Limerence is a state of intense infatuation or obsession with another person, characterized by overwhelming passion and intrusive thoughts. Individuals in this state experience obsessive thoughts and feelings of crazy love, where logic and reasoning often seem distant or irrelevant. This condition can be viewed as an emotional and behavioral disorder that may require specialized evaluation and treatment.
What is Limerence?
Limerence is an involuntary, intense emotional reaction to another person, marked by obsessive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors related to the person of romantic interest. This reaction includes a strong desire for reciprocal emotional engagement but also contains aspects of suffering stemming from unmet needs or uncertainty.
History of Limerence
The term “limerence” was first introduced by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in the 1970s. During interviews, Tennov discovered that some people experience love in extremely intense ways. She observed that this intense feeling can affect anyone, regardless of gender, age, culture, background, or other traits. This concept clearly highlights a person’s intense interest in another, which can significantly influence that individual’s behavior and emotions. Unlike deep and lasting love, limerence is typically accompanied by worries and anxiety, and it may lead to emotional and psychological issues.
The Impact of Limerence on Relationships
Recent research has shown that limerence can have negative consequences for emotional relationships. Individuals affected by limerence may experience marital problems, and divorce rates are higher among this group. The desire for the other person in limerence is so strong that over time it negatively impacts the individual’s life, as they are unable to focus on anything other than the person they are infatuated with. Unlike deep and lasting love, limerence is often considered a psychological disorder. If limerence is experienced without any underlying issues, the person will likely reach an emotionally balanced state. However, when limerence is combined with childhood or adolescent disorders, the feelings, emotions, and obsessions intensify, and the relationship tends to collapse. Without such disorders, affection may likely become more reasonable over time. However, this typically doesn’t happen, and limerence causes its destructive effects. That being said, if the relationship, environment, and the individual are healthy, limerence may gradually evolve into genuine affection and love.
Mechanism and Impact of Limerence
The emotional addiction mechanism, known as “limerence,” is a psychological phenomenon in which a person becomes dependent on another in much the same way an addict becomes dependent on substances. This emotional addiction is associated with an increased intensity of interest in the desired person, so that the individual seeks emotional fulfillment through the presence of the person they are infatuated with. These responses are related to the secretion of endorphins, which ultimately lead to an increased emotional attachment to the partner.
This emotional dependency can negatively impact an individual’s life habits and eventually turn love and affection into an unhealthy obsession. This unhealthy obsession can significantly affect the quality of life and cause personal goals and priorities to be neglected.
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Signs of Limerence
Recognizing the signs of limerence is crucial for distinguishing it from real love. If you can’t identify these signs, you might struggle to understand the true concept of limerence. Emotional behaviors and limerent behaviors are often the focus of communication psychology. In this article, we explore the symptoms of limerence disorder and the emotional interpretation of the individual suffering from it:
Irrational Defense of the Loved One
One of the signs of limerence is an irrational defense of the person of interest. Individuals with this condition tend to defend their love interest irrationally and without regard to facts, even when faced with criticism or negative opinions. This behavior can cause the individual to ignore the realities of life and current issues.
Persistent, Uncontrolled Thinking About the Person
A key sign of limerence is the repetitive and uncontrollable thoughts about the person of interest. Individuals may find themselves obsessing over the person, thinking about them continuously, and feeling as if they have no control over these thoughts.
Seeking Romantic Signals
In this disorder, the person looks for signs and signals from the other party and constantly tries to receive alarms of love and interest from the other party. This is very sensitive because there is a possibility of misinterpretation of the signals. Many people may become delusional in this process. For example, two people may be colleagues and the person suffering from limerence disorder may infer love and affection from the everyday behaviors of their colleague and be led to incorrect interpretations. Here, there is a rule of interpretation that the interpreter and the interpreted
Insistence on Shared Interpretation
They do not have a common meaning at all. However, one party may be deluded and try to lead the two parties to a common interpretation.
Idealizing the Loved One
The next thing is that the limerence person creates false images of their partner and worships them, even if a large part of them is imaginary and empty. The limerence person’s imaginations about the partner are completely unrealistic and the limerence person is unwilling to address the real problems and disorders of their partner and treat them accordingly.
Anxiety in the Presence of the Loved One
Additionally, another sign of limerence is noticeable anxiety in the presence of the person they are interested in. These people are influenced by their romantic feelings and show signs of anxiety such as blushing or stuttering. Also, some people become so anxious and nervous that they try to create distance between themselves and their partner.
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Emotional Interpretations and Fantasies
Another symptom of this disorder is the interpretation of every phenomenon as a memory. The brain of a person with limerence looks for excuses to interpret every phenomenon as their love and use it to maintain the presence of the loved one in their life. These emotional and limerence interpretations cause the individual’s brain to connect different phenomena to each other and fantasize their own ideas for themselves. In the long run, this thinking pattern causes the individual to stray from their principles and values and lose the ability to think logically and correctly.
Feelings of Hopelessness and Suicidal Thoughts
Another symptom of this disorder is feelings of hopelessness and even suicidal thoughts if the affected person is rejected by the other person. In severe cases of limerence disorder, these feelings of hopelessness may increase dramatically and lead the person to dangerous and self-harming thoughts and lead to suicide. The experience of being rejected by a loved one is sad and overwhelming for all humans, but in limerence disorder, these feelings are experienced in an excessive and unreasonable way and may lead to more serious consequences. The person with Limerence limerence tries to make their life a living hell with negative and self-destructive thoughts.