I am a professor at the college level. I recently started a new class where I had a student who triggered something in me.

Before any readers get ahead of themselves, please continue reading.

I did find the student pretty. Yes. However there can be any number of attractive students around. It's no big deal. My mind also went to a place of discomfort and melancholy. It was a surreal emotional response because I didn't understand why this one student would cause me to feel that way. This student also was smiling at me a lot throughout the entire class which caused me to feel distracted.

I realized shortly after that she reminded me of some vague memory of a girl I used to like. That's what my mind was telling me but I couldn't recall exactly who.

Well, a week later I realized the student looked like an old friend of mine who was recently diagnosed with schizophrenia. A friend I have been unable to get in touch with over the past month :/

In a way I'm relieved to put the pieces together so that I don't act so strangely around the student but it's weird how my subconscious mind went there. Like it knew what was going on but my conscious mind did not.

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I've been under a lot of stress lately and this was an unsettling experience for me. I feel worry and sadness about my old friend and to be all of a sudden triggered like that in some subconscious way was difficult.