Happened to a good friend of mine up in Seattle. Good fella, incredibly smart, graduated top marks, a bit ostentatious sometimes but you can tell he really wants to do right by others in spite of his sometimes high falutin tendencies.
Anyway.
Lost a game of chess to his blue collar dad, guy couldn’t handle it. Fell into a hole of depression that lasted for at least an entire episode of Cheers
* Overperforming kids (whether smart, in athletics, etc). They don't have to confront failure and work hard like everyone else. They get a lot of praise and self-worth gets tied to it, and it all feels kind of fake/too easy. Then, one day, the work ethic and tolerance of failure everyone else has been learning become critical...
* People raised in abusive or quasi-abusive environments, where success at any cost, appearances over all, etc, are emphasized. The ends justify the means to get the required outcome.
Such a person often ends up making an absolute fool of themselves from the perspective of someone with a little bit more self integrity. But maybe it is worth extending a little compassion, after all a lack of compassion is probably how they ended up like that anyhow.