Recovering from limerence is, at points, painful. But, I’m going to teach you a trick that will help you feel better, whenever you feel like you are slipping into a depressive, delusional state. A trick that can be employed regardless of your situation and lifestyle.
Essentially, it’s a highly reliable way to change focus and step sideways out of your slump. This is the only way to make heightened limerent longing shrink – trying to fight and wriggle out of the pain simply does not work. You must, instead, pick up momentum and take a decisive jump towards the new… towards new emotional experiences.
Some Pain Is Normal, Initially
Limerence is not intractable; there is no single case that cannot be rapidly reversed. If you commit to recovery, you are guaranteed to not only stop craving your current limerent object (LO), but also to become permanently immune to limerence – permanently immune to this full-on, 360-degree state of agonising chaos that feels rather convincingly like ‘love’.
But, limerence is painful by nature – that’s why you’re reading this article. This is why it’s deemed pathological: it subjects us to unnecessary suffering. So it’s only natural that some limerents find the initial stages of recovery quite tough, before their brain (and belief systems) have been fully rewired. They find themselves having to fight through bouts of depression and discomfort, slipping into crying spells and periods of glaring apathy. If your LO’s particular personality traits make you feel like they open up a rich, authentic emotional world for you, this is particularly likely to be the case. Your LO may even be quite aligned with you in life (potentially sharing your niché interests/hobbies?), leading to the illusion that they provide you with a level of ‘perfection’/life satisfaction that is hard to find elsewhere. Despite their behaviour proving to be erratic, and the possibility of romantic commitment clearly low, you are affected by them so intensely on a visceral level that crave them, cry your eyes out and want to scream. “This is love”, you think, “and I am so very lovesick”.
An equal number of limerents, however, find that the illusion shatters extremely rapidly when they actually identify and treat the root causes. When they look at the connection that they have with their LO with new, scrupulous eyes, it shrinks – they can hardly believe how quickly they reach a place of complete mentally stability.
Pain: A Reflection of What You Have Allowed Your LO to Represent
What determines how painful the very initial stages of your recovery will be? This may shock you: the circumstances of your limerent episode (LE) aren’t really a determining factor here. It doesn’t matter if your LO is an ex that you once loved ‘normally’ and who you feel is your soulmate, a childhood friend who you’ve fallen for out of the blue, or whether they’re just a mere acquaintance who has resonated with you uniquely and potently. The degree of ‘stubbornness’ of your limerence, and, by extension, the amount of initial pain that you will deal with while successfully rewiring your brain (towards complete freedom) will depend only on a). what they represent to you/what needs they meet and b). what your belief system is like, regarding yourself, romance, and life itself.
You see, limerent pain is one of the most transient and illusory psychological phenomena, ever. It does not last once you commit to focusing on building the new rather than dwelling on the old – it simply cannot last! But, sometimes the illusion of “what you and your LO are together” can be hard to kiss goodbye to. You may go two steps forward and one back, knowing that you are on the recovery trajectory, but still able to be triggered. Able to slip into more crying, more anguish, more depression… to thoughts like:
- “I can’t be bothered to talk to anyone else – no one makes me feel anything apart from my LO”.
- “I can’t handle this agony. I’ve never felt so out of control; I just need the pain to end”.
- “The truth is, I love and need my LO. Right now. If they’re not here, I can only pretend to be happy and fulfilled”.
It goes without saying that such thoughts are not only perfectly normal – they form the basis of the condition. Limerence is love gone pathological. It’s all about someone resonating with you far more intensely than is normal, and you believing that you will never feel differently- it’s about you having psychological points of weakness that have allowed this to happen. That have allowed you to enter this bizarre emergent state, this dark expression of ‘love’ (which, as we know, is far better conceptualised as mental illness).
Essentially, You’re Addicted to the ‘Old Story’
Perhaps you both worked on a mentally stimulating project together at work and it felt euphoric, like seamless perfection… you both riding the showbiz wave together, living life in colour. Or, perhaps you both overlap on your interest in a certain genre of music, or niché topic, that no one else in your life really ‘gets’. Maybe you don’t even have that much in common with your LO, but they radiate a warm curiosity that you have never sensed in anyone else, making you dream of travelling with them and dipping into foreign cultures together. Maybe they are brusque and sharp, stepping on anyone and everyone to meet their goals … leaving you feeling exhilarated in their presence, and freed from your own inhibitions.
Regardless of your situation, your pain is the result of you being addicted/attached to the story that you, yourself, have conjured up, regarding what your connection with your LO would ‘mean for you’ if it bloomed to its highest expression. Of course, a requited relationship with this person is not on the cards, but even if it was, the ideas you have about them would still be highly illusory falsehoods. If you two dated properly, your feelings for them would completely flatten out and transform into stable love. Humans must be kept within the realm of humans, not ‘demigods’.
Fortunately, there is a way to completely redirect your brain in the moment, when you’re feeling stuck in that horrible, delusional, white-hot limerent pain. The following technique will move you swiftly out of the state of “I just need this person – nothing else is meaningful”, and towards once again viewing the world as the abundant, exciting place it is, and feeling positive emotions in all sorts of directions.
Accept the Pain, And Dive Headfirst Into A New Emotion
The real way to switch state and rapidly stop feeling depressed about your LO isn’t to keep the focus on them. Initially, limerents must come to see limerence for what it is – that’s why I frequently refer back to evolutionary biology, reminding readers that the strength of their feelings can and should be considered a ‘biological blip’ to treat, not ‘real love’ to indulge/further sentimentalise.
But, when you fully understand the nature of limerence (and truly feel that you want to recover), what you want to be doing is a). the psychological self-work that will reprogram your brain while simultaneously b). saturating yourself with new people, ideas and emotions.
Right now, you need to immerse yourself in anything that evokes positive emotions in you that are not related to limerent euphoria. I would personally recommend being highly playful here and making a beeline for amusing, surreal, bizarre things. The fact that you are genetically capable of experiencing the highs and lows of limerence tells me that you are curious, intelligent and somewhat ’emotionally intense’ – you are most probably moved and inspired by a wide array of people, concepts, music, activities etc.
So, accept the fact that you are currently feeling bad (just as you’d accept having a sore throat), but commit to moving out of your pain. Dare to ignore the truthless thought that “only my LO is interesting – there’s no point in doing any of this other stuff”, and just do it anyway. Suspend your disbelief for just a day, and delve right into something interesting, fun, and/or just plain hilarious.
This Is About Gaining Momentum and ‘Jumping’ Forward
The amount of time that you have – and the extent to which you can allow yourself to ‘indulge’ in fun, interesting things – does not matter. All that matters is that you start to stir up some new feelings. Some things you might want to consider are:
- Starting to learn a new language on DuoLingo (even better if you do this with the goal of visiting this country – developing goals that don’t involve your LO is a very good way to distance yourself more and more from limerence in general).
- Watching 10 mins of a strange, surreal TV show you loved as a kid.
- Listen to a song that you used to party to, and sing along in your head.
- Do some high-intensity exercise while imagining that you are running towards a giant monetary prize.
- Watch an interview of a music artist (or famous scientist) whose work you love, and temporarily enter their world – imagine meeting them, and how wonderful that could feel. Imagine them cheering you on.
- If you have kids, take them out to do something impactful and different. If you don’t, spend time with someone else’s kids. Feel yourself connecting with that special, innocent energy that only kids have.
- Treat yourself to an interestingly flavoured drink (like spicy, sharp ginger and carrot juice), and sip it, feeling it invigorating you. Let yourself be reminded that your imaginary connection with your LO is only detracting from your health. You, and only you, are in charge of nourishing yourself, physically and emotionally.
- Reconnect with nature and animals! Exit your comfort zone and expose yourself to the elements.
The new feelings that you generate will, of course, initially be tinged by an undercurrent of limerent pain. But, you’ll rapidly see that they take the edge off it, eventually completely transforming it and allowing you to once again feel good, safe and optimistic.
Importantly, learning to switch focus like this (and to trust in your brain’s ability to ‘catch up’ and generate some truly intense positive feelings at your command) will liberate you massively. You’ll still be limerent, but you’ll know that you’re almost free – that recovering from limerence doesn’t mean saying no to trips with friends/family in case you’re suddenly struck by depression on day 4 out of 12 (for you’ll have shown yourself that it’s always within your power to feel better). For you’ll grasp that you are simply never trapped in these depression cycles that you used to both resent and fear.
Prioritise Interesting, Unusual Platonic Connections
I listed the examples above because they’re simple and accessible. I want it to be clear that you can implement this focus-switching technique regardless of how many responsibilities you have/how much free time you have to play with. However, the most effective way to absolutely crush limerent depression is to expose yourself to new, non-limerent emotions/feelings/states that concern other people.
This can be achieved by reconnecting with a friend that you have a lot in common with – someone who you feel occupies your mental space, in a way that is, of course, less intense than the chaos of limerence, but still highly meaningful.
But, connecting with new people can ‘jolt’ your brain out of the limerent depression daze even faster, demonstrating to you (and, critically, letting you truly feel) that your LO is just a character in the background. That there’s a world of people out there with their own cool combinations of traits, communication styles, idiosyncrasies and life missions.
So, connect with people. Look them in the eye and come at them from a place of ‘zero’, like a newborn. Let yourself be affected by them. Pinpoint how particularly interesting characters make you feel with real precision, and then let those feelings grow – amplify them.
It can help to mentally describe the feelings that different people elicit in your head e.g. “I laugh a tonne with X because she’s crazy and spontaneous”, or “I find Y fascinating because he’s so stoic, yet so empathetic – he has a really rare mix of taits. I think I respect him so much because he’s a prime example of being driven and productive but not to the detriment of others”.
You’ve spent far too long reflecting on your LOs long list of quirks and virtues, so it’s time to come back down to reality. Prompting your brain to associate new people with sustainable, different positive emotions is a powerful way to achieve this.
When You Move Forward and Create the New, the Old Cannot Be Sustained
This technique is so effective because it replaces the intensity of limerence with an entirely different type of intensity, rather than just trying to squash it – this is what limerents must do to recover. As my book explores in-depth, limerence recovery is never about stifling your ‘inner flame’ and ‘becoming less obsessional’ – it’s about shifting and better managing that inner focus/obsessive nature of yours. Similarly, quickly exiting a slump involving depression, crying and/or just intense apathy isn’t about thinking “I need to fight this depression”… it’s about a). accepting how you feel and b). quickly shifting your focus to something that saturates you with some new feelings.
Oh, this strategy proved lifesaving during my limerent days. My brain conjured up such convincing falsehoods about other people (namely, “don’t go to this party/bother following up with this connection/talk to new people after class – they’re 1% as interesting as your LO”). But, one day I discovered that ignoring them would always (and paradoxically) reward me. That doing what actually felt counterintuitive (i.e. daring to just switch focus until I felt better) was what rapidly pushed me towards another state and killed the depression.
Exposing yourself to new people/books/music/concepts and saturating yourself with new, different emotions will soothe your pain. Moreover, it’s all that really can. Even if you are only able to make a few changes in your life, you will still be re-routing yourself to the correct trajectory and moving forward… moving towards bliss, rather than struggling against pain.