Hey there cutie,
Just here to introduce myself and get my first post out of the way.
Allow me to tell you something about myself and the reason why I’m here.
I’m Dutch.
I’m 30 years old.
I have a beautifull dog, my white wolf: Maya 
My favourite color is…
No… Hold up…
Let’s skipp the small talk and get real right from the beginning.
In the past, I’ve been an addict, a drug dealer, someone struggling with depression, suicidal thoughts and ptss.
Ofcourse we’ve all been through some ish and I’m no exception. Maybe I’ll tell you a little bit more about my past life some other time… I got a lot of crazy stories.
Until I was 27 years old, my goal in life was to reach year nr. 27 (and maybe join the club of 27)
I lived a life chasing pleasure and avoiding discomfort and pain as much as I could.
Easy choices… Hard life.
I lived in fear and a lot of isolation in a small room sharing a livingroom and bathroom with 18 other young adults.
I could not handle the pressent moment and my thoughts AT ALL so I constantly distracted myself (by using substances).
Let me tell you: in a short timeframe that strategy works pretty well and it’s also a lot of fun.
In a longer timeframe that strategy does not work and it’s not fun at all!
Still trying to study psychology at the University of Leiden gave me a small, false, sense of fulfilment so I just kept doing what I was doing for years.
Selling drugs. Using drugs. Distracting myself constantly. Partying. Staying up for days or weeks on end. Chasing pleasure. Just straig up madness.
My life was going no-where, fast.
Then the universe gave me a blessing in disguise.
I fell doing something stupid and broke my collarbone and three ribs.
And I mean they completely broke through. All four of them. Collarbone twice.
Unfortunately, I needed to fall down just a little further to reach rock bottom.
Three days later, not being able to drink or use any pills, I woke up in an ambulance after having a seizure and having my heart and breath stop for a minute or two.
During the seizure I fell down on the same side of my body where all the boken bones were.
Right in fornt of my parents, who took me back in after 8 years.
Gave my mother yet an other trauma. Damn.
Not wanting to put my mother to any ish, I finally was open for help, and I found it.
This was the real turning point in my life.
I still wanted to die, I still didn’t love or even liked myself.
I still felt broken (and I was).
But I was open to do better, to get help, just to stop the suffering of my loved ones and the people around me.
First my body needed to heal. I was sleeping sitting for six weeks before I was able to lie down again. While heavily withdrawing.
After a good couple of months (which felt like years) I was able to use my arm again.
Fysically healing turned out to be the easy part.
Then the hard part started…
I needed to heal mentally.
I needed to change.
I needed to go to rehab.
I needed to conquer addiction.
I needed to grow up.
They say that you only need to change ONE THING if you want to overcome addiction… And that one thing is EVERYTHING.
So I did.
Slowly but surely, I stayed sober, counting the days. I made amends. Fixed broken relations with friends and family. Fixed a lot of negative old patterns. Changed where I lived. Changed how I lived. Took on more and more responsibilities, one by one.
Now I’m 30 years old.
I don’t wan’t to die anymore.
I got past 27 alive, my goal is reached. I’m aiming at 110 now.
I got a beautifull girlfriend who is also my best friend.
I want to start a family with her.
I practice moving through pain, fear and discomfort daily.
Hard choices… Easy life (at least easier and actually do-able)
I grew into a friendly, emotionally stable, very disciplined young man.
I’m teaching people mindfulness, which helped me a lot.
I’m actually helping other people with addiction problems as well.
I am very very grateful for where I am.
Over 90% of the people who were as deep into substance abuse as I was, don’t make it out alive.
I’m painfully aware of that fact, still parttime working for a rehab/recovery facility in the Netherlands and UK.
I fell in love with recovery.
That made me fall in love with the process of personal development.
I started learning more about Stoicism. I started to actually read books. I quit gaming and watching series. Picked up working out daily as well.
Bought a 8week old puppy and walked it three times a day (Maya is now almost 2 years old).
I became very interested in health and wealth.
I started reading and learning about investing.
That’s when Forex entered into my life.
To be totally honset: I am chasing the dream. And that dream is freedom.
Freedom from a boss (my life as a dealer left me with some issues with authority that weren’t ever fully recovered. lol).
Freedom to structure my day the way I want it to be structured.
I’m not sure if I’ll be able to accomplish this ‘financial freedom’ but i’m willing to put in the work and to give it an honest try.
As you can imagine I’m not the type of person looking for a quick fix in life. At least not anymore.
I’m not looking for a quick fix to make money learning trading either.
Since february 2023 I started waking up a few hours earlier on a daily basis to really get into forex more.
I came across babypips and fell in love with the school of pipsology (I just graduated. yay.).
I was once diagnosed with dyslexia, so reading and writing aren’t my favourite things in the whole wide world (as you can probably tell by the gammatical errors).
Numbers and formula’s are more my kind of things though!
I like charts a lot as well and I hope I can use this to my advantage in trading.
10 days ago I started journalling about my trading journey.
It’s still a new habbit but I’m confident I can keep the habbit in place.
My next goal is developing a trading strategy and system and practicing it on a demo account.
I want to give different strategies and systems a chance (I might just try out the Cowabunga system or ask for tips and tricks on here)
If I can be profitable for one or two months on a demo account, I want to give it a shot with my own hard earned money.
Maybe I can become profitable this year, maybe not.
I’m in it to learn a life long skill, so I’m not rushing anything.
I have yet to make my first trade (on a demo account)
The disadvantages I’m aware of so far are:
I’m a slow reader.
I can be pretty perfectionistic.
Sometimes my ego can play up a little bit.
The advantages I think I have so far are:
I’m patient and calm.
I have a lot of discipline.
I am willing to learn and put in the work.
Sooo there you have it!
A little bit about me and my life.
I’m the new Dutch kid on the block.
Thank you for taking the time to read about me!
I hope to connect with you on different pages.
Sure I have A LOT OF QUESTIONS.
But for now I’l leave it at this.
Have a nice day people.
Love 
Derek
start from the education section and good luck in this long journey 
it that way
