My costly lesson in 'averaging down' — more like 'doubling down on dumb'

Thought I'd share a quick one that still makes me wince. Early days, trading $EURUSD, saw a dip I thought was 'the dip'. Bought a small position. It kept going down. Naturally, my brilliant strategy was to average down, believing the recovery was imminent. And then again. And again. Each time, convincing myself this had to be the bottom. The account drawdown looked like a ski slope, and I was on the express lift to the bottom. Ended up taking a much larger loss than my initial stop-loss would've ever allowed, simply because I refused to admit I was wrong and wanted to be 'right' about the market's direction. My stop was basically moved to 'infinity' or 'until it turns around' – which it eventually did, but not before significantly depleting my capital. The ultimate takeaway? A stop is there for a reason, and if you can't stomach the initial loss, don't average down; average up when you're actually right.