When I first discovered leverage, it felt like a shortcut. Smaller capital, bigger position. It looked clean on the screen. I told myself I was being smart, not greedy. That lie lasted exactly until the first sharp move against me.
At the beginning, everything feels loud. Every candle matters. Every small pullback feels personal. With leverage, those feelings don’t stay feelings. They turn into panic. I remember watching price barely move, yet my balance was bleeding fast. I closed trades too early, reopened them out of anger, then froze when I should have acted. Small wins made me overconfident. Losses made me reckless. The market didn’t punish me loudly. It just kept taking a little more each time.
The worst part wasn’t losing money. It was losing clarity. I stopped reading the market and started watching my PnL instead. Fear sat on one shoulder, greed on the other. Patience disappeared. Every trade felt like it had to fix the last one.
Much later, after enough confusion and quiet regret, I understood something simple. Leverage didn’t expose my strategy. It exposed me. And early on, I didn’t know myself well enough to handle that weight.
