My poker play troubles me...

I'm playing on Carbon Poker, trying not to play for the sake of bonus, just playing good solid poker, or what I think passes for it. But I'm continuing to be frustrated and seemingly stymied at every front. Two nights ago I had just sat down, first hand, pocket 10's, no raise preflop by anyone, but more than a few people involved so I opt to see what comes up, before doing something stupid. I flop my set! Guy to my left bets into the pack hard...gets rid of everyone, but me of course. Before you know it and back and forth ensues, and we end up all in, he slightly larger stack than I. I had a "tiny" voice tell me something was wrong, but there was nothing I could do about it. The voice was right. No, he didn't suck out on me. Didn't hit a flush or straight, but he had flopped a HIGHER set, with his pocket Kings. Unreal, first hand, first $25 down the tubes on the table. Now, I actually continued to play, and was running like 4 tables, when I finally quit a couple hours later. I made back nearly all of that loss, and in the process was paid $10 of my bonus for the number of hands I racked up. I play last night at two tables, one of which ended up very short handed, where I just bobbed up and down in the ebb and flow of the poker current. The other table was just a big ZERO for me. Nothing and I do mean NOTHING materialized there. AK never connected, pocket pairs, were always beaten and or destroyed by the board. Overly aggressive competition, overvaluing hands, but always better than what I was holding. I stayed out of the way, but my stack just kept dwindling. I dropped a few bucks. But I'm actually below where I started a few days ago. Despite the $10 windfall, and recovering from the brutal out of the gate $25 loss, I'm stuck!!! I'm a losing poker player. I'm not even profitable with the bonus. Okay, when I first deposited my $200, and got the promise of a bonus, I would have been happy with break even poker, to collect the 100% bonus. Now, I'm sitting with $208 in the account, after accumulating like 3,300 points, which is in the neighborhood of 1,100 hands (actually more) and so I show a net profit of 8 bucks...oh but factor in the $10 bonus, and I'm actually 2 friggin' dollars down!!! Now, I've never presumed to be a great player, but c'mon! This is more than a little ridiculous to me. I've analyzed my play. Perhaps staying in a few more preflop hands than normal, but lately I've found that my starting hand requirements were too tight. So high, that when I finally got involved everyone knows it, and drops...sometimes before I can even make a move! Is it that I'm just a loser? Or is this low level No Limit crap just killing me? Am I just kidding myself that I can play a reasonable/normal game at this level. Is this .10/.25 NLHE arena just a useless place to be dorkin' around? Will the game be any more useful/profitable at a higher dollar amount? How high? Can I afford it? Am I just deluding myself into believing that I can do any better? Can I really suck this bad? Do I give up...and just plan on cancelling all of the subsequent NDPT Tournament Events from here on out? Is this just part of the continued slump? Why is it that losses are monstrous...and gains are minuscule? I lose big pots. Gain only small ones, and not enough of them to make a friggin' difference. I'm beginning to depress myself here, reader!!! As if you couldn't already tell, huh!?! How do you recover? How do you fight back? Hell, is it even a fight...or one worth fighting at all!???! It's a real "WTF" kinda moment. I have a lack of confidence in my game, which is painful. Scared money can't win, but how do you give it a backbone! Who knew my money was yellow? I'm so lost I don't know whether to tighten up or loosen up. I don't even know if either option would make a difference. Maybe it's just pointless. Kiss it all goodbye and friggin' liquidate. That is if I can even get the money offline in the first place.

How do I know when I've taken this rant too far? Or should I just assume that I long ago passed that point, and just quit right here? Prolly the best play I've made all week.
Time to run...

Regards,

cheer_dad