Market manipulators must have made me want to wet my pants, in the past years there are many FUD about Bitcoin, calling it another bubble, this could have made me give up.
We all have our demons too, I could have listened to them, saying, sell, sell, sell, you dummy, this thing is going to die and you will lose all your capital.
This is why it is important to enter the market only after you are able to control your emotions properly. Those 2 things you mentioned are the side effects of listening to your emotions. As human, we make mistakes and we learn from it. So it is important for newbies to start with small assets too. If you are going to lose, then lose small and learn from it.
And experiencing this is not a bad thing. It helps clear out weak holders from the market and gives us the opportunity to fill our bags with DIPs. And also there's this advantage of learning from the mistakes. You did a good job OP for not listening to your emotions and keeping a strong belief on your decision. Keep it up.