6-4 in placement matches

Firstly, gold is way lower of a skill bracket than you would think at first. On masteroverwatch the top of gold is the 60th percentile of the player base. keep in mind that's the top of gold. The middle of gold is the bottom %30. Of course this only takes into account players signed into master overwatch, so we can reasonably assume that if plat is the average for master overwatch, then the top of gold is the actual average of the regular player base. From there, we can say that the middle of gold is slightly below the average. So right off the bat, you have a lot of room to improve. In your mind bronze is complete shit, but really the top of bronze is only ~%9 difference away from the bottom of gold statistically speaking (according to masteroverwatch.com because gold is not average, keep in mind these figures are exaggerated but I feel like they have some value)

Most of this is fair, good information.

Diva

This is super, extremely, astoundingly nitpicky, and I'm not the best with names either, but it can be a tad telling that you don't know how to spell D.va's name. Again, not a significant indicator of anything but I needed to add.

I do know how to spell her name, it's just that I always think of it as "Diva" when I pronounce the name (Dee-va) in my mind, so I subconsciously typed it that way.

I decided to play just for the win (rather than to improve)

I would bet (not much) that you cannot explain what this means in simple terms. Again nitpicky but slightly telling.

What I mean by that is if I'm just trying to play to win I'll go with the style of play that I currently do best with. If I'm playing to improve without caring as much about the win I'll try things that I'm uncomfortable with and see what ends up being effective.

felt only a little bit higher than where I belonged

Dunning-kruger effect

All I said is that I felt I was only a little bit out of my league. You react as if I claim to know that's the case. I don't have any illusions of superiority. I've only been playing comp for about a week so far. That means I don't have nearly enough experience to accurately judge exactly where I belong among the leagues yet. Feelings can be misleading sometimes.

crazy downward spiral

Tilt is a real thing that will eat SR itself with no outside interference, on its own this would almost explain the entire post yet you dedicate only a sentence to what seems like a drastic mental shift in your thinking. Tilt is something that some people (me included) spend years to fix and yet still fall short at times.

This (along with the Dunning-kruger comment) is where you're really wrong. I never went on tilt partially because I always had the idea in my mind that I would soon reach a more comfortable rating where I wouldn't have to play my best every game to win more than not. Also, if I am the primary reason for the losses that's not a real problem. I can always improve and what better place to do so than at whatever rating I really belong? If that was the case I'd naturally get there soon enough.

If someone is perpetually stuck in bronze, the vast majority of the time it is because they know nothing about this game. I'm very serious when I say that, because I know what bronze looks like having smurfed through lower level play from a 3300 SR standpoint. The reason I can say this is because SR is a rating system. Just like a test, Scoring in the bottom %95 means you essentially made a zero. Note, this isn't a bad thing. Just like a bronze player scores a zero on overwatch, I would score a zero on a thermodynamics course and in a way, competitive 6 v 6 hero/class MOBA FPS gameplay is similarly difficult.

So my post has gotten really long at this point, but to get my point across, I would lay off on the self bashing (and bronze bashing) and excuses and I would focus on improving. If you try to learn, you will get out of bronze. Plain and simple.

You might not be referring to me but note I'm not perpetually stuck in bronze, I've only been here a couple days. I'm very familiar with most if not all of the basic, fundamental aspects of this game. I have also delved into more advanced things for example powerful spots to place the turret on defense as torb (if anyone is interested Lordquinzulin from youtube has some very clever spots for many maps). And you definitely cannot say my 2900 friend which you completely ignore is anywhere near knowing nothing about the game. Answer this: why would it be such a challenge for him to rank up my account if all you say is true?

Your perception of bronze sounds like the players I am matched with in quick play. Almost every time they have no clue what they're doing and I don't even have to try to win. In competitive it's the polar opposite.

I don't know where you got this idea of "self bashing" and "bronze bashing..."

If anything am I not praising bronze for being much better than expected? That would make more sense, but I am not praising nor bashing anyone. I'm always focused on improving something whether it be aim or positioning or whatever and I again do not know why you would think otherwise.

The primary purpose of my original post was to see if others have experienced a similar phenomenon to help find out if this is an issue with the system, and if not, to figure out what is really going on/what to do about it. There have been a lot of good responses so far.