I am not nearly among the top players here, so take that for what it's worth....

I started playing seriously with $250 in December of 2005. I cleared a ton of bonuses, had a ton of rakeback, several withdrawals, and several mind-numbing, confidence crushing downswings combined with bad play. After 15 months more or less, my BR is $7400 as of today.

I was breakeven at several levels for a LONG time before I actually started beating them.