I was not technically speaking awake, but rather asleep when I wrote the email. I gave the university a detailed letter from my shrink, who has 35 years of experience and he knows other patients of his that have had the same experience of "sleep writing" so he himself not only got me off Ambien, but he is also prescribing less to other patients.

The content of the email is related to being triggered by an anniversary of a group rape that happened a long time ago and marked the resolution of the trauma for me. It's called "internalization of the aggressor" and that was so disturbing to me to deal with that I was in turmoil until it resolved itself. That is not "part of me" as far as character; it is part of traumatic responses I've endured.

I apologized to the student a total of 3 times and told her about the medication and it was not specifically directed at her, but she was the one I was talking to that day. She said she was comforted to hear that. And ever since then I have changed my behavior by not interacting with her at all, even though we share two classes.

What more can I possibly do? The attack on me by her came out of the blue, a full month after the email and 3 weeks after our last okay if not friendly exchange. I'm not the one causing any of the problems here. Nor am I retaliating. She attacked me and the University did nothing about it so I had to insist that they address this serious problem.

While I am assertive because I used to be a professor at UC Berkeley so refuse to be an "abject and passive" graduate student, I am professional and cooperative, not aggressive and so I didn't protest anything the investigator said to her face though it raised questions in my mind that I shared here. It is simply not true that all people's opinions are equally valid or are merely opinions and have no relation to truth. That is a myth that many share because we want to believe that everyone is equal. But everyone is not equal, except in terms of rights. Some people have gifts that others don't. Some people have faults that others don't. For instance, the student who attacked me has psychopatholgy but is not currently seeking treatment. While I didn't mention that, it does figure prominently in my mind. She is acting in ways that don't make sense and then pretending everything is okay. If she were in therapy, she could process her emotions instead of using people at the university to do so, which is what it looks like she is doing.

I am in therapy and have been in therapy since 1997, not because I'm symptomatic any longer (at least not often), but because it is psychoanalysis so I enjoy it as a deep and meaningful experience. I plan to do it as long as I live.

I'm also twice this student's age so have more interpersonal experience and am more mature, at least that is the word used by professors at the university in my evaluations. I wasn't all that fond of that word, but now that I see this student acting out and unable to accept apologies and changes in behavior and let the matter go, I am started to see this as an immature response, or at least as something I really don't understand.

None of this would be happening at all if she could just realize that that email was not my fault and excuse because I've done nothing else to bother her. Instead it's turned into "drama" that has cost me a lot in terms of dismissal from the practicum site, lots of additional meetings, questions raised about me in faculty meetings, plus the emotional distress from the attack, which leaves me a full week behind, under enormous stress without being able to sleep, eat, or concentrate.

I'm not starting a fight with her. I'm trying to protect myself because harm was done to me, and as far as I'm concerned, and my shrink thinks the same, this whole thing is blown way out of proportion if it's based on one email written when taking a sleep medication.