Stay away from leverage - Personal experience

I wanted to share my experience for those who are considering leverage trading.

I've been in this space for over a decade and early on I learned I should stay away from leverage... or rather I thought I did. For some reason (long story) I decided to go long on bitcoin with leverage. I wanted to be stress-free so I kept a significant balance (5 figures) and used little margin. I entered at around 82k last week and my liquidation was at around 74k, which I thought was very safe. All was good until Sunday. I can't explain the stress I suffered the following days. At some point the price touched 74.4k, very close to liquidation. The whole time I was literally this guy looking at the chart deciding whether to exit and lose 60/70/80% or wait. I couldn't work, eat, spend time with family or friends, or do anything other than think about why I did this stupid trade. It was money that I could afford to lose, but the psychological damage of losing it would have been hard. In any case I decided to wait. Fortunately yesterday I was able to exit safely with minimal loss (I could have waited more and exit with gains but I wanted to be out ASAP).

I think my life expectancy just dropped a little after all this, but hopefully this time I learned the lesson. No more leverage trading for me. I truly can't believe people do this on a daily basis!