think) but talking myself through what I'm doing helps me manage all the sensory input. If a gen goes off unexpectantly I might say "change of plans, I'm going to do x now instead" and just go for it. We can control speech, less so thoughts, so making our planning/execution vocal can keep you focused on your current objective, instead of starting to panic. - Vocalising positively when things go wrong.
Part of the first point - If someone gets a stun or flashlight save, I immediately say "well played" regardless of my temperament. Saying it out loud is an important part of this for me, as I have control over what I say, not what I think. It forces me to only engage with it as credit to them, not disparaging myself. - See the positives in the negatives.
If you are getting hit by the classic bully squad, understand that the more of them are partaking, the less gen progress there is, so they're not actually doing much to win and a 3-4k is still on the table. - Use anonymous mode.
Taking away the personal link to your performance helps with the mental game, I think. Sure, you could play terribly and be mocked, but no one knows its you. I don't always do this but I prefer to on days where I know I'm more sensitive than usual. You can go further and hide EGC if toxicity gets to you. - Stick out every match to the end.
Don't give up, don't DC. Just stick it out, do your best, if you realise there's no win on the table, keep trying as it's an opportunity to learn. In games like this I always drop a ggwp in the EGC, because I want to respect their skill. It also works as mild exposure therapy to difficult games.
There's probably more detailed and better advice you could get, but I'm speaking from my own experience. I'm a highly anxious person in general - a lot of which I now know is a consequence of masking for 3 decades - and these things have helped me level it out. It still happens sometimes, but not often.
2 - Narrate your game.
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It doesn't matter. I still get no matter what I do. Sadly
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I see, may I ask what killer and perks you are using?
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Im P53 this is a Old Screen Shot but this is who I main and what i run. I am still experimenting though.
Doesnt he Look pretty
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Haha, I actually really love going against Unknown! Very tricky killer to master, in my opinion.
I see that you're trying to do an anti-loop build, FTTE for potential snowball, and Surge for active gen regression.
Would you say you're struggling with ending chases more or just in general getting gen rushed? Or kinda like a combination of both?
Depends on what it is, Unknown can be mindgameable in higher MMR as survivors learn to not hug walls tightly. It's not a bad build from what I can see - it could use more lethality, but I don't view it as a struggle build. I would argue that Dissolution and Bamboozle are competing for the same spot (Bamboozle for the windows, Dissolution for breaking pallets - I can see the synergy vision but I can see this build actively getting gen-rushed too), but other than that I find the build fine dependent on what you want out of it and how you want to play.
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My playstyle is making strong Loops (like Shack) unusable and being Unpredictable. I also Addons that involve them finishing Gens (Vanishing Box) and Anti Heal (B-Movie poster) so it punishes The survivors for doing Gens to Quickly giving me a upper hand.
I use Surge as a Gen Management Tool to know what Gens are being done so I know what Gens to Look at and protect (this gives me ideas where to place Hallucinations).
My Anxiety happens when im failing or messing up. Its a Autistic thing I think (i hope it is). It can be very painful for me because I shake to the point it actualy hurts. I have medication to restarts my body by putting me into a sleep.
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I think the arrogance and messiness that flies around this competitive game has a large part to do with that.
I always say, people who play Killer, even just once in a while are a lot braver than people who only play survivor. Because when survivors get washed, it usually takes some time unless they mess up REALLY bad. When killers get washed it can happen in almost an instant and you can feel helpless the entire time. Survivors can't truly feel helpless unless their whole team is helpless and the killer has no mercy.
I'm a survivor main, I switch between killer and survivor main every so often but I genuinely enjoy playing Killer more. I just hate playing survivor sometimes because I hate when I get downed by bad ping or bad hitboxes and don't understand why it's happening. I hate when I am 2 steps away from a window and got downed by an M1 on the opposite side of the window. Or when Wesker grabs the air behind me but I'm teleported into his grasp.
I also hate having teammates who sell the match by playing too selfish or ignoring gens. I like playing survivor when I get good teammates against good killers, but matches like that go from common to rare unpredictably and I often find myself just wanting to play Killer instead.
I used to feel shaky playing killer when I started many years ago. Even when I took a break from the game for ~5 years and came back I felt it again, but I remembered that to get good as killer you have to practice and learn from the survivors you VS.
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