I'm a new player, I've been playing for around a month and Valorant is my very first competitive FPS experience.

Every game, I'm against smurfs, or very high elo people (Plat+), who headshot me at every corner, even when I play safe or when I don't peek. When I'm against Gold or lower, I can do something, but else, it's impossible for me.

I mostly play in unrated because I don't want to be a burden on my team in ranked game, but even when I tried to go in ranked once, I got against a smurf that had 20-50 % headshots (I even have a screenshot of it) and that traumatized me from ever going in ranked again.

This is really ruining me, I'm trying my best to be useful for my team, but I can't do anything, I'm almost never topfragging, even less MVP of the match. Most of the time i'm 4 to 10th in my game... I feel so bad during the games that I'm on the verge of tears if my team flames me even a little bit, because I'm very self-conscious and I know I'm not doing good, but I'm really trying my best.

I'm trying everything to improve, going in deathmatch (but that doesn't help because I get against high elo people who headshot me when I spawn), trying aimlab, watching Radiant players, but I still feel not enough to deal with the people I'm against. I do wonder about the mistakes I do, like peeking without my team, or not watching flank for exemple, I put myself and my gameplay in question a lot.

What can I do to improve? What can I do to have fun in games? I try to talk with people to joke around a little bit when the game is really rough, but it's mostly silent.

Edit: I can't answer to you all but thank you very much for all the tips!!

Edit 2: With the tip of ranking to play better, I just finished my placements i'm Bronze 2