Marriage breakup. Never felt pain like it, but saying that, when I was 13 years old I went into hospital for 3 months with 3rd degree burns to my leg, another kid in hospital bed across from me lost his life to burns. Pain in trading, not much.
Not a major financial loss but back in 08'-09" there was a company called Orbital Sciences and Space Dev. they were taken over/pushed out by Sierra Nevada Corp. Watching the pre market Level II data and the run up and run down before premarket trading. Being a retail trader and being unable to exicute an order when the share price was 4X the price on the long side. Hence I went into FX
Indeed 2008-2010 was a very difficult period in the industry and many veterans had to go through many adjustments. I am happy that it worked out for you and you stayed in because many it did not.
In 2007-2008, GSEC told me my capital requirements at some time in the future would exceed $5mm to clear them. I knew it was time to leave and do something else. I miss the floor.
I have to admit the replies are nothing like i would've expected. I guess the experience is different for everybody. For myself it was very dramatic. My hair started falling out during the period of high stress, i was in a shock multiple times, eg. my hands were shaking and i also got physically sick once or twice shortly after the big loss. On the mental side it happened much more often, it was like very very strong depression, like a self-perpetuating mental state that is very hard to get out of. Not pain, but horrible feeling where everything loses it's meaning, you feel completely empty and you just wish you could end it all. I am not suicidal(and never were), but when you see a truck coming by you just wish it could be it. But that'd be an easy way out. All of this is a result of highly leveraged trading and losing soul crushing amounts of money in a short period of time. Easy come, easy go. I blew many times, when i did not expect something to happen and yet it did, i did not have stop loss set and ended up getting liquidated several times, also adding to losers and hoping for a reversal. It's hard when you keep losing, it's hard when you are right and still lose money due to poor execution, but the hardest hit comes when you think you have have it and when you are slowly but consistently making money for several months and then you blow it all in one moment. It's not only about the losses, but also about the potential profits you could've had, had you had a plan and didn't act emotionally and out of frustration. When you actually had it but then you bailed out, only to see your position would've been up a dozen K by the next day. It's slightly easier if you can blame it on the lack of experience - you didn't know, you'll get it next time. But still... I do not wish those feelings for the worst of my enemies.
With a focus only on trading, stress-There were times I had bad trading losses. I went negative twice. Those times were stressful but I owned my seat and knew I could always sell it to be back in business in 30 days. I must say my clearing firm, Spear Leeds and Kellog (SLK), was very accommodating during those times. What was more stressful for me, were the slow days, months etc. My wife was a stay at home mom and I was the only source of income. We had a nice house in a nice neighborhood, so my monthly nut was not small, but not crazy. It was hard to change your lifestyle from good to bad times. I never had a losing year and very few losing months. But with a mortgage and Credit card bills to cover, standing at work with no order flow coming in was hard. The early 90's were a difficult time. 1998 to 2001 saved me. 1990 to 1995 were not great. I considered moving over to commercial real estate and got my license.
A dose of fear and pain will hopefully make you trade more cautiously, take your time, be selective, small position sizes. Right now September - October are normally more chop & volatile months, it pays to know a bit of history on how markets react at certain times of year and at support resistance, even long term levels. Today I placed a stock trade, it was 0.7% of my trading equity (less than 1%), very small, just feeling it out, it was a speccy position.
I think it is also important to separate those that trade for a living vs having a full-time job and concerned about losing savings. Losing savings is hard no doubt, but the stress of never knowing where your next dollar will come from to pay the rent, mortgage, food, etc for you and others that depend on you, is another level of stress.
It's true... I never had any liabilities because i was student at the time and had parents to still support me too and basically i never paid a bill. Probably one of the reasons i was so irresponsible with trading too. It's all relative though. But for me, i put my heart and soul into it, it was the center of my attention, financially and emotionally fully invested... Also i was never a spender and then to see lose so much compared to what i've spent on myself...F*ck lol. But even though i had biggest wins at the beginning, the biggest disappointments came after i was putting in all the effort and still failing. Greed and frustration being the biggest problems. It was probably more gambling and wishful thinking than trading(atleast when the big losses occured) Anyways, not here to cry, i just thought people would have similar experiences, but doesn't seem so