Unable to enjoy hobbies, specifically playing games on my computer, due to anxiety. Does anyone else experience this problem?

Hello all,

This is my first proper post on this forum. I was diagnosed with both Autism and ADHD at a young age and have struggled with the impacts of my conditions, in some form, for most of my life thus far. As I've gotten older I've found the severity with which my conditions impact me has worsened. Whilst over the years I've been through the likes of counselling, therapy and CBT I've never had the opportunity to speak with individuals who have the same conditions as me. So, at the recommendation of a good friend, I've decided to give the NAS forums a try. If you'd like to know a little more about me, feel free to give my bio a read. 

Now, this isn't exactly the most impactful aspect of my condition, but still something I am struggling with and was hoping to discuss. As mentioned in the subject, for the past couple of years I have been almost completely unable to enjoy one of my main hobbies; playing games on my computer. In the below paragraphs, I will try to explain why this is, as best as possible.

I bought my first pre-assembled gaming computer in 2017. It cost me almost my entire life savings. Ever since getting my first gaming computer, I've always had problems. In the early days, I didn't fully understand that, unlike a console, gaming computers have an awful lot of variables that the end user can alter. Unlike gaming on a console, a game may not run smoothly out of the box on PC, and you may be required to tweak a multitude of settings to get a given game running as you like. The number of tweakable settings can be, in some cases, extreme. Sometimes you must wonder if achieving the 'perfect' settings for optimal experience is feasible due to the sheer number of variables. This builds into my perception of computers as hugely imperfect and flawed.

My situation isn't helped by my negative experiences with computers. My first PC developed a fault with its water-cooling system just outside of its warranty and, due to separate issues, required a complete rebuild which I performed myself. Following this rebuild my computer was plagued with several almost unexplainable electrical gremlins and I spent hundreds of hours during the lockdown on forums like Tom's Hardware trying to resolve the issues. I never had any luck and, after seeing a professional, concluded that the motherboard was likely at fault. For this reason, earlier this year, I built an entirely new computer with all-new parts only salvaging the GPU. Despite having spent well over £1,000 on parts I have been unable to enjoy my system due to the issues discussed in this post.

Nowadays I struggle with the hypothetical worry that there will always be something wrong with my computer. There will always be something inhibiting me from enjoying my computer because I will not be able to relax until I am certain that all problems are fixed. From experience, these fixes often require days of scouring the web, digging through obscure forum posts from 5 years ago and rigorous testing. Even after all that, I still may not be satisfied that the problem is resolved. With the ridiculous amount of variables within a computer, whether it be hardware or software variability, there is so much that can go wrong.

Whether an issue is a result of my own doing or something entirely beyond my control, I perceive my computer as an imperfect, almost shoddy device built from a bin of parts which will inevitably break in some way. Gaming computers especially are made up of a mish-mash of different parts from different manufacturers which only acts to reinforce the notion that incompatibility may be present. Again using this mixture of parts and software from completely different sources introduces even more variability. For a computer to work flawlessly, we need to ensure that the Motherboard's firmware, chipset drivers, graphics drivers, operating system and a plethora of additional firmware and software are created in such a way that no incompatibility exists.

So that you may better understand, let me provide an example of how this issue manifests itself. Let's say I boot up my computer and decide to play a game. I need to make sure that the game settings have been configured to the best of my ability so that said game will run as smoothly as possible. I use special software to try and keep both my frame rate and frame time locked so that variability in the game's perceivable refresh rate is kept to an absolute minimum. Upon booting up the game, I can't help but use another piece of software to carefully monitor how my computer is running, paying close attention to the frame rate and frame time to ensure that it remains constant. With all of this, I still begin to worry. What if my frame rate falls and my game stutters? Sure, this is perfectly normal and to be expected, especially when a game is loading in assets or you are doing something that is particularly resource-intensive. However, I instead worry that this is indicative of a fault with my hardware, or a fault with my software. What if that tiny little spike in my frame time means my GPU is dying? What if that drop in my FPS indicates that I have configured my system settings incorrectly? I recognise these worries are completely irrational, and in many cases nonsensical, but they are still present and impactful no matter how much I try to deal with them.

At the moment my two biggest concerns are, as silly as this may sound, delayed sound and audio interruption. Firstly, I am worried that my audio is ever so slightly delayed and that this could be, somehow, indicative of incorrect hardware or software installation. Secondly, I worry that high system latency, as can be measured using software such as LatencyMon, could cause audio to break up randomly. Assuming both of these problems are real and presently occurring I should be able to find a solution. However, I know this may come at the cost of a significant amount of my time only to find myself back to square one where a new problem has occurred.

Summary:

This is the issue I face. I am completely unable to enjoy my computer and I have spent more time diagnosing and fixing my PC than I have using it. I view my computer as completely imperfect with a near-infinite number of variables which I cannot physically monitor and control. This, in turn, causes me a great deal of stress. I also fear that using my computer will simply reveal its imperfections and present me with more problems for me to fix, only magnifying my discomfort. 

I do not know how many of you can relate to this, and I have tried to refrain from really going into the technical aspects of this problem for simplicity's sake. If you would like specific technical details, feel free to ask. I would very much appreciate it if anyone could tell me if they too suffer from this sort of problem and if they have found any ways which have helped them cope. It feels like this has only gotten worse as I've gotten older, and I miss the days when I could hop on my computer and just play my driving simulators. Again, any help would be very much appreciated. 

Thank you for taking the time to read my post.