Ishtar wrote:

But, frankly, with the amount of detail that you're writing about private matters to strangers combined with your defensiveness and inflated self-esteem as well as a need to fix everything RIGHT NOW, I'd be concerned that you're in a hypomanic state right now.

But I'm not your doc, just a fellow sufferer.

***Yeah, I'm a bit hypo right now. It will pass. It always does.

***I have always read like an open book ('you're writing about private matters to strangers,), I have nothing to hide. Its not like I got a meth lab in my basement and I am trying to drum up new customers...

I view it just as the 'arena of ideas' and find it 'strange' (but all too common) why people have to personalize everything. Maybe I have a touch of Asperger's and that makes it hard for me to be more empathic. I don't know. But I do know that about 98% of my students 'love' me . . . so I must not be half bad. Every month, I will usually have at least one student that I taught 10, 15 even 20 years ago come up to me and excitedly say, "Hello! Remember me Mr. X?!" We live in a small town. About 20k.

And, I get along with my peers at work. And I have had my two best friends -- one for over 30 years, the other for over 20 years . . . so again . . . i must not be half bad.

Alas! I'm being defensive again! Save me Epititus!

"Only the morally weak feel the need to defend themselves!!!"

Thanks Epititus!!!