Limerence & Love "Addiction"

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How can something that feels so good begin to feel so bad? When you’re in limerence with someone who can’t or doesn’t reciprocate, you can find yourself in a living nightmare.

Limerence can be the beginning feelings of love - and when it is reciprocated, there is no other feeling quite like it on earth. When limerence is NOT reciprocated, or there is confusion, mixed signals or ambiguity, you become caught in the negative limerence cycle, which is both damaging to your self esteem as well as your heart. You can become addicted to the highs - when you feel as though the person you are in love with reciprocates. If you feel this sporadically, or intermittently, you are then in a pattern of intermittent reinforcement, which is the most addictive kind of psychological conditioning. This is why people get addicted to gambling and slot machines. Sometimes you might “win” big and the flood of dopamine and feel good hormones and neurotransmitters tells your body to keep going.

The truth is, you’re in pain. You don’t want to “win big sometimes” in love. You want to feel secure, grounded, and that you can lean into the person you love and trust with your heart and soul.

Limerence and love addiction can fall into the same category because of the cycle of self-abandonment that happens in both. When you begin to only rely on another person for your sense of steadiness and feeling good, you will always be at the mercy of someone else. You begin to lose sight of yourself, your talents. Passions. Goals. What you like about yourself. Your strengths. Everything revolves around getting a hit of your LO’s attention to feel OK.

This is not love. This is a grasping for something that you long ago felt like you couldn’t get or didn’t deserve. This feels familiar, like something just out of reach. This feels like “love means longing” or “I can never be fully loved.”

These are the narratives your mind made up a long time ago and you are still playing out now, as an attempt at a do over. Limerence can be a way of feeling these feelings in a safe way. You don’t risk the same vulnerability that a mutually involved relationship demands. You get to feel the same feelings you are probably used to: feeling rejected and feeling like you are not worthy. This is no longer the truth, but you may cling to this because it’s been part of your identity.

The cure? Facing what you’re afraid of - a mutual relationship where you have to be vulnerable and intimate with someone who has the capacity to love you back in the same way you know that you are capable of. Limerence has shown you the depths of how much you can love… that’s not the deficit. Learning to be more comfortable in the face of real intimacy and vulnerability, this is the next step on the way.

Limerence and Addiction to Excitement

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Limerence and Addiction to Excitement

If you’ve been struggling to overcome your limerence experience and battling the nonstop thoughts and feelings about your LO, the addiction to emotional excitement factor is something to consider as a part of the why in your limerence journey.

For some of us, especially those of us who have a history of depression or anxiety, the emotional excitement we experience with limerence can be extremely stimulating - even when it becomes more painful. Instead of feeling flat or if we are bored and unmotivated, the dopamine surge that happens when we see or contact LO can be euphoric. We can find that if we examine what is happening, we may be more prone to reaching out or follow an impulse to contact LO when we feel bored or understimulated emotionally. Our brains have been rewired to crave the anticipation and excitement and now look for that hit to feel better or at least “OK.”

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Limerence and Finding Closure

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Limerence and Finding Closure

Whether you’ve been in the throes of limerence for only a few months or a few years, you undoubtedly have asked yourself: When will this end? Will I ever feel closure from this? Is it even possible? How long will it take?

While everyone’s limerence experience is different, I can say for certain that there IS an end and closure is possible, though it may not be in the way that you want to happen or expect it to unfold.

Keep in mind the following when you are feeling desperate for your attachment to your LO and the painful feelings of limerence to be DONE…

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Understanding the Roots of Limerence

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Understanding the Roots of Limerence

Each person has a unique internal and emotional road map that led them to limerence, but there are some commonalities we tend to share for those who become limerent. Are any of these relatable?

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Addicted to Love? Or Is It Limerence?

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Addicted to Love? Or Is It Limerence?

Falling in love is a heady experience. Life can go from gray tones to technicolor in days.

If you’ve been in a depressed slump, experiencing a huge life transition or a big loss, the rush of euphoric oxytocin/dopamine and other neurotransmitters can make you feel amazing, until - it stops feeling so great. But…is it the real person or the feeling of being in love that you love?

When you realize that despite your best efforts, you ACTUALLY can’t stop thinking about this other person even if you want to - whether or not it is even a good/rationale/sane idea to try to be with them, you may also realize you may need some help getting out of this. 

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