[archipelago]

A while ago I wrote that I had written a problematic email to a friend at my school while I was supposedly asleep having taken Ambien. Though I apologized to her, got off Ambien, and went back to as normal as possible, at least at school in terms of not bothering her anymore, even as extreme as not interacting at all, she has been unable to accept my apology or explanation that I was triggered and on medication at the time.

So she got started up a "vendetta" against me. First, even though we had two weeks afterwards with friendly interactions that were professional, she turned over the problematic email to her supervisor, which ended up with my being dismissed from the clinical site where I was working.

That caused me to have to go before a committee at school to check on the situation. But she took advantage of that and made it even worse by at the last minute adding a complaint against me that the committee will have to also consider.

She didn't stop there. I'm pretty sure she's bad mouthed me to my own professors and other students that used to like me.

Then out of the blue, after weeks of no contact, even though we share two classes, she verbally attacked me for 20 minutes, both personal things raised loudly in a public area, most of them distortions or false. She said 3 times that she wanted me out of her classes, maybe out of the program all together, and would not stop until that happened.

It was hostile and aggressive and intentionally designed to intimidate and threaten me. When I told her that she couldn't do this to me, that the University had rules and procedures and that is how it should be handled, she yelled that it wasn't happening fast enough and she would pursue it regardless of the University.

She cornered me at one point after all of this and launched into very private information I had revealed to her because we were once friends. She did this in public, stepped forward, is quite a bit taller than I am, and was clearly very hostile so I "froze" unable to move or speak.

While I wrote an account later on to the Program Director, the Program Director doesn't know me and only knows the other student's account in terms of a complaint against me so she dismissed even my desire to raise it, which was really upsetting because I felt unsafe and needed the University to respond to an urgent matter.

Finally after writing again, taking a whole week off from classes where I let other faculty know that I had been attacked but didn't mention names, the Program Director got back to me and said the University had hired an outside investigator to look into my claims.

I have to meet with the investigator on Thursday. I also have to meet with the committee involved in my dismissal on Tuesday. And I'm totally stressed out. The attack made me have diarrhea, vomiting, lack of sleep or ability to concentrate and I'm also a full week behind.

I wrote up accounts for both meetings so I don't have to do it as much in person, to protect myself, but I am very preoccupied by this, and having a really hard time. I'm hoping for the best, but they do now know about my history with PTSD and may think I am not suited for work in psychology, even though I have done so well so far and this whole thing is due to one student who is immature, not in therapy, and has something against me. Help!

[Open Eyes]

(((iota)))),

All you can do is be totally honest about the entire situation. It is scarey to think this other person might someday become a therapist, how awful because her cornering you like that was over reacting to the situation from what you have said about the incident.

I am so sorry that you had to experience a "known side effect" of a medication and even with your T writing a note, you are still being challenged so much.

All you can do is keep repeating the truth and when you get past this scenario, hopefully moving forward with your goal of becoming a psychologist you will consider the side effects of some of the medications with your patients.

Try not to get all upset about the fact that an investigator is being called in, just continue to be honest and see what comes of the investigation.

(((Hugs to bring calm)))

Open Eyes

[optimize990h]

I am sorry that this is happening to you. It quite bothersome when a person uses facts that only support her view of the situation and ignores/minimizes other facts that don't support her side of things.

In addition, the verbal abuse is disrespectful and there should have been a neutral party present if she had anything to discuss with you.

The point that the aggressive way the other party pursued this type of action towards you definitely does not put any of the other parties(the woman instigator and the university officials)in the most positive light.

No doubt, the university legal consultants felt the potential for legal action from you as being high enough to get an outside investigator to take your statement.

I would suggest that you take notes of the meeting with the investigator and ask for the flow of information(this person writes a report who will able to read this information and who will be verbally getting information-access to information).

I would also suggest that you get the investigator to sign whatever your notes of the meeting you have and the access to information that acknowledges this person as understanding and agreeing to the written materials derived from that meeting. I would ask for investigator's id and printed name as well as signature.

I outline this so you don't feel intimidated by that meeting. If anyone asks why this is necessary, just vaguely state an advisor strongly suggested that this should be done.(After all, it is just you with all these other people judging or assessing you and the allege incident. You should have someone "covering your back".

I offer you these suggestions-take what you like and leave the rest behind.

[unaluna]

Have you gotten yourself a lawyer yet? I think I would. Her confronting you like that seems way out of line.

[archipelago]

Thank you for all the support and advice. It is so meaningful, especially feeling so vulnerable and not really getting proper support from the University. I haven't gotten a lawyer but I do have free legal benefits through my husband's benefits so I might if they don't take my account seriously.

What I did was look up the term I initially used "verbal assault" and found out more information about the legal rules about that. There are laws in other countries about it but in the US this kind of assault is known as "Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress."

So in my prepared document for the investigator, I start with that definition and the 4 conditions that have to be present to bring it to the legal level of a tort. I say that I'm not at this time pursuing it legally, but instead using the legal definitions to understand the seriousness of the student's actions and the effects.

I have an additional letter from my shrink saying I suffered from extreme distress, both observed by him and reported to him that includes physiological as well as emotional signs of distress.

I think I'll start the meeting with the investigator off by showing him the letter first, saying it would be traumatic for me to recount and therefore have to relive the experience so I'm going to insist that he read a written account of the incident that is very specific and accurate, so much so that I really don't think the other student would be able to remember the incident in that kind of detail.

I saw her for the first time today in class. She was acting as if nothing was wrong. She is very competitive and thinks of herself as queen-like in her command of the place. I didn't feel a sense of vengeance before, but when I saw her today I admittedly felt the desire to get her into some serious trouble.

The University has acknowledged so far that her behavior was "unacceptable" but they haven't moved much more than that. The rules of conduct at the University are very strict. I believe that however things go with the investigation, since it is a he-said, she-said situation, that there is enough there to warrant her going before the same committee to face potential actions about violations.

The main reason I want this is that the University right now feels like a toxic environment because this student gossips a lot and has probably maligned my character to faculties, officials, and other students. Until that is addressed, I won't feel entirely safe there. And she is so unpredictable since this attack came out of the blue after weeks and weeks of no contact, after a rather friendly last interaction, that I think she is unstable. She has admitted to having a diagnosis for which she is not currently in therapy for.

And she bend and breaks rules to have the appearance of getting good grades. She's half my age and is obviously not taking any responsibility for her own internal processes. Instead she's using officials and the University as ways to process her emotions. Whereas I've said nothing about her to anyone at all. I'm a Zen Buddhist so I have taken vows about not speaking that way about others.

I have the suspicion, though I won't admit this publicly, that she sees me as competition because I am the only student who does as well or better than she does. She admitted to being prone to hostile envy. I've had lots of experience with other women who do things that are aggressive to undermine me. I think she is exploited the fact of the unintentional email to claim she's a victim and get lots of sympathy so she can get me out of her way. She just recently took on a job that will affect her performance and I think it was at that point that she decided, rather calculating, to use this to her advantage to get attention and get me dismissed and also just before the committee meeting about my dismissal, raise charges against me.

The committee did already meet. I think it went well for the most part, but these are psychologists not psychiatrists so they had a really hard time taking in that the email in question was written as a side effect basically when I was in a semi-sleep state. They simply don't know enough about medication so think everything is only behavior. That was frustrating, because I had to say it over and over again, even though I had provided a statement with legal precedent about the side effects and a detailed letter from my psychiatrist. Still they wanted to say that the email was a violation of codes of conduct. I had to stop them and say how could I be held responsible for something I wrote while asleep? And according to the school's own rules, if you do something unintentional it is not considered a violation. I may be considered an "infraction" that needs a warning, but anything else is not part of the rules.

[unaluna]

I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

[archipelago]

hankster, why may I ask do you see the light at the end of the tunnel? Just curious.

This stressful and upsetting week at school is finally over. I met with the outside investigator who was a woman. She was also an attorney, but she was working as a "fact finder" for the University and her report goes to the University's legal counsel, whom I didn't know were involved or why exactly.

She read my statement, asking questions along the way. I couldn't tell what her reactions were; she was super professional so was able to mask reactions. She did nod a lot at the beginning when I described the legal definition of "intentional infliction of emotional distress."

What I didn't expect and no one told about is that this investigation which was supposed to be about my own complaint raised against this student's behavior toward me, was also partly an investigation of me and her claims of complaint which I don't really know what they are apart from the problematic email.

So I had to defend myself against these claims, which I already had done in another meeting earlier in the week. I didn't have any materials other than a copy of a signed letter from my shrink about the side effects of the Ambien and the out of character email.

I emphasized that since he has worked for 35 years, it wasn't just any opinion but an expert one. She didn't seem able to take that in too well. She told me her view was based on the parable of the elephant, where all the blind men feel different parts and make certain claims about it. That made me uncomfortable since I know that parable well. It is "relativistic" in the sense that it says that all opinions are only opinions and are all equal, when that is patently false. Some people are more valid and accurate than others. Some people are motivated to lie or minimize, like the student who is pursuing this vendetta to get me kicked out of school.

I did end on strong note that the investigator nodded to. I said what more could I possibly do but apologize and change my behavior to show I was leaving her alone. I ended by saying if the student had accepted my apology and let this go, none of this would be happening.

[Perna]

I am a little worried that your strenuous protestations almost seem as out of character as your writing/sending the email. The investigator/lawyer's elephant remark made some sense to me relative to that. If there's an "innocent" mistake made while you are on Ambien, that would be "all" there would be and you would conceivably be confused/puzzled at the uproar made. But you have a very detailed "counter-attack" happening which belies your innocence?

I kind of doubt we can write and send emails that we don't have in us. Yes, if you were wholly awake you would not think of putting what you thought into words and sending it to this woman, it would get you in trouble! But here you are in trouble because you did write and send such an email and though you apologized, you now have this woman taking it out on you. Instead of trying to appease her though, calm her and being upset at what she is doing, you are fighting her fire with your own, at the same time you are trying to defend yourself from the formal upshot of having written the email. It doesn't come off cleanly to me.

Is the letter from your psychiatrist about the Ambien causing you to lose inhibition or about the damage this other woman has caused by being in your face and trying to wreck you? If your "friends" can be turned by this woman's opinions and ugly words, they do not sound like very good friends? I'd leave my reputation in my better, longer-standing, experience with ongoing relationships hands and concentrate on clearing the official damage caused by sending the email.

[unaluna]

The lIght at the end of the tunnel Is, the complainant giving you cause to complain. At least you were on drugs - what's her excuse?? Ie for shouting at you out of nowhere. Wtf?

[Perna]

The only way you can show you did not send the email on purpose is by acting differently from this woman who is attacking you on purpose. At the moment, from outside, it looks confusing and as if you could be trying to get-away-with an aggressive act on this woman (sending an ugly email and saying your drugged evil twin did it, not you). If you act horrified at having sent the email and apologetic and "plead" with the school to give you the lighter reprimand for having sent the email with a letter from your doctor saying the prescribed Ambien lowered your inhibitions (not like you were out drinking all night and sent the email under the effects of alcohol), it will have to be over; the other woman won't have any way to add more to the fire because the "official" pronouncement will have been made.

[Open Eyes]

I agree with Perna, and I was thinking along the same lines. You have shown regret and provided a letter from a professional that can say you were prescribed the drug and it has these known side effects.

The behavior of the other person is showing that she is alot more unstable IMO and she has even taken drastic measures to act out and harass and corner you. You, on the other hand have shown regret and have been honest and straight forward. How is "she" as a future psychologist going to advise a patient on something like this, when she is "acting out" and doing so improperly?

If this "review" board is going to handle this correctly, they will take all of these behaviors into consideration and not just the email itself. Even is "she" is bad mouthing you to piers and professors, that could be considered unacceptable by whomever is reviewing this problem. If this has been the only thing you have done and you have not made any "harassing" moves in addition to this towards her, then her taking this incident and making it into a huge deal could cause "her" to look more "unstable" and "questionable".

None of us can take back things we have said, we, being human are bound to make mistakes. All we can do is "learn" from whatever mistakes we make and move on and as I mentioned, this is something that you can learn from and use it to help any patient who may be struggling with something similar. And the possibility of you guiding a patient through something like this is great because of the field you have chosen.

You could also add that into how you feel about this entire situation as well. You can say that you are doing your best with honestly regretting your actions and following the procedure and being respectful and honest.

[archipelago]

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.

[(JD)]

They've had so many problems with "Ambien" (myself included as one of the original driving/eating while asleep on Ambien ) they now are marketing it under another name I think.

[archipelago]

Thanks for all of this feedback. I wish the people at the University would accept the facts about this medication and not continue to claim that what I did was an intentional violation of conduct rules, but they are only psychologists so they see things in terms of behavior and don't know very much about medications and chemical changes in the brain that are all over the place if you simply do a Google search.

I'm still unable to get enough sleep, partly due to all the agitation and distress, and also due to the fact that the new sleep medication doesn't work as well.

That's affecting me very negatively right now because when I get enough good sleep, I can let things go more easily and re-orient myself. Right now I can barely concentrate and am overwhelmed by all the events and how out of hand things have become. Also overwhelmed by how much work I have to do with very little time.

The program is very demanding even when you are in perfect condition. Though I'm not quite as emotional distressed today, I am feeling like this whole thing is somehow very unfair and can't believe it is actually happening. I hope that doesn't mean I'm going in the direction of dissociation, but perhaps sometimes dissociation from the emotions involved and feeling the whole thing is unreal can be protective. I'm not sure.

I do have a session later today so I'll have a chance to get a friendly hug and someone who really cares and understands me deeply. He is a very cheerful, optimistic person, so just being around him helps me push away negative things.

[archipelago]

I was late to my session because I fell asleep while trying to study, that's how exhausted I am. My shrink greeted me with a long bear hug and when I told him I had fallen asleep, he said it was a good sign, that maybe my body's stress responses were starting to calm down enough so that I could rest. He joked that even soldiers in the battlefield need to take a nap. And then continued the metaphor, by saying the battle isn't over yet, so I shouldn't give up or think it is going to come out badly.

I told him that it was all feeling absurd now that such a big drama was being made of this when if the student had just realized I was on medication and accepted my apology, then none of this would be happening at all.

You are right to suggest that she is the one who looks unstable if she is unable to let this go after 3 apologies and changes in my behavior to show that I'm not even making eye contact, let alone interacting. What more could reasonably be asked of me? And I did all of this without even her asking me to. Her first reaction to the inappropriate email was rather mild. She just said she felt conflicted, that she liked talking to me and appreciated that I was open about sexuality and there were places to have such discussions, but she didn't want anymore of that kind of talk.

I'm the one who reacted with more repulsiveness to the email and took strong measures to make changes, which I wrote her two days later when I finally saw the email I had sent. And I followed through with them, with one exception, when I found out that she had tried to get me in trouble at the clinical site, I wrote to her while upset to find out why she had done that and did she realize the consequences of her actions. In that note I took time out to tell her I was not sexually attracted to her, which is something she just made up; it wasn't in the problematic email. And further explained some of the effects of trauma since she seemed not to understand. The University now has this email as well, but I don't know whether or not they think much of it since it really hasn't been discussed in the meetings. But the day after, when I found out I was dismissed, I saw her at school and asked to speak with her to let her know since she and I were partners in leading groups. I apologized about adding stress to her life unintentionally, let her off the hook, not because I really meant it, but because she had this gross grin when I told her I was dismissed so I realized she was happy that it had this effect so I realized that she was not to be trusted and I wanted no more interactions with her at all so I wanted to close it all off so there was nothing left. She actually said she was sorry I was hurting and said maybe a medical rather than punitive result would occur. That's where we left it. So her attack on me some 3 or 4 weeks later was completely unexpected because we had no more contact and there was nothing there to explain why she had so radically changed from seeming friendly to hostility and a grudge that she was pursuing using the University.

I now have to simply wait for all the various people involved to let me know what the decisions are, which could take weeks, and I won't really know all of what went on, just the final determination.

I actually think in the case of my dismissal from the clinical site, that committee will probably not take strong action, though it is up to the Program Director, who knows more about the student's view than mine. And since she didn't take sufficient action when I reported the verbal attack later on, I had to insist that the University do more. So she may not be on my side at all. She has sole power to accept or reject what the committee recommends.

Since there is also at the same the outside investigator, she may wait to get that report as well. That report goes to the University's legal counsel so I won't know anything about it at all. While I believe that the investigator did understand me pretty well, I don't know what others have said to her to undermine or change the story. She didn't seem to think that the two letters from my doctor were crucial evidence since she read them quickly and let them drop to the floor. I did say that this was a school of psychologists who didn't have expertise in medications so my doctor was not just any old opinion but an expert. She did take lots of notes about positive things I said, like my ability to be professional at school and separate out my emotions because I used to be a professor at Berkeley so learned how to do that there.

I just have to be patient now and try to get this off my mind. There's nothing I can do about it now anyway. And I have so much work to do that I really need to move on. It's hard though. So much has happened and it all feels wrong, some of it traumatic, so I'm not exactly in great shape, but I am trying and I guess that's all I can do for now.

Definately have your doctor write a letter saying that you were prescribed the drug that you were on and that will have merit. I had a manger where i usded to work slander me behind my back and cause trouble amongst the people that I worked with. I had known her personally for years and she knew personal things about my life. It was devastaing to me and I quit my job, I was an emotional basketcase because of it. It will work out for you. warm thoughts.

[archipelago]

I'm sorry that that happened to you. I know that can happen because not only is it happening to me now, but it's happened to me before. I'm sometimes overtrusting with individuals that end up being dangerous in the end. That is part of the scenario that goes along with PTSD sometimes, but can also be rooted in deeper issues related to how your original experiences formed you to not have the self-protective mechanisms in place.

For me, unfortunately, since my mother was terribly cold and my father absent, I never really learned certain things that normal development requires to make sure that you have the right kinds of defenses up to protect yourself. This had lead to me being prone to more dangerous situations, including multiple rapes and molestations, mostly by people that I knew and thought were trust-worthy. I tend to have a "freeze" response so I didn't fight these assaults. And I've suffered as a consequence because I didn't tell anyone, ashamed and feeling that I was at fault.

Now I know better, but it's taken lots of work on myself both in therapy and just my own reading and writing to come to terms with how my original development was so harsh and neglectful that I ended up being more prone to these sorts of experiences that would later on result in complex PTSD.

In this particular case, since I am relatively unsymptomatic now, I'm fighting back against it more than I did before. I also had to quit a job, as a professor at Berkeley, when there was a cloud over my head and the PTSD symptoms were first really making an impact.

But this time, I am raising the issue of slander directly, both with the Program Director and the outside investigator. If the University doesn't act on this potentially serious allegation, I will probably quit and then turn around and sue them.

There is case that my shrink told me about, where a student, who had a psychotic break at Stanford, later on applied to the medical school. His undergraduate advisor was on the selection committee. He successfully sued for all of the earnings that he would have made as a doctor if he had been admitted to Stanford.

My shrink said that case was so significant that he thought my current University program was worried that I might do something like that if they took drastic action. I never threatened any legal actions, but now it is in my mind because I'm now 50 and my husband is 87. This is my last chance to have a career that will provide for me because though my husband is quite healthy, I have to acknowledge the fact that he isn't going to live much longer. My only income now is a small disability check. There's no way that I could survive on my own unless I have a chance to finish my training and establish my own career.

If the University does something drastic, I won't be able to pursue my career path of becoming a therapist because no one else will accept me if my record is bad from there.

So this is a big deal. It's weighing heavily on my mind. I still can't get my concentration back so I can study for the week ahead. And I'm starting to get angry at the whole thing. I didn't really do anything wrong. It's not really my fault that I have PTSD, was triggered and so when I took the medication I wrote something sexual that I didn't really have much control over.