We Are All Spoiled And I’m Scared

I genuinely think a lot of newer investors (like me) are mentally unprepared for what a real bear market actually feels like. Not a 2 month correction. Not a “buy the dip” event where the market fully recovers in a year. I mean a real soul draining multi year bear market. Since 2020, we’ve basically been conditioned to believe that every dip is temporary, mega cap tech always comes back, the Fed will save things eventually (daddy Powell) AI and growth stocks can only go higher long term, and you’re stupid if you don’t buy the crash. And honestly, that mentality has worked insanely well, I who have no idea what I’m doing am up 23% since I started investing in January of 2025. The S&P has ripped higher overall for years now, and the Nasdaq has had insane rebounds after every major drop. Even the 2022 bear market got erased surprisingly fast compared to historical crashes which took forever. But historically, markets are not always this forgiving and something happens. People forget the Nasdaq lost around 78% after the dot com bubble. A ton of “future” companies never recovered. Now I’m not a bear but I know at SOME point the market will go down brutally again it’s just a matter of time. In the last the S&P took years to reclaim highs. 2008 destroyed people psychologically, not just financially. Some decades barely gave real returns after inflation. A real bear market changes people and I felt it when the S&P dropped by only 6%. You stop seeing “diamond hands” posts and HODL meme post. You stop seeing young kids like myself trading weekly options thinking they’re geniuses. People go from “stocks only go up” to “I just want my money back.” And honestly, I’m concerned about myself too. Everybody says they’ll hold through a crash until they actually watch their portfolio fall 40 to 60%, layoffs start spreading everywhere they suddenly actually need the money from there portfolio, the news gets darker every month, rallies keep failing, and years pass without recovery. That’s when panic selling happens to people who didn’t even think about selling until the very far future. TLDR I guess: A lot of people today have never invested through a long grinding market where buying the dip repeatedly just does not work. I mean retail gobbled up a lot of shares recently historical amounts. I think a lot of us believe we’re more emotionally disciplined than we actually are. You only find out what kind of investor you are during a true bear market. No AI bubble is not real. Edit I have 85% of my net worth in stocks