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My mother entrusted me with her hard-earned savings, which she had been putting aside at the bank, around $600-$700 every month. She lives in another country, and she trusted me to keep her money safe. I’ve been trading for about 2-3 years. At first, I lost around $250, and I panicked. I completely lost confidence in myself, so I deposited another $500 into my trading account and gave my login details to a trader I had been following and watching for a while. They lost money too. I panicked even more and, instead of stopping, I kept repeating the same mistake, hoping things would eventually turn around. I did this seven times, and now I’m down around $6,000 of my mother’s hard-earned money. I don’t have a job. I feel lost in a void, and I don’t know how to get out of it. After losing all that money, I decided to rebuild my confidence in myself by backtesting a large amount of historical data and learning to journal my trades properly. I’m currently at Phase 2 of my trading evaluation, desperately trying to find a way forward. Honestly, I feel like I could do anything right now to make that money back. The thought of telling my mother what happened terrifies me. I fear she’ll hate me, but more than anything, I fear that the shock and stress might affect her health and cause serious complications. She lives in another country, and I can’t even be there to comfort her if the news hurts her. I’ve cried countless times thinking about all the horrible ways this could turn out. There is no peace within me or around me anymore, just random panic attacks, anxiety, guilt, and fear. I feel dead inside, carrying a burden that gets heavier every day. I love my mother so much. The thought of her losing trust in me, or worse, never looking at me the same way again, is breaking me. She trusted me with something she worked so hard for, and I failed her in a way I never imagined I could. I wanted to give my mother a life where she would never have to worry about money again. I wanted to retire her, give her peace, and let her enjoy the fruits of all her years of hard work. But in trying to build that future for her, I may have destroyed the very security she spent her life working for. I wanted to become the reason she could finally rest, but now I’m terrified I’ve become the reason she’ll have to suffer. I don’t know how to face her. I don’t know how to explain what I’ve done or how to live with the possibility of disappointing the person I love most in this world. All I know is that I wish I could turn back time, stop myself after that first $250 loss, and make a different decision. Now, the money is gone, my confidence is shattered, and I’m left facing the hardest conversation of my life. I wish I could make everything right before she finds out, but I know I can’t undo the past.

Got to know about trading back in covid before that I was trying to fund and start multiple businesses online with my 9-5. Fast forward 2 years in 2022 went through a divorce and ofcourse none of the business worked. Started taking trading seriously again, got into few telegram groups where i saw some profit but apparently it was the traders worst month ever and lost $10k in that. Bought trading courses but realised very late it was all just basics. Years of debt piled on around $70k with debt collectors at my doorstep. My salary almost all went into repaying back but wasnt enough. Desperately needed to start to learn since there was no way out, since i didnt know how to still so bought into multiple courses over months to see how exactly what works and how does it. Eventually had to quit my job in 2024 since the bills were getting too high and the only way to keep afloat was my end of service, barely made it past two months. Got to know about futures trading and low entry cost, saw multiple streamers online but really couldnt follow them until i saw Patrick W, started to understand much better but needed my own style so months of backtesting and forward testing eventually got me to start passing evaluations. This was 6 months into it before i saw my first payout of $2k this was back in mid 2025, took up odd jobs had to ask money to the point I am completely dependant on my family and friends, note that i am 31 now. 0 payouts for 18 months and saw $200 from TPT this month. Did see better months in between when i had some money to back me up but monthly bills piling up everyone has to started to say a blunt NO to the point nobody asks or even listens to what i have to say in the house. Do note that i was the main breadwinner of the house with everything paid on time be it rent, grocery, trips whatever until 2022. The overall cost is at under $20k in all these years not to forget i still owe the banks but still think its incredible with all the courses and evaluations but have lost much more than just money here. Plan is to find anything at all for atleast $1500 a month to take the pressure off and keep my costs of prop fees to a low and keep trying because i know i am very close.

Everyone in my family told me trading would never work. 6 years later they're constantly asking me for money lol

My friend is a struggling day trader. He's been 'almost profitable' for 4 years. Last month he asked me for a loan to cover rent. At what point do you stop supporting the dream and start telling them the truth?

Every "free" trading masterclass is just a 2-hour sales pitch for a $3k course. Free = you are the product.

Didn't pay taxes on trading profits for 4 years. Total was about $170k. Just got a letter saying I owe more than what's in my account right now. Pay your taxes guys.

My roommate asked me to teach them trading. I gave them my exact strategy and they got funded in 2 months. I've been using it for 3 years and I'm still not consistently profitable. I want to feel happy for him but I’m insanely jealous tbh.

Did some day drinking on Wednesday for an event (I’m not a big drinker, maybe 3-4 times a year) but I sent it and got blackout drunk. Woke up the next day and realized I had traded when I got home and made $6k lmao. I even journalled the trades and my notes are barely legible

Trading has given me and my family our dream lives, but it has completely fried my brain. Last week I was at a friend's wedding and I snuck to the bathroom 6 times to check my position. It wasn’t doing well either which put me in a bad mood and I couldn’t enjoy the event like everyone else.

Was up $900k last year. Sitting at $6k now. Greed kills

I spent 5 hours a day trading for years on top of working a full-time job. Morning session before the office, scalping at lunch, journaling until midnight. Last year I finally went full-time. Now I make more in a month than I used to in a year. It’s worth it in the end!

I started trading because I was going to go to jail for a few months and wanted to support my family while I was away. Became profitable and got $4k in payouts that helped them for the 6 months I was in prison (minor crime). Now I’m back out and have done $8k in payouts in the last 3 months since coming out. It turns out that going to jail was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I literally tweeted about how I was so excited for the next step in my career journey. The top advice I received from colleagues about salary increases was through job hopping. I took that leap of faith and as you would have it I’ve increased my yearly salary by $15,000. The timing was perfect because I also cemented a new strategy within my trading routine and now I’m able to understand the charts way more clearly. The increased salary would in turn lead to better budgeting with my trading portfolio and I would actually be profitable because of the new strategy… so i thought

Trading full-time is overrated. I went from a $100k/year 9 to 5 where I could completely switch off after work. Now I’m trading while on vacation with my family, I’m taking calls for another business I started. I’m making more money but I’m also working way more than before and haven’t been able to “relax” in years since I started this. 9 to 5 is a better route for most people imo

I got sick of trading full-time and started working part-time again. Been spending half the time on the charts and backtesting than I was before, yet I just had my record month of $27k in my first month doing this (last 2 months were negative). How is this possible lmao

No one talks about the struggle of being a full-time trader averaging $5-6k a month from trading. Some months I’ll make $15k, others I’ll make nothing and blow through some funded accounts. It’s a constant headache since some months I’m doing really well and others I’m struggling to pay bills which makes my trading even harder. This level of profits is literally purgatory for traders.

Automating a trading strategy is 10x harder than manually trading. I’ve tried to build an automated version of my strategy 6 different times in the last few years and every time it ends up in the negative. Don’t know how traders are seeing success with this.

I’ve done 600R this year (made $500k) and want to start a mentorship/course but so far most people I’ve talked to think my results are too un-achievable and don’t believe me lol. Suffering from success.

I’ve made $3 million from trading in the last 6 years. Let me tell you - psychology is really not that important in trading. This is cope used by guys who have terrible strategies and go through big drawdowns. The best traders have losing days, losing weeks and maybe 1-2 losing months in a year - but majority of the time they’re green. It’s not about finding the “best strategy” - but learning so much about one strategy that you know it inside out and can reliably predict what the market will do in a specific circumstance. This comes from 1,000s of trades backtested and/or taken live and logged. Psychology barely plays a factor here since you already know exactly what you have to do to make money.

Right now I’m averaging like $10-15k/m from trading. BUT some months I obviously don’t get payouts and make nothing. I’m trying to diversify my income streams so I can have more consistent income coming in. Interested to hear what other traders have done about this?