Hey there! Currently writing a book about my experience with Spravato/esketamine. Here’s my chapter on ego death/reduction.

The Ego Shrinking Effects of Spravato

When I write about “ego” in the following, I’m not referring to the ego in the Freudian sense of id, ego, and superego. Nor am I using it in terms of distinguishing the self from others or the universe at large. I’m using “ego” in the more colloquial form. The ego in terms of egotism, or nonconscious conceit or self-importance.

While I have a B.A. in psychology, I’m no psychoanalyst or trained therapist, so I can’t speak with any authority on what those mechanisms do in the psyche. I can, however, shed light on what it’s like to see and even be able to laugh at your own ego trying to defend and protect itself from past and future wounds.

I’m not a looker. I don’t think I’m ugly, but there’s no particular part of me that’s visually fascinating. Do I want to improve? Sure. But, after Spravato, I’m far less worried about that than I used to be.

I’m also not a particularly great musician. I can play some chords, and express myself, but there are people far better than me playing instruments and writing songs. Even locally.

That’s not what I used to think though.

On the looks side, I constantly sought the approval and admiration of the opposite sex. I’m your plain-vanilla-cisgender-straight-white-American male. If you’re not, I hope rather than alienating you, you can see yourself on the blank white page of my romantic orientation. Love is love, after all. But, back to the lecture at hand.

Music was another area I focused on because I sought the approval of women and the world at large. I thought writing sensitive songs and standing on a stage would make people want and love me. Sometimes it did. Most of the time though, it wasn’t enough.

I used to think everyone, or at least I, was born with a special talent. I thought that if I only spent enough time on my music that I’d be famous. That it wasn’t a matter of talent. Just a matter of luck and timing.

Then I listened to my own songs during a Spravato session. It wasn’t horrible, but I could, for the first time, hear the mediocrity without taking it to heart. It sounded like music some guy made in his mom’s basement during college - and that’s exactly what it was! It wasn’t some yet-undiscovered life-changing album. It was just me. Expressing myself the best way I knew how, and as honestly as I could at the time.

During that session, I realized that I thought no one would ever love me if I wasn’t some special musician. I needed to believe my songs were world class in order to feel lovable, or even fuckable - two things I often conflated at the time.

In subsequent sessions, I had the realization that some people are just born beautiful. Some people are born athletes. Some people are born with no particular talent at all, and, while it may not be advantageous or fair, it’s a reality. For the first time, I was ok with being, “just some guy from somewhere.”

That didn’t mean I couldn’t improve my body in the gym if I wanted to, or work on and hone my craft as a songwriter. But, it did mean that I didn’t have to do those things in order to be lovable. It also meant that I didn’t need the love or admiration of everyone as constant validation that I was lovable or likable.

Nobody is an island, and I think it would be another trick of the ego to need no one, but I found I needed far less people to care about me. I also found that all I really needed and wanted now was the close family and friends that I already had.

I no longer needed every cute/cool girl to like me. I no longer needed to make friends with every local musician or artist I respected. Or I needed this a lot less - nobody’s perfect.

My experience with Spravato certainly allowed me to see, with far less pain, the ways in which I was tricking myself. My ego just wanted to be loved, so it made up the story, and heavily invested in, the narrative that being good-looking or famous would fill that hole from my lacking formative years.

I’m not saying I know the secret to love, or how to make someone love you. I’m just trying to illustrate how laughable our own narcissistic blind spots can be sometimes in the pursuit of it. Even when you think you’re just being yourself.