Friday, April 26, 2013

Depressed and Needy

Dear public, online diary,

I am totally miserable. I am depressed, lethargic, behind in 2 of my elective classes, and I have become infatuated with two men out of my reach.

I am experiencing a nasty chemical imbalance that makes me feel sleepy 24/7. I sleep 10 hours or longer. I sleep through my classes. I make it to a few classes, come home, and fall asleep again. I have no drive to leave bed. Bed is warm, bed is comforting, bed is not the hostile outside world.

I am leaving my current out-patient treatment and going back to the County out-patient center; the same one that turned me away so many times despite my florid psychosis. I am very agitated about being moved back there. It makes me sad. It makes me fearful. It makes me utterly pissed off that I have to play nice with a system that sent me to the brink of suicide.

I  hate my depression. At least when I am manic I can get a doctor's note excusing me from class. Depressed, I cannot even get to the doctor because I sleep through all the appointments.

When I am depressed, unlike some people, I tend to seek out other people for sexual comfort. I use contraceptives and I get myself tested before and after each new romance, but I really wish I could not feel this urgent need to possess another person's body.

I go on sprees. Shopping sprees, food binge sprees, sex sprees...I think I am just seeking a little extra serotonin through self-gratification.

Now, here I am again, depressed and needy. I try to stay away from men but it's so hard. I tend to seek egoist males who try to dominate me.

For instance, I have developed feelings for a professor of mine. I've had him as a professor for 4 classes already. During his office hours he has this way of correcting me that is a little different than the way he corrects others. With the other students he smiles and says that their ideas are a possibility but....[here he gently tells them to consider another idea]. With me he just sternly says don't do that, no. I wanted to do a paper on topic 'y' and he told me to do it on topic 'x'. End of discussion, he said topic 'x' and his tone was final.

This is not just my imagination. As part of my therapy for my paranoid symptoms, I learned to look for evidence that a concern of mine is valid. So, I looked for evidence. I have listened to how he interacts with the other 15 students in my grad class and compared it to his manner of discourse with me. I have observed his politeness, his gentleness, his openness to the ideas of the other students. With me, he sternly tells me no, don't do that, don't believe that theory, don't listen to the author of the textbook; listen to me. As an undergraduate he singled me out during class to ask how I was doing on my in-class assignment. I smiled and nodded, shuffled my papers, but he saw through me and told me that the material only got more difficult and to come to office hours for help. I knew he was doing me a favor, but I felt like I was getting preferential treatment. I feel like he doubts my intelligence and that he feels the need to act like a father and tell me what to do. I actually like it. I like his controlling behavior. It makes me feel like he sees me as a distinct person, even if he thinks I am a lesser person than my peers. I crave his attention. I like being chastised for my outlandish and improbable ideas. I like that he has a PhD and that he is smarter than I am. It makes me feel like I should obey him, like I should play the role of an intellectual submissive.

Lately, he has been ignoring my emails and this forces me to seek him out in person after class. He then tells me to see him during office hours instead because he has someplace to be (perfectly understandable, but because of my attachment to him I would much rather he just reply to my emails with an email). Just last week I sent him an email about my paper (now about topic 'x' and not my chosen topic). He didn't respond. I let it go for 5 days. Then, I just decided to go in and see him during office hours. I was nervous and uncomfortable because I am so infatuated with him. I did not sit down in the chair in his office and instead started to ramble on about my paper while standing up. I really wanted to leave. "Sit," he said. "Sit, sit." I felt like a pet dog. I sat. We talked. He loaned me a book. I thanked him and left. I think I just nailed what has been bugging me about this student-teacher dynamic. I am his pet dog and that is what I want to be.

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