Sadness, Loss, and Grief: Trading During Times of Illness and Deatth

Hey there folks,

It’s been a good while since I last posted and I want to take a moment to let you in on what I’ve been up to the last few months.

Sadness, Loss, and Grief

At the start of September, my 89-year-old grandfather passed away. He was a very easy-going man, with a hankering for good humor and good deli. He died from late stages of bone cancer as it mestastesized to his liver. Losing him was tough, but the countless videos and photos of family dinners with him telling silly stories make it nearly impossible for him to ever be forgotten.

Also during September, I was paid out a nice +$5,000 from my My Forex Funds account and took a little trip up to the Pacific Northwest to scout out apartments outside of the Portland area. I’ve been meaning to move to this part of the continent for some time, and in the coming months, this will become a reality.

Trading during September wasn’t anything to write home about. I sat through a handful of losing weeks. The daily strategy I’d been using lost some of its rigor. I intended on turning this strategy into a more advanced course, but as I made more money breaking its rules than actually following the plan, I realized there were holes in its theoretical assumptions and strategic approach. Thus, I moved back to the lower time frames again and took some time studying market structure and movement.

Then, during the week of my grandfather’s memorial, my partner and I got Covid-19. My symptoms were unusual and likely arose out of an added flaring to my already existing chronic illness. My hands and feet were in so much pain, the nerves in my fingers felt like they were on fire with pain and ache, and I couldn’t do much except hold them close to my body and lie still in bed. This was in addition to the other standard symptoms of this infeciton: coughing, fever, fatigue, and nasal drainage. Luckily, the pain eased up over a matter of days. But the flu-like symptoms persisted for weeks. Even now, I still carry a light cough, although everything else, for the most part, feels back to “normal”. A few of my friends who have also experienced Covid mentioned that it can take weeks to feel on par. They were not wrong.

Just as this burden was easing up, death greeted my family once more.

Only a few weeks after my grandfather’s passing, my grandma died as well. You might think it was from a broken heart, as this can happen among elderly couples, but she had no knowledge of his death. Those last few weeks, she didn’t really have much knowledge of anything that was happening around her. My grandma had slowly wasted away from late stages of dementia and a rare autoimmune condition, bullous pemphigoid, which caused her to experience severe itching and bleeding lesions. I came by to help be with her during those last few weeks, mostly to give her medicine, some water, liquid food, and massage her arms and hands.

I can imagine I’m not alone in writing this – some of you have firsthand experience with losing a loved one to dimentia, Alzheimers, or any other memory-degrading condition. It is harrowingly sad to no longer be recognizable by someone who was such a source of love and meaning in your life. She was in severe pain and confusion, crying out “help me, help me!” every few minutes during her waking hours. I had to explain to her one night that my mother and I needed to leave in order to get some sleep. It broke my heart to hear her pleading response of, “Please, please don’t leave me!” In some ways, the hardest part of her death wasn’t her passing – it was witnessing this long, drawn out suffering with not much help or relief to offer.

And then, one day, she died – her relief finally came. 

I didn’t expect to cry, but seeing her small, still body inspired sobs from my own. My grandparents were a big part of my and my sibling’s lives. Our dad wasn’t really apart of the picture growing up, but my grandparents were there for everything. Their love was unconditional and they were accepting of the diverse lives we’ve led, even if they looked so different from the world they once knew. Losing them meant an end of an era of loud, boisterous family gatherings and loving visits. 

It also reminded me of my own aging and life progression – My own struggle with memory loss as I wade through a difficult and complex illness. (If this is how I feel in my 30’s, then what will 50 be? How about 80?) For all the myriad of ways our bodies are designed to strive and survive, they are also so vulnerable and ephemeral. 

The week of her death, there were a few days when I completely forgot to trade. I didn’t remember the day of the week. It didn’t even occur to me that I had charts to look at. I was preoccupied with the details of change. And when I did think about trading, I just didn’t want to – the drive wasn’t there. I felt no desire, just sadness and a need to be quiet, still, and reflective.

Then, with each passing day, I felt more at peace. The tears ended, I began to spend more time on my own responsibilities instead of being involved in my family’s. I started trading again and doing some work with my own trading education and refining a new trend trading approach.

Facing Sadness and Grief During Your Own Trading

There will be times during your trading experience when major life events unfold. You may be able to prepare for some, but for others, you will be completely vulnerable. Death will make its rounds and visit people you know and love. People you care for will get sick and you will get sick as well. Your own death, too, is also a spot on the horizon that grows closer each day. 

I don’t write this to sound macabre, instead, I want to speak to the real experience of human life – one that includes a permanent finale. It is so easy to imagine ourselves always available to trade, to be in total control of our psychology at some distant future, but the reality is that there will be times when you may not be able to trade or even want to trade. Sadness, loss, grief – these are emotions that you may have to sit with when you trade (hopefully only temporarily) and if you can’t sit with them in front of the charts, then you’ll need to stop trading for a short period of time. 

During those periods, I encourage you to take space for yourself to feel sadness. When feeling sad, it can be hard to feel motivated – you might not even want to take a trading opportunity should one present itself. Be mindful of how you, individually, experience sadness and grief, and the ways you deal with it. Some people, like myself, need a pause in order to be with the emotion fully. Other folks like to dig deeper into their work or their hobbies in order to disconnect from the feelings of sadness. That’s okay too, it’s helpful to do things that help invite moments of joy, satisfaction, or rest. 

My parting advice: be familiar with your own style of grief, sadness, and loss, and have an idea of how you can plan your trading around it (or expect to not trade altogether). Be cautious, however, of wanting to trade so that you can get some kind of overriding pleasurable emotion from trading – this may entice you to break rules or make emotional choices. But most importantly, address your feelings. You are not a hero by avoiding your feelings and tears. When you can feel your own emotions, you open yourself up to the ability to empathize with the suffering of others – you open yourself up to love. All of these qualities make for a more meaningful life, one that is at peace.