I have just recently came to know this term. I have been living in limerance since I was about 15, I'm almost 27 now. Trying to live in real life and look for real relationships.
I want to know if anyone else is struggling with this. It seems to be strongly connected to childhood emotional neglect.
You could be describing me although I'm a man.. it's always the bitchy eu woman who's very insecure and will oscillate between offering breadcrumbs of affection, enough to keep me hooked, and totally ignoring or disrespecting me. I think we're on to a pattern here. The crappy childhood fairy on YouTube mentioned this dynamic on one of her videos and she said that people who were emotionally neglected in childhood have trained their imagination to perceive love where it doesn't exist. I guess it was the best defensive mechanism we had back then when the thought that we're not really loved by our parents was extremely threatening to us.
have trained their imagination to perceive love where it doesn't exist
:') well dang
This is very much in line with Internal Family Systems theory; if we can be curious about the story of how the adaptive behavior and its original positive intention, it counter -intuitively allows the behavior to relax more
I used to struggle with this from my early teen years until mid-twenties. Once I began a DBT program around 24/25, I was able to kick the habit like 75%. With a few more years and experience prioritizing friendships and dating, authentically, it hardly ever comes up anymore. I'm 34. I've also done other therapeutic interventions since then.
Yep. I have caused myself a lot of heartache over the years with limerance and only found out recently that it even has a name and can be associated with CEN. It was always an issue in how I connected to others with two really bad bouts: one in college and one in my late 20s. Both times I had moved to a new place and was probably feeling pretty alone.
I will say that I did eventually find a partner who knew I existed and liked me back and we were able to form a real connection that led to marriage. I don't have a good sense of why that shift eventually happened... perhaps because I put myself into therapy while actively in limerance in my late 20s. A lot of my work with that therapist was about mourning the parental relationship I wished I'd had, which I didn't make a connection on at the time (I actually quit going eventually because "I'm totally obsessed with this person and all this therapist wants to talk about is my mother" LOL I was clueless!).
I don't have great advice, just offering some reassurance that it's a thing that can be overcome and naming it can certainly help.
Holy shit THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS. I have never heard the word limerance but after a google search I'm in complete shock. Ugh I'm SO GLAD I saw this!
I'm so glad you saw this as well. Please check Dr. Ramani videos regarding this. You can also check The Crappy Childhood Fairy's videos regarding limerance. Finding out the issue and naming it is one of the most important steps in resolving it.
Yup. If a romantic partner chooses someone over me I am screwed for several years. Breaking up over other reasons Iām Ok. Not being chosen it my trigger. Iām the scapegoat and my mother always chose the golden child. Itās like if I can find the secret of getting the romantic partner choose me, I will find the secret of getting my mother to choose me too. FYI it has never worked.
Yeah I basically fall to my knees any time a girl is nice to me. Still happens when Iām 21 and itās been happening since I can remember. Itās something to do with āI canāt believe someone likes me in any capacity, holy shit I have to latch on, I love you for showing me any degree of love and respect.ā It makes sense. We lacked love so finding it in any form is absolutely something we need to embrace in every way.
No, Iām avoidant and hold myself back waiting for them to dump me. Or talk myself out of them being that great.
Saves me heartbreak, but I also donāt feel the high of a new relationship. I am in a loving relationship now that took a while to develop and I finally feel like Iām in a healthy relationship
Yep, serial limerent here. I was a card carrying member and top posters/commenters over at /r/limerence for months. I made limerence penpals and they helped me a lot.
I hated having limerence and it destroyed so many of my relationships and friendships. There was a lot of talk over on the sub about feeling 'less than human' which I really related to.
For the first time in several decades I have no limerence object (LO). I work from home and have very, very few people in my life so thankfully there's very little chance.
Yes with one person. Itās been 5 years and I just kind of accept it now as someone my brain/soul holds onto for whatever reason, with as much non-attachment as I can. Maybe itās not limerence but itāsā¦something.
I spent the last seven years in a limerence episode. Learning the definition is really what broke it for me. I still have obsessive thoughts now but with the proper language it keeps me from falling into obsessive feedback loop.
I didn't realise there was a term for it! When I came to realise that as a child I had fantasies of being saved from my life and how I felt about myself, a habit which carried into my adult life in this way, it started to lose its hold on me.
I want to feel acceptable and important. What better way than to be someone's true love. Not only that, but some who is perfect themselves falling in love whth me? Maybe I'd finally be enough.
Fantasies give hope to those who have no other means to leave or change a situation, which helps them survive it. Seeing this more clearly helped. I did have a very healthy romantic relationship with someone as well which helped, as I could see I was potentially sabotaging it and did not want that to happen.
Limerence, if Iām understanding itās definition, is what led me to stalking a girl for five years before confessing to her - she left town after I confessed - she confronted me, everyone in school gave me dirty looks and I was entirely alone for a couple months with no friends - those I had sorta quietly distanced themselves from me when I was welcomed back in. I think through technicality I didnāt have any friends past 9th grade because of it and almost shot up the school as a result. Couldnāt make friends when I tried doing it proper - definitely couldnāt make friends doing it the creepy way, and couldnāt make friends after the fact. Still struggle.
All I have is one friend I made when I was 8 who was homeschooled, we spent so much time with each others familyās that weāre basically like brothers - I am friends with their friends - but even this group is starting to pull away and distance themselves from me, I feel.
Limerence is a disgusting emotion and I regret having felt it, or any other emotion for that matter.
Yes, to the point where I destroyed a valued professional relationship and had to change jobs over it
I developed attachments (and still do) to fictional characters and inanimate objects (like teddy bears). I talk to them like a friend, I don't hear a response but I feel less lonely.
Yes, it's a hard pill to swallow because I've been doing it for decades.
Though, I assume it's why I can get really into authors or musicians and devour their work relentlessly until it's all been absorbed.
I used to fantasize about some of my friends when they weren't around, and for years after we'd been actively friendly. It wasn't sexual, it would just be a fantasy of me saying something witty or profound and them laughing or being impressed. I would clearly visualize their reaction. It was about validation. They were people I admired and I needed reassurance they admired me, even when they weren't there.
Oh come on, another symptom? Damn, every time Iām scrolling through here, Iām like āWhat!?! This thing, Iāve been doing all my life, is just a trauma response?).
But seriously, yes, Iāve fallen in love with (and online stalked) quite a few guys over the years, even though they often barely acknowledged my existence or at best treated me like a colleague. While I am dreaming of what our wedding looks like and how many children we have.
At least it hasnāt happened again since I started dealing with my trauma. But itās definitely something to look out for in the future, that is definitely a screwed up definition of love/romance.
Thank you for bringing this up, definitely food for thought.
can limerence happen with friends? this is the first time iām hearing about this term and it describes perfectly how i built relationships in the past vs now. in the past i thought i was so lucky for a person to like me (romantically or platonically) and i thought i had to act in a certain way. i would do or say anything to try to get them to not leave me, which didnāt work in the end because they could probably in some way tell i wasnāt being legit. this led to me allowing my boundaries to be crossed, me lying, pretending to be someone iām not. i now realizing i never even liked them and me wanting validation is why they never even liked me.
yeah i think so, i had a friendship where i felt they had a limerent dependence on me and it was exactly like that, them begging me not to leave and wanting to spend every minute together. They apologized later and said they had no idea why it happened with me, cause it didn't seem to happen in other friendships. But yeah. I don't know. I think it can.
It sucked that I did really want the friendship and it was them who ultimately ended it. But I missed them quite a bit after that. But I think we both grew from it though also. (it was in elementary school, so way back.)
yep, I realised not too long ago after watching a Contrapoints video that I channel it especially onto whatever celebrity I'm into that year/season/decade. I used to think it was really unhealthy but I think it's actually not bad at all. It helps me keep my real relationships more balanced and grounded. I think it's a way where I can pine over this unavailable person that I realistically don't know at all and who can't use those feelings to manipulate me. At the same time my bf doesn't have to bear those feelings/expectations and we can have a more healthy relationship.
this actually makes a lot of sense and many people probably do this even if they don't acknowledge it
Very often. Build up a woman on dating apps only to have her figure I'm being clingy and drops me either after a few dates or before we even get to one. So disheartening. It's like getting help for my neglect has made me even more open and emotionally vulnerable which for women is even worse than a man who is disinterested and emotionless, as they're used to that.
Yes, have been this way since about 15. Iām 32 now. Still the same lol. At least Iām aware of what it is now and I can control it a bit better.
This is so right on
I would routinely experience this in my younger years. I'm married and have children now and am happy in my marriage, but I still get the feelings for old objects occasionally
I took a long time being single before I was married to try to reconcile why I had this symptom. It was before I understood that traumatic emotional neglect was a thing, and I basically had to teach myself how to recognize and understand what I was feeling
I don't know if I'll ever be over it, but it is a part I can recognize about myself an be wary of
Stuck in it forever šš»
Me! I struggle with it. Itās so so difficult for me to date as a result. Thanks ma!
yeah i have. but gotten better with time and I feel I am about done with it.. I think this last time will be it, as i feel I have more or less learned from it and grown. i have been trying to be there for myself and not look outwards for emotional needs. but it's slow too. One thing that helps is having hobbies that I really like to do and are for me and getting really into the present moment more.
Yes, constantly, all my life. It's always EU men who are jerks but sort of flirty to me (or hot and cold).
I always have a limerent object until a new one comes along. Then it's like the old one is forgotten instantly. I can only have one at a time. It's always someone I know in real life and not a celebrity or something. I think about them almost all the time. Even if we haven't kept contact, I will keep looping on them until a new one comes along.
I need to get rid of this addiction. I hate it.