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Trading on Antidepressants – My Experience as a Speculator
Today, I want to talk about my experience of being a financial speculator while taking antidepressants.
Did they improve my trading performance? Did they make me reckless? Did I become a better investor, or just a more confident idiot?
First, a little context.
I take antidepressants mainly to help me socialize and actually go out and meet people, rather than because I have depression. I've been taking them for about 10 months now.
During those 10 months, I've traded quite a lot. And it also happened to be my first year of speculating with relatively large amounts of money. Well, large amounts for me, at least.
So… how did it go?
Chapter 1 – Silver Situational Awareness
Well, back in January, I came up with a "brilliant" idea. I decided to short silver.
Basically, I thought silver was in a massive speculative bubble, so I started shorting it at around $80.
And then I proceeded to make a series of absolutely genius mistakes. Most importantly, I kept adding to my losing position. And that's how, within just three weeks, I ended up going ALL IN.
Against the market.
Yeah… brilliant. At the time, I was also working as an intern at a financial institution. So every morning, I would show up at the office and shuffle some paperwork around.
Meanwhile, my trading account was basically fighting for its life.
After three weeks of watching my losses grow and dealing with a slightly unhealthy amount of stress…
[Laughing]
Some of my positions were showing losses of over 130%.
When I finally told my friends about my absolutely brilliant trade, their reaction was pretty much…
One of my investor friends, who actually saw my positions, was genuinely impressed.
Not by my trading skills, obviously. But by the sheer magnitude of my losses.
And that brings us to the decisive evening of…
JANUARY 30, 2026.
SO, ON ONE COMPLETELY RANDOM DAY…
SILVER DROPPED BY 30%!
THIRTY. PERCENT.
IN ONE DAY.
I WAS SUDDENLY RICHER.
BUT ALSO COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED.
HOW?!
HOW COULD THIS EVEN HAPPEN?!
HOW COULD SILVER JUST DROP 30% RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY EYEBALLS?!
So, in the end, I made a little over $2,000.
And yes, I can already hear you laughing.
[Only $2K? LMAO]
Yeah, well, I'm not Leopold or some multi-trillionaire hedge fund manager.
I'm just some random clown from outside the United States.
So for me, that was actually a pretty big deal.
Chapter 2 – Life After Silver
Yeah, cool.
So… what happened next?
Well, I continued trading all kinds of securities, mostly stocks.
But this is where I actually want to talk about how antidepressants have affected my entire trading process.
And I think the biggest difference is pretty simple.
They allow me to take bigger risks, with larger amounts of money, while still being able to live a relatively normal life.
Yeah…
EMOTIONAL DISCONNECTION. That's it.
Now, is this what I'm recommending? Should you go long antidepressants and short the market?
NOPE.
Please, guys, don't mess with your health just to make money in the markets. But still, from my personal experience, this strange, almost unnatural disconnect between my emotions and my decisions can actually be useful when investing. And I genuinely hope you can achieve that kind of emotional control without needing medication or any other substances.
However…
There are also some downsides to taking these pills, at least when it comes to my investment decisions.
For example…I kinda… don't care that much about money anymore. I mean, obviously I want to make a profit. But sometimes I can make an investment decision way too quickly, without thinking it through properly. To be fair, this was already a problem for me before I started taking medication.
But now, I can make those same stupid, impulsive decisions…
Just with much larger amounts of money.
Which is… not exactly an improvement. There's also another important thing worth discussing.
FOCUS. I've noticed that the medication can help me concentrate better.
You know… assuming I actually feel like sitting down and doing some proper investment research.
Which doesn't always happen. But when it does, that's pretty cool. On top of that, I sometimes wonder whether the medication makes me a bit too optimistic.
Or perhaps a little too confident in my own investment decisions. And that could be genuinely dangerous. Especially in financial markets, where overconfidence can destroy your portfolio pretty quickly. As my little silver adventure demonstrated.
Chapter 3 – The Future
So, obviously, I'm not planning to take antidepressants for the rest of my life.
Which raises an interesting question.
How am I supposed to handle the psychological pressure of investing once I'm no longer taking medication that currently seems to make that pressure easier to deal with?
Well…
I think I might have to completely change my investing strategy.
Basically, I'll probably have to become one of those boring buy-and-hold investors.
You know…
The Warren Buffett strategy.
Just buy stocks.
Hold them.
And go do something else with your life.
No staring at charts all day.
No massive leveraged positions.
No emotional roller coasters.
Just owning businesses, letting them grow, and focusing on other things that actually matter in life.
Maybe that's what I should have been doing from the very beginning…
Anyway, that's it for today, guys.
See you next time!
