Is self-esteem a feeling based fantasy?
I was dreaming for a longer time than usual last night. It was a very unpleasant experience of displacement, invalidation and an absence of understanding or knowing. A nightmare in the morning.
In the first part I was in a workshop space where I worked independently, seeking to solve the problems given us by the organization we worked for.
Something had changed in the order and responsibility of our task and purpose. The supervisor was a friend of mine—we respected one another, and then he was no longer there. His leaving left an emptiness of leadership and broke the connection of trust and respect with everyone in the shop. I became marginalized and lost their respect for my purpose and place.
I kept trying to clean up around my familiar area, getting organized and focusing on my work. It kept getting disrupted and more cluttered with others stuff, as my work area wasn’t being respected as my space. I was frustrated and sought to get clarity from the new supervisor . . . he wasn’t interested in viewing me as relevant. This went on and on, I felt I only had the space because I was being tolerated.
No matter what I did I couldn’t connect to the people and organization. I took on a project to demonstrate my skills to the new boss by giving him an outline and description of the process. He didn’t respond and it went into an ambiguous nowhere. He was out of reach.
The next thing . . .
I was on a train with others from the shop, traveling to a large operations center for training in something new. When the train reached the station there were a couple of hundred people all heading for their destinations that related to their respective organization. All were heading for different places they were not familiar with. The station was elevated above the street, and as I looked down I saw a stairway. I decided I would use it to find my way.
The arrangement on the ground was a series of segments, each having an association with other organizations, all being different from each other. I was now separated from my group and was trying to find directions where we were supposed to go. No one seemed to know anything. I tried to tell them, but I couldn’t remember the official name of our organization.
Before long I was completely disoriented. I was lost and unable to communicate with anyone. I didn’t understand what I should do next.
I walked around carrying my belongings and no place to put them. I didn’t know how to get back to my group. I had no idea where they had gone.
I felt extremely empty and was growing more desperate. I was completely lost with no idea or way to go back either to the station or having any way to connect with anyone or anything—I didn’t even know what it was I wanted. I had no idea of what to do next or how to connect with others who would understand me.
I thought that I might go back and reconstruct what I was doing before I left the platform, but I couldn’t recognize the past, the present, nor the future. I have never felt such a disconnection, the feeling of being completely lost in space.
I awakened a bit and felt I should be able to resolve this condition in understanding, but I couldn’t. I struggled with waking up in this state, feeling frightened in its emptiness. I have never felt like this before. I was completely lost in every sense of oriented time, place and understanding.
I haven’t yet resolved this, but I think it has to do with an actual psychic fracture.
Living within the psychic world of humanity can sometimes lead to feelings of being isolated and alone—many are lost in emptiness.
I had no understanding of what I was doing, nor of what was happening to me. I felt completely disoriented in an invalidation of the functioning of one’s self.