dealing with anxiety

Hey everyone I am not sure about writing this. But I am stuck, I am to anxious to play online games.
I learned the basics of chess 2 months ago since one of my best friends keeps talking about chess I wanted to play with him. I love it. Watch a lot of content and now do a bucnh of puzzles, watch chess content. I am to anxious to play online games in my 2 months I have only played 2 games online that wasnt against bots. I don't know how to break it. I probably seems really silly and stupid but here I am. did play over the board with my buddy we had fun. I am thinking about joining the local chess club Ill get destroyed but it seems so much less intimadating than playing games online. Im stuck and I wonder if other people dealt with this and how they got rid of it. 

You have to play chess with peoples even you are scared.

You are a strong player who is not playing. You are 2000 in puzzles,even higher then me.

Hello.

I empathize with what you are going through. I created my chess.com account a little over a year ago. And most of last year my rating was static - I only played chess against bots because of ladder (elo) anxiety. It's very frustrating because I don't have anxiety in other areas of my life. I had chess goals for myself, and I was never going to meet those goals if I never played. I really wanted to try vtubing but how would that work? It wouldn't.

I had chess friends who would tell me that the elo system here "are just made up internet points", and that I had to get that through my head. And logically, yes, that's true but it didn't really help. The source of my anxiety was the uncertainty of playing a random stranger and not knowing how the game would go. That and the knowledge of the anxiety itself - that if I played a game I'd be having my heart racing the entire time, which also would make me play worse and then I'd get frustrated with myself.

It was January 2025, the start of the year, and I decided that even if it was uncomfortable, I had to make a change. I had to find a way to succeed because I truly do love playing chess, but I wasn't going to get anywhere if I couldn't try to conquer my inner emotions. I decided to create goals for myself that had nothing to do with elo or rating, of games lost or won. My goals were to play 10 games a week - win or lose. That's it. No expectations. I needed to play games. From there, I created other goals, like learn 2 new openings - again, goals that don't have any pressure attached.

Eventually I got over the worst of my anxiety... I was still feeling it, but I didn't feel like I was about to have a panic attack. I was in control. About this time, I noticed I was naturally making a lot of progress with my rating without even trying. And I felt more confident. And my vtuber avatar was close to being complete, so I set some new goals for myself. I was going to get to 1500 elo by the end of the year, and I was going to stream twice each week. And that brings us to the present.

I still have chess anxiety. I feel it every time I'm about to start up a stream. But I'm not going to get anywhere as a vtuber if I don't stream. I'm not going to hit my chess goals. And also, I have a number of 100-750 elo players I give lessons to and try to help, and if I listen to my anxiety, none of that will be happening either. So I remind myself of all of that, put on some good music, and press the streaming button.

I think joining a local chess club would be really good for you. Perhaps also finding friends on chess.com - people you know who aren't random strangers - who you can play unrated games with for fun. That way there's less pressure and you aren't playing bots - because bots do not play like humans and you won't improve at chess playing them. I'd still recommend playing rated games with people... but I feel like you should take it slow and work your way up to it.

Good luck!

Set a micro-goal: 1 online game per week. Literally just one. Not to win. Not to play well. Just to play. Even if you blunder on move 5 and resign. The goal is exposure therapy — not performance.

As the saying goes: "You miss 100% percent of the targets you never aim for."

Rating fluctuates so much normally. There's MANY ups and downs in the learning process. I like to think of it more as milestones. Once you cross a new high rating, then that's your new personal best. Nothing will ever lower your personal best. You may temporarily drop below that, but nothing changes the fact that you were there. The only way to possibly reach a new high rating is to keep playing, but there's never a milestone downside to playing.

The key to lowering the anxiety of rating loss is to realize that it isn't about numbers. Don't stress about the numbers (easier said than done, I know). Instead, place the emphasis on learning and improving. The better you understand chess, then the higher your experience level and ability and this means more likely you'll gain rating points. Instead of trying to gain numbers, just work on chess improvement and then your rating numbers will eventually catch up to you!