In comparison to stable and requited love, limerence is an all-consuming and powerful phenomenon that involves a neurobiological addiction to attention from the desired person. A complex and painful experience, it encompasses not only sharp, giddying highs and lows, but also a strong sense of having found one’s ‘true love’; in fact, most limerents believe that they have found the love of their life and that their feelings will never fade.
Here are nine hallmark features of limerence; if most of these resonate you, you are certainly experiencing the disorder. To permanently become immune and to stop falling for LOs, you must a). understand the phenomenon inside out and b). employing the techniques necessary to rewire your subconscious mind to heal.
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1. The Euphoria Is Ineffable, Like A Stimulant High
Most exciting requited relationships involve an initial honeymoon period, during which both individuals float through life in an oxytocin and dopamine-rooted state of bliss. However, this phase notoriously ends after 3-12 months, as it is neurochemically impossible for the brain to keep producing the same feel-good transmitters when the stimulus is constant.
You see, the nervous system strives to maintain homeostatic balance and avoid bouts if runaway feed-forward excitation. In other words, we habituate to things that are frequently presented to us. There is much truth to the saying that “once something is set on fire, it cannot last forever”.
Limerence, however, is an entirely different entity. Since it could not be further from real and balanced love (that can naturally progress from novel to calm and trust-based), the limerent will be subject to dizzying episodes of euphoria whenever they perceive that their connection with the limerent object (LO) is advancing. Whether it be a deep conversation that allows the discovery of a topic of mutual interest or an appealing smile, a hit of perceived reciprocation can have them hyperproductive, hypomanic and ecstatic for days. Limerents adore these emotional upswings, latching onto them and allowing themselves to spiral into full-blown fantasizing and magical ideation regarding their perfect future with this person.
If you consider this person the source of an incomprehensibly powerful, drug-like ‘rush’ that feels exciting and visceral rather than soft and warm, you are certainly limerent (and over someone who is not reciprocating this adoration; if they felt the same, you two would be together).
2. The Lows Are Extremely Depressive With Feelings of Sickness
Many people confuse mild infatuations with limerence, which is understandable given the difficulty it can be to accurately identify one’s own feelings. Despite both romantic experiences involving the physical and emotional craving of another person, the ups and downs of limerence are far more intense and troublesome.
Someone trapped in limerence is in a transient state of neurochemical imbalance; we all perceive reality in a subjective sense, but the limerent views the world through a particularly warped filter. When they are ‘starved’ of their LO’s affection, attention or presence (in real life or online), they will naturally be subjected to a withdrawal phase that will have them dysphoric, apathetic and frequently suicidal.
If you simply check this individual’s Instagram and deal with some rumination regarding whether or not they like you, you are not dealing with limerence. Limerence involves downswings that take the life out of you and render it extremely difficult (if not impossible) to work, exercise and socialize. During these dips, sufferers bear the burden of relentless crying fits into pillows to the point of wanting to scream, suicide ideation and the inability to enjoy anything (anhedonia). You may also experience intense nausea, disrupted digestion, a headache and unusually-strong waves of fatigue following one of these depressive episodes.
3. This Person Is Undeniably Your Soulmate
When in a relationship, it is normal to feel that there is an undercurrent of magic underpinning the connection. Many people believe that they have come across ‘the one for them’; the overlap between their own and their partner’s personalities is objectively so stimulating and blissful that they cannot imagine being with someone else.
A limerent, on the other hand, cannot comprehend that the object of their love might not be their soulmate. This renders spiritual theories concerning twin flames very appealing to them, which adds fuel to the fire: their own delusional thinking (the pure reflection of their state of neurochemical chaos) is affirmed by strangers on the Internet.
In contrast, magical ideation is rarely a prominent feature of mature and sustainable love. There is a difference between knowing that the bond that you have with someone is precious and special, and wanting to write pages worth of musings about how you have found your ‘twin flame’. Spirituality is a wonderful thing, and an incentivizing and comforting pillar for many people, but fully-developed limerence must be treated as a disease state. Recovery is the priority, and spiritual articles that convince the limerent that they are cosmically-bound to their LO in a ‘runner and chaser’ twin flame dynamic will only aggravate their emotional wounds.
4. You’re Averse To Introducing Them to Many People
A useful way to discern between budding romantic feelings and pathological limerence is to consider how you feel about incorporating them into your wider social circle. It is natural for romantic and sexual feelings to take the front seat initially and for new lovers to temporarily spend less time with friends, but soon enough, people will want to introduce this special being to their friends and create joyful group memories.
This is in line with nature, and the evolutionary importance of group/family acceptance of a new partner; all humans have an ingrained need to see their relationship validated by their extended social network. However, limerence is a fantasy romantic bond that stays glossy and thrilling through never fully evolving in the human realm, and your brain is aware of this.
If limerent, the idea of integrating this person into your friendship group and/or eventually organizing a casual meeting with your parents will most likely fill you with apprehension and fear. Having someone on such a pedestal often has you fearing that the concept of the ‘real you’ (which includes, of course, your friends) will fall short of their expectations. You are so careful to display your best and most collected sides around them that you worry that friends who you have been vulnerable around will reveal something unsavory about you. You also realize the extent of the irrationality of your obsession, and do not want people from your past to witness you in this love-drugged state.
Since you see your LO as a demi-god who radiates beauty and flair, you not really believe you could ever achieve a real-life partnership with them that will look like anything conventional e.g. dinners out, game nights with friends. Consequentially, you can only face focusing on the present, walking on eggshells and carefully premeditating witty responses to obtain day-to-day signs of reciprocation from this person. The steps that people who find real, possible romantic connections take to deepen the bond and trigger trust do not appeal to you, because all you want is the acute euphoria you experience from this person. This isn’t real love, and subconscious reveals this by pushing you away from paths that move towards reality.
5. This Person Stops You Desiring Other Drugs
Normal romantic feelings complement your life and soften the blow of reality, but they do not permanently render you immune to the coping strategies that you employed before finding the person. Limerence, on the other hand, washes your prefrontal cortex with so much dopamine and noradrenaline that the limerent will sometimes find themselves magically ‘relieved’ of binge eating, sugar addiction and the desire to chain-smoke.
If the high that follows a conversation with this person seems to pluck you away from your typical obsessions and bad habits, you are correct in suspecting that this is too good to be true. This person is acting as a potent stimulus for your limbic brain, and you are neurochemically saturated to the point of not even thinking about once-alluring substances.
6. You Would Tolerate Or Abandon Anything To Have Them
Limerents are so convinced that their future would be perfect and blissful with their LO in it, and that their days of being bothered by unfulfilling work, suboptimal living conditions and troublesome people would be long gone. However, those of us who have experienced real, actualized relationships can attest that true partnership is comforting rather than dazzling; regardless of how good a match this person is to you, you would still be subject to human highs and lows and frustration if you actually dated them long-term.
If you are sure that you would renounce all previous passions and circumvent any obstacles to be with this person, you are admitting that you are completely emotionally dependent on their attention and suffering from drug addiction. Do not entertain thoughts about abandoning your studies or career, cutting off friends who do not possess the same vibe as your LO or recklessly moving to whichever country they want to live in in the future. You are currently mentally unwell, and should consider yourself as irrational as someone with bipolar I disorder in a transient manic episode. Such thoughts do not accompany true love, because desperation is not a core feature of something so stable and natural. Limerence, on the other hand, encompasses the desire to frantically cling onto the LO and mould one’s self into them… to secure them before they can be ‘snatched away’.
7. Any Moment With Them Is Precious
When limerent, any shared conversation or activity with your LO is absolutely magical, because it allows you access to the cocktail of dopamine, oxytocin norepinephrine that you have grown to love so much. Couples in requited love are lucky enough to bathe in similar ecstasy when doing mundane things together in the initial phase of the relationship, but feelings are rapidly altered and food shopping, bus rides and even dinner dates become normal. What was once delightful becomes pleasant, leaving you fuzzy and warm rather than elated.
This links back to the fact that the ‘new relationship energy’ has an expiry date: you can only be intensely emotionally uplifted by the same person for a certain amount of time. Limerence equally cannot last, but is drawn out for a much longer period of time due to the absence of stability and intermittent reinforcement (in the form of sporadic attention) from LO.
However, if you are proactive in your recovery and allow yourself to withdraw, sitting with the pain with the knowledge that it will pass, you will overcome a limerent episode in a matter of weeks. People who speak about being limerent for years have failed to engage in the necessary psychological healing steps that rewire your brain away from the allure of the concept of your LO.
8. None of Their Facets Annoy You
Few things are more telling that you are trapped in limerence than the complete inability to see your LO’s flaws objectively. You need do no more than observe the nearest married couple to find that anyone in a real romantic commitment occasionally finds their partner annoying. A new partner will seem appealing to the maximum, but in a matter of months, any undesirable quirks, rituals and opinions will start to seem jarring.
While their hatred of cats may have initially left you intrigued, you now see it as a major point of incompatibility and wish they would stop talking about it. Their tendency to never sleep or eat enough starts to seriously bug you; before, you saw them as cool and invisible, but now you realize that your mother was right – they do always look tired and run-down. Who do they think they are, considering themself elite and exempt from basic human needs?
As limerence is never affected by this real-life relationship transition, you will consistently see this person as a flawless angel. Their weaknesses and controversial behaviors will seem quirky and have you entranced and enchanted, to the extent that you will not be capable of comprehending why others could even start to criticize. When the limerence ends, they will suddenly drop back down to the ‘mortal realm’ and you will see them through an altered lens of contempt and accurate judgment.
9. Time Spent On Other Things Feels Wasted
Consistent with the sense of dire urgency that forms a cornerstone of limerence, someone afflicted will struggle to justify prioritizing anything else in their life. After all, reactive and primitive brain regions have the limerent convinced that pouring energy into anything else but the imagined bond that they have with their LO is a colossal waste of time.
Due to the neural basis of limerence (which I will delve into in a future post), limerents are nearly always mentally-sharp and motivated individuals with a lot of personal projects on the go. These will be forgotten or discarded to the side while in the most intense part of the limerence haze, during which focusing on the LO’s beautiful features and traits and inventing narratives that explain why they haven’t yet confessed their love seems to be of the utmost importance.
It goes without saying that platonic relationships will seem absurdly banal and lacking in any real emotional substance compared to the spiritual feelings of limerence. The more self-aware sufferers (who have committed to recovering from the ‘daze’ rather than chasing scraps of attention from their LO on a day-to-day basis) will realize that they must go through the motions and meet up with friends. Regardless of how psychologically-taxing it can be to detach from the concept of your LO and reconnect with your former life, if you neglect your friends to the extent of losing them, you will never forgive yourself when (not if!) these feelings of attraction completely vanish.
That is not to say that distracting yourself from such tumultuous emotions is ever easy. Sitting across from your best friend will definitely aid your recovery and temporarily soften your agony, but you will need to be particularly careful to squash any troublesome thoughts that surface when they inevitably do seem boring compared to your LO. This is all temporary, do not let yourself forget that.