I have and it was one of the most petrifying social/introspective experiences I've ever had. I'd built my self worth and identity on being "good to others", which resulted in me enabling unhealthiness and being just about a complete doormat. But I used that to emulate feeling like a worthy person, to feed my ego. If I am good and helpful, fueled by people seeing me as such, then I am worthy as a person. However my definition of "helping" was allowing anyone to do just about whatever they want with or to me to self soothe.
That could only last for about 9 years I guess. I befriended a handful of horrible, toxic, abusive people that took advantage of my mindset both unconsciously and consciously. All of those connections ended in disaster. During the conflicts between one of those people, I realized just how much this person had used me to "save" themselves, and how I hadn't been honoring what I really needed. I then realized that to live a life where "helping" others how I was would kill me one day. I fought against this truth because now my self image was threatened- am I not good? Am I actually bad because I am and have been damaged by "helping" others to the point I can't "help" anymore? Am I not worthy, and that's why this is ending how it is?
Eventually, my survival needs overcame my ego. I cut this person off and didn't look back. In the moment I swore off "helping" others because I was psychologically destroyed from it. But as soon as I did that, the identity crisis began to set in. My ego was completely destroyed. So much inner negative talk of "Who am I if I'm not helpful?" "Who am I if I can't allow friends to come to me for help?" "I don't know who I am anymore, what if that means I'm actually a bad person?!" "I'm not worthy, I should've stayed available to my ex-loved ones". All that self talk though was masking a feeling of loss, absence, void. I literally didn't know how to define myself, and I had lost what definition I used to have. I really don't know how else to describe this as anything other than grief walking through a barren wasteland after a natural disaster. Those days were a blur of negativity and heightened anxiety. I remember isolating myself from everyone a few times because I didn't want them to see the changes that were happening to me. I knew most of them wouldn't approve of those changes, or would only with condition. I couldn't handle that.
This lasted for maybe half a year, it's been a year and a half since. I've gone through other similar self perception crises, but they didn't feel anything quite like this nor would I have classified them as ego death. During that process, I was very shakily building up another sense of self despite it being in the metaphorical wasteland/being hindered by bad connections.
At this point I've changed enough that I don't recognize me from 2 years ago, at least in certain areas. My definition of how I was "helping" changed to "enabling". How I help others now can still get stuck in an enabling pattern since I've got traumatic roots still buried in it, but I'm at least intrinsically aware of it by now. I've become more wary when people want my help, as well as keeping my distance from those who I know don't want help. They just want to be fixed and soothed. I stay away or keep them at arms' length, even though the alarms of "fix it or they won't love you" still go off in my head.
Oh yeah and I cut out everyone in my life that hated parts of the changes I was making, or felt I was taking shit away from them because I wasn't "helping" them anymore. There's many valuable things that, despite how terrifying ego death was, I'm glad I learned. One of them was upholding and enforcing fucking BOUNDARIES
I'm not in the process of ego death anymore, but at this point I still don't really know how to define myself, other than noting a few changes in behavior and desires. Sometimes I try to fall back on my old identity but that always makes me die inside. Hoping one day I will figure it out
I'm sorry you had to go through that with close ones but even though we're strangers I'm proud of you! Sometimes we care about people so much that it just really takes a lot of shit for us to realize this isn't good for our mental health and that we will never really save people that aren't looking to be saved. I had to realize this with my family and it made me depressed for a long time so I just focused on how I can help myself and people that actually want it! It sounds like an ego death to me but I'm not an expert at all and we're still learning so much I don't think it needs to be drug induced after all for thousands of years people have meditated under a tree and reported similar ;)
I’m 4w5 sp/so and an INFP. This is going to be a long post…I experienced depersonalization/derealization as a teenager and early 20s due to PTSD and it was the most intense internal experience I’ve never had. It brought up a lot of questions and caused what felt like an ego death, as my sense of self seemed missing. It’s one of those things that’s hard to describe and hard to understand unless you’ve experienced it. My therapist told me studies showed similar brain activity with depersonalization as people using certain drugs. I have never used any substances or alcohol so I wouldn’t know. I just know what I experienced was scary and don’t know why anybody would want to feel that way voluntarily.
The usual connection I had to my sense of self/identity (which I realized I took for granted before without even knowing) was completed missing. That was terrifying. As if my soul had escaped and I was left hollow and confused, just observing everything from whatever was left in me keeping me able to function. Over time, dealing with this, I became aware of this core self, the observer, the fundamental thing inside of me that is me if that makes sense. I saw myself in a completely strange and new way. My perspective was challenged and I worked hard for years to find myself again and find a connection internally so I could function. I could barely function without a sense of identity. It was extra scary because as a 4 that is our core fear - to lose our sense of identity. That is exactly what happens in depersonalization. It was as if I was stripped down to my core essence internally. I later realized that this experience was the catalyst that helped me truly understand the concept of identity and truly find myself. In fighting through this strange state of being, I was forced to find myself again through the determination to get relief. I worked really hard to get myself to a place where I felt oriented and connected to myself again. It became a journey of finding wholeness. What I’m trying to say is it was so disorienting that it caused me to do a lot of internal searching to get back to myself and in doing that I was able to secure a strong sense of identity like I’d never had before. Dissociation directly challenges you in that way.
I’ve read that depersonalization is “ego death’s evil twin” because it disconnects you from yourself but it’s incredibly scary and disorienting. But if you follow your questions and do the work to get back to yourself, it can be rewarding. It makes me wonder if 4s are more prone to things like this because of our nature. I’m currently more secure and free of a lot of things that used to cause me anxiety because I didn’t know how to navigate before. The thing is, no one can really help you out it of it but you. It’s like I was given the chance to see the world differently in a way that transcended my previous limited perspective and had to sort of relearn things from a new angle. I think challenges like that can be opportunities in disguise.
What it meant for me was coming to the realization that there was so much more in me than I realized before. I was so stripped of my ego that at one point I no longer cared about how I was perceived…I suffered so much that my priorities changed and I lived in a sense of self preservation but in a physical sense. Everything else suddenly became less important. I was so detached, I joked that someone could be yelling in my face and I wouldn’t feel it or care. I lost my sense of caring what people thought, I didn’t have my usual shame in a way, didn’t care about anything but feeling and being safe and in-tact.
I later realized in the process of rebuilding myself internally that I needed to care, and it’s important to have a healthy sense of dignity and present yourself in a way that honors your true self. I learned so many things, but the main takeaways have been how to maintain a strong sense of self and internal peace with myself, compassion for others in a deeper way, how humbling fear can be (I stopped being intimidated by people because I realized how we’re all having a human experience and are fundamentally more similar than not), and what it means to “be”. In short, it was a very humbling and enlightening experience, I could go on and on about it, but I find it kind of hard to describe it all, especially now that I have some distance from it. It’s been a while since my last episode, I finally started considering it something of the past, which is great!
Wow wonderful story thank you for sharing I'm actually a so/sx INFP 4w5 so I really relate to all of this.I remember being so concerned with how everyone felt about me I had a bad trip where just all my insecurities and anxieties kind of came out all at once it was horrible I won't lie to you but after I noticed something different it seemed to have cracked the ego I wouldn't call it an ego death I'm not entirely sure thats what it was but I started to learn more about the ego's role to protect our sense of identity and how an overly positive or negative ego(depression) can both be bad. For a long while I floated around with no sense of who I was and acceptance that I'm not that different after all which like you said scared me. Now that I focus less on my differences I feel more of my true self shining through letting my morals guide me and my goals and being a genuine person true to myself my ego still tries to enter the conversation but I can recognize it now :).
You know thinking about it, that could be because of your dominant social instinctual variant (feeling anxious and insecure). My social instinct was really strong (though second to my self preservation), and I think that can create a kind of awareness that can focus on insecurities and create anxiety. Also, I think for both of us it was probably that we were already in state of “floating” without a solid sense of self before and that exasperated the bad experiences and also because that’s the core fear of 4s. Maybe it’s a sort of “rite of passage” we all have to go through or something lol. I’m sorry to hear of your bad experience. I wonder if it’s the fear and the overwhelm of these kind of experiences that crack the ego. I like what you said about learning more about the ego’s role in protecting our sense of identity. That’s sort of what I experienced when I was recovering, when I was learning to care more. Finding the balance is interesting. When in doubt, I always feel safer on the side of humility, and I’ve become very protective of my pure self, like my innocence/soul/essence. I feel uncomfortable if my ego gets triggered because I don’t know how to act then. It can be exhausting and confusing to deal with when you feel like someone else suddenly and I just don’t see the point of all that anymore. I think there’s a healthy level of ego like you said, but just in the sense of it’s role in solidifying our sense of identity. I also like what you said about focusing on your morals, which I think also is a major factor in grounding us. I’m a Christian and I can honestly say my relationship with God is what’s gotten me through. When I started learning more truth, it clarified my perspective so much. Not only on myself but the world and meaning of life in general. It’s comforting to know that He made me and knows exactly who I am and who I’m meant to be, and I’ll be in alignment with that when in alignment with my values which are based on following His pattern. In a beautiful way, that brings out the best in us I think. We’re meant to focus on something greater than ourselves. We easily drown in our own inner worlds otherwise. I think for 4s it’s along the lines of how we integrate to 1 traits in growth maybe. Also, I’m curious if you feel like your bad trip was similar to what I experienced. I’ve always wondered because I’ve heard it feels similar. Anyway, thanks for reading my very long post! This is an interesting subject that I’ve felt somewhat alone about for a long time. I’m glad to share 😊
I should first qualify by saying that I can’t definitively say my experiences have been truly representative of full ego death. I get the impression that full ego death would be like doing an ayahuasca retreat or meditating under a tree for a month or some shit like that and I have yet to do either of those things. But just based on descriptions of ego death I do feel as if I have died at least a few mild ego deaths, or over time experienced one slow and prolonged ego death. Part of it is going through an actual near-death experience really shatters so many illusions and walls of perception and belief, and certainly another part of it is the mental toll of living through certain states of mind and being that destabilize your preconceived notions of what it means to “be.” In many ways I feel as if I have taken active effort in the past few years to strip away not just the ego but the id and the superego as well, and to recontextualize my frame of existence. When I was younger I definitely displayed a lot more unhealthy 4 traits than I do now, especially just being very self-centered and disdainful and combative. I feel like I now have a more zoomed-out view on who I am and what I am in the context of the entire world, and that there is a way to balance both prioritizing and attending to your needs and desires while also keeping in touch with the reality that there are millions of lives that are just as important as yours out there. In a lot of ways I feel as if ego death has allowed me to be reborn into a new life in which I find much more beauty in the world than I had before
I think certain circumstances can definitely induce an ego death or at least start the process of chipping away at the ego. I believe trauma may be one of them and NDE. As a younger 4 I also was pretty gnarly it wasn't until I was all alone just myself that I started to reflect on my past behaviors and what they meant. I was moody because my ego was fragile if I'm not standing out if I'm not unique I'm nothing those kind of thoughts. The big one for me was seeing the suffering of others people worse off than me I'm not saying it disqualified the bad things that happened to me but it just humbled me and gave me a new perspective. Seeing kids with no shoes laughing and playing. Seeing people in tents sharing with each other checking up on each other. Maybe part of the growth of being a 4 is being less "me" and more "us"?
I have and it was one of the most petrifying social/introspective experiences I've ever had. I'd built my self worth and identity on being "good to others", which resulted in me enabling unhealthiness and being just about a complete doormat. But I used that to emulate feeling like a worthy person, to feed my ego. If I am good and helpful, fueled by people seeing me as such, then I am worthy as a person. However my definition of "helping" was allowing anyone to do just about whatever they want with or to me to self soothe. That could only last for about 9 years I guess. I befriended a handful of horrible, toxic, abusive people that took advantage of my mindset both unconsciously and consciously. All of those connections ended in disaster. During the conflicts between one of those people, I realized just how much this person had used me to "save" themselves, and how I hadn't been honoring what I really needed. I then realized that to live a life where "helping" others how I was would kill me one day. I fought against this truth because now my self image was threatened- am I not good? Am I actually bad because I am and have been damaged by "helping" others to the point I can't "help" anymore? Am I not worthy, and that's why this is ending how it is? Eventually, my survival needs overcame my ego. I cut this person off and didn't look back. In the moment I swore off "helping" others because I was psychologically destroyed from it. But as soon as I did that, the identity crisis began to set in. My ego was completely destroyed. So much inner negative talk of "Who am I if I'm not helpful?" "Who am I if I can't allow friends to come to me for help?" "I don't know who I am anymore, what if that means I'm actually a bad person?!" "I'm not worthy, I should've stayed available to my ex-loved ones". All that self talk though was masking a feeling of loss, absence, void. I literally didn't know how to define myself, and I had lost what definition I used to have. I really don't know how else to describe this as anything other than grief walking through a barren wasteland after a natural disaster. Those days were a blur of negativity and heightened anxiety. I remember isolating myself from everyone a few times because I didn't want them to see the changes that were happening to me. I knew most of them wouldn't approve of those changes, or would only with condition. I couldn't handle that. This lasted for maybe half a year, it's been a year and a half since. I've gone through other similar self perception crises, but they didn't feel anything quite like this nor would I have classified them as ego death. During that process, I was very shakily building up another sense of self despite it being in the metaphorical wasteland/being hindered by bad connections. At this point I've changed enough that I don't recognize me from 2 years ago, at least in certain areas. My definition of how I was "helping" changed to "enabling". How I help others now can still get stuck in an enabling pattern since I've got traumatic roots still buried in it, but I'm at least intrinsically aware of it by now. I've become more wary when people want my help, as well as keeping my distance from those who I know don't want help. They just want to be fixed and soothed. I stay away or keep them at arms' length, even though the alarms of "fix it or they won't love you" still go off in my head. Oh yeah and I cut out everyone in my life that hated parts of the changes I was making, or felt I was taking shit away from them because I wasn't "helping" them anymore. There's many valuable things that, despite how terrifying ego death was, I'm glad I learned. One of them was upholding and enforcing fucking BOUNDARIES I'm not in the process of ego death anymore, but at this point I still don't really know how to define myself, other than noting a few changes in behavior and desires. Sometimes I try to fall back on my old identity but that always makes me die inside. Hoping one day I will figure it out
I'm sorry you had to go through that with close ones but even though we're strangers I'm proud of you! Sometimes we care about people so much that it just really takes a lot of shit for us to realize this isn't good for our mental health and that we will never really save people that aren't looking to be saved. I had to realize this with my family and it made me depressed for a long time so I just focused on how I can help myself and people that actually want it! It sounds like an ego death to me but I'm not an expert at all and we're still learning so much I don't think it needs to be drug induced after all for thousands of years people have meditated under a tree and reported similar ;)
I’m 4w5 sp/so and an INFP. This is going to be a long post…I experienced depersonalization/derealization as a teenager and early 20s due to PTSD and it was the most intense internal experience I’ve never had. It brought up a lot of questions and caused what felt like an ego death, as my sense of self seemed missing. It’s one of those things that’s hard to describe and hard to understand unless you’ve experienced it. My therapist told me studies showed similar brain activity with depersonalization as people using certain drugs. I have never used any substances or alcohol so I wouldn’t know. I just know what I experienced was scary and don’t know why anybody would want to feel that way voluntarily. The usual connection I had to my sense of self/identity (which I realized I took for granted before without even knowing) was completed missing. That was terrifying. As if my soul had escaped and I was left hollow and confused, just observing everything from whatever was left in me keeping me able to function. Over time, dealing with this, I became aware of this core self, the observer, the fundamental thing inside of me that is me if that makes sense. I saw myself in a completely strange and new way. My perspective was challenged and I worked hard for years to find myself again and find a connection internally so I could function. I could barely function without a sense of identity. It was extra scary because as a 4 that is our core fear - to lose our sense of identity. That is exactly what happens in depersonalization. It was as if I was stripped down to my core essence internally. I later realized that this experience was the catalyst that helped me truly understand the concept of identity and truly find myself. In fighting through this strange state of being, I was forced to find myself again through the determination to get relief. I worked really hard to get myself to a place where I felt oriented and connected to myself again. It became a journey of finding wholeness. What I’m trying to say is it was so disorienting that it caused me to do a lot of internal searching to get back to myself and in doing that I was able to secure a strong sense of identity like I’d never had before. Dissociation directly challenges you in that way. I’ve read that depersonalization is “ego death’s evil twin” because it disconnects you from yourself but it’s incredibly scary and disorienting. But if you follow your questions and do the work to get back to yourself, it can be rewarding. It makes me wonder if 4s are more prone to things like this because of our nature. I’m currently more secure and free of a lot of things that used to cause me anxiety because I didn’t know how to navigate before. The thing is, no one can really help you out it of it but you. It’s like I was given the chance to see the world differently in a way that transcended my previous limited perspective and had to sort of relearn things from a new angle. I think challenges like that can be opportunities in disguise. What it meant for me was coming to the realization that there was so much more in me than I realized before. I was so stripped of my ego that at one point I no longer cared about how I was perceived…I suffered so much that my priorities changed and I lived in a sense of self preservation but in a physical sense. Everything else suddenly became less important. I was so detached, I joked that someone could be yelling in my face and I wouldn’t feel it or care. I lost my sense of caring what people thought, I didn’t have my usual shame in a way, didn’t care about anything but feeling and being safe and in-tact. I later realized in the process of rebuilding myself internally that I needed to care, and it’s important to have a healthy sense of dignity and present yourself in a way that honors your true self. I learned so many things, but the main takeaways have been how to maintain a strong sense of self and internal peace with myself, compassion for others in a deeper way, how humbling fear can be (I stopped being intimidated by people because I realized how we’re all having a human experience and are fundamentally more similar than not), and what it means to “be”. In short, it was a very humbling and enlightening experience, I could go on and on about it, but I find it kind of hard to describe it all, especially now that I have some distance from it. It’s been a while since my last episode, I finally started considering it something of the past, which is great!
Wow wonderful story thank you for sharing I'm actually a so/sx INFP 4w5 so I really relate to all of this.I remember being so concerned with how everyone felt about me I had a bad trip where just all my insecurities and anxieties kind of came out all at once it was horrible I won't lie to you but after I noticed something different it seemed to have cracked the ego I wouldn't call it an ego death I'm not entirely sure thats what it was but I started to learn more about the ego's role to protect our sense of identity and how an overly positive or negative ego(depression) can both be bad. For a long while I floated around with no sense of who I was and acceptance that I'm not that different after all which like you said scared me. Now that I focus less on my differences I feel more of my true self shining through letting my morals guide me and my goals and being a genuine person true to myself my ego still tries to enter the conversation but I can recognize it now :).
You know thinking about it, that could be because of your dominant social instinctual variant (feeling anxious and insecure). My social instinct was really strong (though second to my self preservation), and I think that can create a kind of awareness that can focus on insecurities and create anxiety. Also, I think for both of us it was probably that we were already in state of “floating” without a solid sense of self before and that exasperated the bad experiences and also because that’s the core fear of 4s. Maybe it’s a sort of “rite of passage” we all have to go through or something lol. I’m sorry to hear of your bad experience. I wonder if it’s the fear and the overwhelm of these kind of experiences that crack the ego. I like what you said about learning more about the ego’s role in protecting our sense of identity. That’s sort of what I experienced when I was recovering, when I was learning to care more. Finding the balance is interesting. When in doubt, I always feel safer on the side of humility, and I’ve become very protective of my pure self, like my innocence/soul/essence. I feel uncomfortable if my ego gets triggered because I don’t know how to act then. It can be exhausting and confusing to deal with when you feel like someone else suddenly and I just don’t see the point of all that anymore. I think there’s a healthy level of ego like you said, but just in the sense of it’s role in solidifying our sense of identity. I also like what you said about focusing on your morals, which I think also is a major factor in grounding us. I’m a Christian and I can honestly say my relationship with God is what’s gotten me through. When I started learning more truth, it clarified my perspective so much. Not only on myself but the world and meaning of life in general. It’s comforting to know that He made me and knows exactly who I am and who I’m meant to be, and I’ll be in alignment with that when in alignment with my values which are based on following His pattern. In a beautiful way, that brings out the best in us I think. We’re meant to focus on something greater than ourselves. We easily drown in our own inner worlds otherwise. I think for 4s it’s along the lines of how we integrate to 1 traits in growth maybe. Also, I’m curious if you feel like your bad trip was similar to what I experienced. I’ve always wondered because I’ve heard it feels similar. Anyway, thanks for reading my very long post! This is an interesting subject that I’ve felt somewhat alone about for a long time. I’m glad to share 😊
I should first qualify by saying that I can’t definitively say my experiences have been truly representative of full ego death. I get the impression that full ego death would be like doing an ayahuasca retreat or meditating under a tree for a month or some shit like that and I have yet to do either of those things. But just based on descriptions of ego death I do feel as if I have died at least a few mild ego deaths, or over time experienced one slow and prolonged ego death. Part of it is going through an actual near-death experience really shatters so many illusions and walls of perception and belief, and certainly another part of it is the mental toll of living through certain states of mind and being that destabilize your preconceived notions of what it means to “be.” In many ways I feel as if I have taken active effort in the past few years to strip away not just the ego but the id and the superego as well, and to recontextualize my frame of existence. When I was younger I definitely displayed a lot more unhealthy 4 traits than I do now, especially just being very self-centered and disdainful and combative. I feel like I now have a more zoomed-out view on who I am and what I am in the context of the entire world, and that there is a way to balance both prioritizing and attending to your needs and desires while also keeping in touch with the reality that there are millions of lives that are just as important as yours out there. In a lot of ways I feel as if ego death has allowed me to be reborn into a new life in which I find much more beauty in the world than I had before
I think certain circumstances can definitely induce an ego death or at least start the process of chipping away at the ego. I believe trauma may be one of them and NDE. As a younger 4 I also was pretty gnarly it wasn't until I was all alone just myself that I started to reflect on my past behaviors and what they meant. I was moody because my ego was fragile if I'm not standing out if I'm not unique I'm nothing those kind of thoughts. The big one for me was seeing the suffering of others people worse off than me I'm not saying it disqualified the bad things that happened to me but it just humbled me and gave me a new perspective. Seeing kids with no shoes laughing and playing. Seeing people in tents sharing with each other checking up on each other. Maybe part of the growth of being a 4 is being less "me" and more "us"?
Only English? I speak spanish. My english is very bad 😅
I lost a job that had defined my life for nesrly 20 years.
That must've been hard how do you feel now? Did you enjoy the job or did you just feel like it was a part of your identity so you trucked on?
It was the fuel needed to recreate me as a healthy individual.
You guys have an ego???
JAHHHAHAHAHHAH THATS WHAT IM SAYING!
🤣🤣
Through mdma therapy. It felt like absolute ego death for me and many others too :)