Can You Recover From Limerence If You Still Feel Addicted?

Today, I’m going to dispel a niggling worry that the limerence recovery process can involve: can you overcome limerence if you do not feel entirely mentally-sound or in control? What if you are sure that you are ready to transform your concept of self and put in the necessary work, but you still occasionally break down and cry over your limerent object (LO)? Does that mean that you are destined to remain stuck in impossible, embarrassing, unrequited love?

Absolutely not! These ups and downs are completely normal and are orchestrated by your primitive brain regions (amygdala etc.) in response to you detaching from your LO. Remember, limerence is the reflection of untreated psychological issues that you have collected over the years, but the basis of this is the activity of individual neuronal circuits. The limbic centres of your brain want to keep you limerent because they (completely erroneously) believe that you need this LO’s shabby, noncommital, low-quality attention to survive.

You Can and Will Beat Limerence

Beyond acknowledging that this neural slip up underpins limerence, you do not need to worry about neuroanatomy; recovery is all about amending the psychological points of weakness that lead you to fall for LOs. The neurons within your different brain regions will respond instantly and rewire themselves to solidify your new, superior belief systems and your rejuvenated sense of self.

In other words, focus on psychology – deep, nitty-gritty neurobiology will take care of itself if you bless the brain with empowered thoughts. In order to a). overcome states of limerence and infatuation and b). ensure that we rewire our brains and never fall into such compromising obsession again, we must systematically abolish limiting beliefs and meet our unmet needs. See my book for the necessary steps described in great depth.

Committing to healing your subconscious mind and correctly implementing the right psychological techniques will permanently immunise you against limerence, eliminating the possibility of you ever having to suffer another painful bout of unrequited heartbreak. How exciting is that?

But, Unrequited Love Hurts (Temporarily)

However, linking back to the title of this post, there is one small caveat – if you begin your recovery process when you are in the middle of a deep limerent episode, you may continue to deal with occasional feelings of addiction to your current LO despite proactively striving to heal. These emotional downswings will by no means be as strong as what you felt when your limerence was left unbridled and untamed, because you will have educated yourself, which shatters the illusion and greatly lessens the pain. Additionally, knowing that you are stepping into a limerence-free version of yourself will inspire beautiful waves of peace, eagerness and gratitude in you that will soften the blows.

But, you have fallen in love with your LO (albeit in an unrequited and pathological way, thanks to the brain’s silly tendency to make us obsess over things that can make us feel good). Unrequited love is unrequited love; sure, I can truthfully promise you that you will very soon not only see this person’s name and feel nothing but will also be untempted by future LOs, but I cannot make you forget this person in a matter of seconds. Nor would I want to, for I want you to reintegrate all of your memories of this limerent episode and transform yourself into someone who no longer sees this LO as magical. That requires awareness of their different personality traits, and of how they have made you feel.

Therefore, there may be some slumps, and some mourning of the fantasy bond between you and this character. Stay strong, for this shall too pass.

Know That Authentic Bliss Is Impending

To clarify, now that you are a). cognisant of the chaos and pain that limerence generates and b). capable of seeing that the ‘twin flame’ delusions that your brain feeds you with about your LO are falsehoods (thanks neuroscience, for letting us see the truth!), you will get over this person faster than you could ever imagine. Life will be genuine, beautiful and more satisfying than it can ever be while you are afflicted by a phenomenon as nasty as limerence. But, there may be the odd hour of nostalgia before this is achieved. Of course, it goes without saying that this is by far the better outcome – I do not need to delve into what the alternative (i.e. leaving limerence untreated) entails, as you already know how that goes!