I did not want to go pro to start out. I have long covid and didn’t really have another option I could do.

My largest problem is a very sad tale that ended in clinical depression and losing all my friends, self respect, dignity and confidence due to trusting my parent actually cared about me.

I don’t have the option anymore after years of being able to not get over it to say “I’m too angry to play” and have to find a way to suck it up when I’m so depressed I can barely get out of bed.

I was previously a true badass that went from homeless to 6 figures, community builder and small business owner until I was deceived by my dad who took everything with no ability to apologize.

I try so hard and I’ve done therapy, discipline out the ass, walk my dog miles each day and can’t get out of this mindset to save my life.

How or what can I do to be able to at least play decent enough poker when dealing with large amounts of depression as I don’t have an option anymore. I’m down to 80k left after selling everything and if I don’t make this work I’ll die in the street.

Sorry this is so depressing but I’m out of options and really need help.

Hey man, believe it or not I can relate at least somewhat. I've also been homeless before and have been horribly betrayed by multiple people in my life.

At the moment I'm doing pretty good I would say. But it's always kind of a struggle. You never really get "there" to some miraculous place where everything just feels good.

You have to take a break and reset. A true reset.


And then ask yourself about the games you have access to and what kind of win rate you can have when playing at your best and your worst.

If the games are good and you can beat them, take it slow and easy and just play smaller and shorter sessions first.

You have to give it a go and fall down a little along the way and be alright with it and keep picking yourself up.

It ain't about how hard you can hit kid. it's about how much you can take and keep moving forward. It ****ing sucks I know.

But if this is really what is meant for you, don't give up. Don't deny what has happened and avoid your bad feelings.

You have to sit for days and feel through the pain of it and just settle down a little
Use everything that has happened as fuel to keep going.

Just go at your own pace and remember to be kinder to yourself. Take it easy buddy, you got this.

What did your therapist say?

I would encourage you to be kind to yourself, too, as mentioned above. Also, reconnect with your therapist, or make genuine efforts to find someone else. I understand the mindset your talking about, where even getting out of bed seems beyond a struggle. Keep walking the dog, remain proud of your disciplined habits, and remain smart in all aspects of life, no matter how fruitless it all may seem. In respect of poker, I would be wary: focus on bankroll management (most definitely keep it separate from your life-roll) and only play when your mood is relatively positive. Maybe even put together a checklist of mood signs: if too many are negative (you decide what too many is) then don't play, or, if you're playing at the time, stop playing, go home and reward yourself for making a good decision.

Thanks yall. After writing this I had walked my dog and played with her for about an hour and than played a phenomenal session.

I moved to Texas and the games are incredible, I have a huge edge here and I’m playing well luckily.

I am running terrible in every large pot I play; like I have yet to put 1-2k into a hand and win (for over 3 months now), and I’m still profitable. I know this will change and I’ve only been here a couple months. Not profitable enough to live on but I’m not losing money and if I had won a few I’d be crushing so that’s great.

I’m hiring a life coach as my old therapist sucked, I really really appreciate the responses. That was a rough day and it’s been a rough year, I wish I could’ve deleted that post but am kinda glad it’s there.

I keep getting up and fighting the good fight and I can tell it will all work out as long as I keep working and fighting.

Glad you didn't delete the initial post. Takes more courage than some realise to publically "own" depression. Pleased to hear your dog is still getting walked. Hopefully the poker results soon move in the right direction --- always helps a little with the mood no matter how much we hate to admit it.

Being down to 80k isn't that bad. I've been down to 0 several times. I'm ok now financially and still stressing about various aspects of 'the grind', including the ethics of it all (as demonstrated in the NVG thread devoted to that topic). Cheers and best of luck.

I would think that most pro poker players have a bankroll of under 80k.

I too can relate. My ex stole my BR, as well as a large amount I was holding for someone else. Those people allowed me to work off the money, but I still had to devote a lot of time to that when I was trying to rebuild. IIRC I had $1400 to my name and started grinding 1/2. I've also got type 2 bi-polar, which is basically just depression except sometimes you snap out of it for a while. I'm doing fine now.

I think a pretty good % of therapists are FOS/incompetent. But I think that % is way higher with "life coaches." Be careful on that front. Many of them are con artists, or people looking for an easy way to make a living. At least a qualified therapist has earned degrees and credentials. It seems to me that most people who become life coaches can't be bothered to really learn about this stuff and it's like taking poker lessons from someone who makes min wage grinding low stakes. Like, they might have some concepts right and a general idea of how to win at poker, but they aren't really experts.

Gotta wonder why someone chose not to carefully study these subjects under the instruction of those who have devoted their life to them, but instead decided to just take a online course or something and wing it as a "life coach."

There are a lot of great thinkers and writers who have stood the test of time when it comes to dealing with these problems. Stoics (Marcus talks a lot about anger and is easy to read), Buddhism, Epicurus, etc. A psychiatrist called Albert Ellis drew from a lot of this stuff. He wrote great, easily readable books and led schools of psychiatry that moved away from people like Freud and into stuff that actually works. If I'm not mistaken, most therapists who operate in this tradition use the lable CBT or cognative behavioral therapy. But there are other branches too.

I think, especially the type of person who plays poker, will benifit from these camps which are based on using logic and reason to solve problems, as opposed to either a therapist who just kind of listens to your problems, or one who wants to interpret your dreams and talk about your parents.

The most helpful things for me have been meditation and Buddhism, though I realize these are not appealing to most people. Still, I would suggest watching Tommy Angelo... his thing with Joey Ingrham is pretty good. If you don't get anything out of it, NBD.

While i definitely agree I’ve only taken on poker as I’m incapable physically for almost any other job. I started out homeless and have been down to zero 3-4x and worked my way back up.

At this point it’s make it or break it and due to illness it’s legitimately make it work or die sadly.

I couldn’t agree more however sometimes we find ourselves in awkward situations we couldn’t ever expect.

I couldn’t agree more. I listen to stoics each day for 10-20 minutes, meditate 1-2x a day and I’m slacking on journaling but am getting more consistent.

Props on the comeback. It was good to hear. In a previous life I lost a giant load of weed and had to pay back 150k over 14 months. That was a long comeback but anything’s possible. Reminds me of always being able to overcome obstacles