I've been struggling for the past three years with my obsession for my professor. It's pretty unhealthy and has even become delusional at times. It's definitely a form of withdrawing fantasy.

But it's not primarily sexual. He's married and in his 50s. It's a mix between desiring to be his friend, lover, wife and daughter. Or maybe to be HIM I don't know. I think it's mostly a desire to part of his world, especially his family. I've met them a couple times and he talks about them a lot and I really idolize them. Today I found a pic of the family online (yes, I was cyberstalking) and it just made me so *happy* but also so *desirous.* I've been crying. I want something like this. I want to make this for myself so badly.

They all listen to good music together, on vinyl records, and laugh a lot and have the most beautifully, tastefully decorated house. And they're not overbearing because they also watch lowbrow TV and sincerely enjoy it. But they also read books together and it's like my perfect family in every way, right down to their clothing.

In the photo I saw his wife was teaching the kid how to sew and she looked so beautiful and simple, no makeup. I've met her and seen some pictures and she is the most beautiful, honest looking woman. Highly educated but not at all obnoxious. Not rich but not poor. Kind, down-to-earth, confident, maybe a little reserved, doesn't need to be the center of attention. A little whimsical and crafty too but extremely tasteful. She just seemed so calm, but warm as well, and genuine in a way I don't think I'll ever be. She seems to like herself and yet in a humble way. I feel like deep down she is who I might have been without my mental illnesses.

Maybe I'm in love with her, too!

I just wish I could start over. I feel so wild and emotional and even trashy. I hate how promiscuous I've been simply for attention. I hate that I go to these extremes and I'm starting to just be so fucking sick of who I am and the lie I bought into my whole life that my suffering and insanity was my source of "specialness." Because this woman is so fucking special not because she has suffered but because she exudes some quality and I have, or had, that quality too but I thought it wasn't good enough.

I am damaged goods at this point and I feel like it's my fault in some way. I've been playing the abused and weak girl role my whole life and I've come to cling to it with affection. I've deliberately re-traumatized myself over and over. I basically got myself raped. Then I keep doing it over and over. For most of my life, I kept thinking that if I suffered enough I'd somehow become "good." Maybe I thought that if I was low enough someone else would finally have no choice but to notice, and to rescue and love me. When I was in middle school I remember writing this "plan" in a notebook called "plan to purposely lower your self esteem." It included writing a list of everything I hated about myself. I also thought the more I got yelled at or assaulted by men the better I'd become. I'd get all the bad stuff "beaten out of me" or something. But the opposite has happened.

I'm emotional, extremely nervous all the time, self-sabotaging, oversharing, attention-whore. I fall in love with married men and sleep with strangers and let them do whatever they want to me and I get high off of the feeling?! I talk to fast and overshare and say outlandish things to get noticed, to feel special. And I'm sick of being the girl who hates herself and apologizes all time. No one wants to be in a relationship with that. THEY WANT HER, DUH?! Who the fuck wouldn't? I'm the worst of the worst and the opposite of that beautiful pure woman that is his wife.

I wish I could take away my past. I'm angry at my parents for not being a family, with traditions, and for screaming and hitting and biting each other and for passing on these horrible genes with mental illnesses on all sides. I'm being dramatic again, I know and I'm sorry.

I feel like I am something people should stay away from, toss to the side, something ugly and withering. I'm actually so fucking messed up in the head I cannot even admit to you all the extent of my transgressions. I fear that I can only feel shame. I want to turn to God for moral and spiritual guidance but I don't agree with the premise of religion. It's too much like the fantastical symptoms of my mental illness. I need to be like her. I will do whatever it takes. But it just feels like I cannot be anything other than myself. Trash. Wasted potential.