I'm still surprised myself (and feel grateful) that I realized that I and my life had been totally hijacked by the ego until it caused me unbearable suffering and I started to wake up. It was about four and a half years ago. I can't say yet that I've fully awakened, but I can at least notice every time the ego tries to control me, especially my mind, and my life.
Any problem is at its worst when you are unware that you have a problem. Many people, including myself until I started to wake up, seem unaware that they are deeply trapped in the prison of their egoic mind. Nevertheless they continue this life as prisoners of their own egoic mind as their egos haven't given them a fatal blow and made them hit the rock bottom, which in turn gives the egos a fatal blow.
I feel I'm waking up for the first time from the mental prison of the mainstream media in what I consider the most belligerent country in the world and its allies. Several months ago I started to question their narrative and check several conscientious investigative journalists in these countries themselves.
These courageous people, who are often ignored and even silenced in the mainstream media outlets in their own countries, have shown me that I had been totally brainwashed by these media outlets. I've stopped checking mainstream broadcasts, newspapers and newsmagazines in these countried as I've completely lost my trust in them.
Probably the biggest discovery in this process of waking up is that these countries and their mainstream media have been unfairly demonizing quite a few countries and their respective leaders. At least two countries are being demonized in the real time. Naturally, those who only consume such media outlets also demonize these countries and their leaders blindly without actually checking their respective narratives in their originals.
When I recently started to check a few state-owned media outlets in one of these two demozined countries with utmost caution, I was surprised to discover soon that its narrative matches what the above mentioned investigative journalists in the countries that demonize it and sounds far more convincing.
The very fact that some of the state-owned media outlets of this country are censored by those that demonize it (but the former doesn't reciprocate by censuring the latter) paradoxically gives additional credibility to the former and its narrative as it's inconvenient to the latter in brainwashing those who are challenged in their media literacy.
It didn't take me long to notice paralles between those who are trapped in their egoic mind and those who are trapped in the narrative of certain mainstread media outlets. Just as I can't convince that former that they are prisoners, so can't I convince the latter that they are prisoners.