Obsessive Love - Why can’t I stop thinking about my ex?

To seek romantic connection with others and fantasising about them is normal. However, what happens when we find ourselves lost in our fantasies, unable to exist in our day to day, without carrying them everywhere we go, even when it is acutely painful? 

What is Limerence?

Limerence could be described as the state of pleasure filled euphoria experienced when thinking romantically about another, often confused for love, also present are intense infatuation, obsession and an inability to release the object of our infatuation from our minds.  The ongoing fantasy and desire we experience results in an intensity of emotions with extreme highs (elation) and lows (despair). 

How does limerence develop?

The pleasure of having your crush in your mind is countered by the overwhelming sense of disappointment when feeling they don't truly want us and we feel pain and yearning due to their absence. If we receive acknowledgement from our limerent crush, however small, the reward centres in our brain light up. Just like a gambling addiction, which is fed by intermittent rewards, so too our desire increases. Naturally we seek the safety and solace of an all accepting, loving other, even if they're only in our heads. We devote more time thinking about them and the vicious cycle of pleasure and pain continues. Our loneliness and need for our crush increases if we do not feel truly connected to those we are closest to in real life (partner, friends and family). If we become frustrated or angry at their lack of engagement, the intensity of the emotion actually serves an even deeper connection. When we don't get what we want from them, we may behave in ways confusing to our crush, who will likely pull away, which triggers our attachment and self esteem issues and fear of abandonment, our need for them increases.  

Why am I Limerent?

The investment you have in your limerent crush is testament to your creative abilities (good news, this will help your recovery) and is influenced by your particular emotional and psychodynamic makeup (something to discover and work on).  Your attachment and self worth issues, loneliness, self critical thinking habits, anxiety and other factors combined with the chemicals our brain produces from the “love” reaction, all have an impact on our tendency to limerence. 

So you ask, what causes my intense attraction to a person who either isn't that interested in me or who keeps me dangling? It is not only our attachment style being triggered by breadcrumbing, our emotions intensify when we participate in vivid imagery or visualisation, (a naturally occurring hypnotic state). As we become more invested in our fantasy, our emotions intensify accordingly and the more attached we become. Listening to our favourite music elicits an intense emotion which we combine with our potent fantasy. Any romantic behaviour attached to our visualisations provides an anchor and the fantasy is further embedded. Our brains experience our fantasy as real and, congratulations, you are now limerent! They have actually become your primary relationship and the person you subconsciously associate with comfort and emotional wellbeing. 

Limerence and Insecure Attachment

During a limerent episode, the limerence is fed by anxiety created by insecure attachment and unmet needs. The anxiety we experience from our one sided love triggers our deep, internalised beliefs that we aren't good enough, that people don't care about us, or fear of abandonment. 

Insecure attachment results in our denial and separation from our own emotional experience and therefore from those we are close to.  We may struggle to create those strong, truly intimate bonds with others and so when we do attach, we do so strongly, whether limerent or not and whether we know it, or not. Our fantasy is about a loving, accepting partner who gives us the acknowledgement we crave. Our brain doesn't know the difference between being with them in the here and now, or just being with them in our thoughts, which is why it's so easy to obsess on someone and so hard to let them go.

How to heal from Limerence

It is easy to confuse limerence with love. When we enter a limerent state of mind, we are not truly considering nor seeing the other person. If we are romantically involved with our limerent other, they will pull away from us (increasing our limerent pain), as they sense on some level that they are simply the avatar for the story which you are creating and they happen to be a player. If you are truly honest with yourself, you do not have their true wellbeing at heart, you care more, simply, for what they can provide for you. 

So how do you evict a person who has set up camp in your head, particularly when you have invited, nurtured, enjoyed and encouraged their presence and they have set down roots? You experience them in your head all the time. It won't be easy, but if you really want to get them out of your head, you can. 

Firstly, when you are walking around expecting to see them, DON'T LOOK UP. What this means is - that person who sits down on your train carriage next to you that might be them, or that cyclist approaching on your left that could be them, do not look up to check if it's them. Break your limerent cycle, STOP expecting to see them. Don't look up, don't listen to music that reminds you of them, don't go to places you used to go with them or expect or want to see them. In other words, don't participate in any activity that creates an emotion that maintains your connection to them.

The antidote to limerence is GRATITUDE. Be purposefully thankful for what you have. It's ok to be grateful for your lifestyle, however if you want to break your limerent cycle, it is much more effective to be grateful about your own skills, abilities, talents, accomplishments, especially where it demonstrates your connectedness with others and your ability to create rich and nourishing relationships. 

Seek out an experienced therapist who can help you explore your attachment issues,  understand and accept your particular psychodynamic makeup and who can hold space for you to explore yourself.  Support your therapy by learning about your limerent condition and apply the learnings to yourself. 

Consider hypnotherapy. You have already flooded your brain with images and scenarios of them. Your brain needs something to focus on, so repopulate it with purposeful, positive imagery about you and your life.