Emotionally stressful encounter with student

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.

Thanks for sharing that. It's crazy how your emotions can hit you before your brain even has the chance to process why- then you figure out the why and get the validation for the feeling.

When I get that way I'm also reminiscing, usually, about situations or people from my past. Replaying and modifying conversations to say the things I thought I should have said after the fact... do you do that too?

Good work identifying what was hidden deep in your mind. You brought it to the surface and solved the conundrum. Your friend is in your thoughts consciously now and you were able to acknowledge your feelings.