Your mistake is that you are letting your emotions influence your decisions. There is nothing wrong with that when it comes to making personal choices such as choosing a career, partner, or house.
When it comes to the impersonal world of trading, this is a terrible strategy. Emotions are predictable is that is precisely why more experienced traders are making money off of you.
To be successful in the trading game, you need to be an ice cold bastard. Few people have what it takes emotionally and the ones who don't should stay away from it.
I agree with this.
I find that I am ten times better at making calls when I have no skin in the game than when I do. Having anything significant at stake totally changes the outlook on the market and using leverage (i.e. possibility of being completely wiped out) opens whole different psychological can of worms altogether. But then, the OPs problem was that she was buying emotionally to begin with, and now she is selling emotionally.