All terms
Rationalizing a loss instead of accepting it.
Cope is the reasoning people produce to avoid admitting a position has gone wrong. Copium is the joke drug they are on while doing it. The tells are consistent: the timeframe stretches, the thesis changes, and the criteria for being wrong quietly disappear.
Everybody does this. The useful move is not to be above it but to make it visible, by writing down before you buy what would make you wrong and what you will do about it. A decision made calmly in advance beats one made at two in the morning during a candle.
A holder who bought expecting a quick trade explaining, ninety percent down, that they were always a long term believer.
That coping is something other people do. Everybody does it, and the tell is finding new reasons to hold that have nothing to do with why you bought. Writing down the original reason is the cheapest defense there is.
Common questions
What does coping look like in practice?
How do I avoid it?
Where to go next
More culture terms
Want this explained out loud?
Some of these land faster in conversation than in writing. Sessions are one to one and you can ask anything, including the things that feel too obvious to ask.