Caution: This article is very intense.

“I have seen my best friends cry for me, for my son, for his confusion. I have seen my sister, my coworkers, and even acquaintances wipe tears from their eyes because everyone who knew us or me thought we were the real thing. ”

This article is at the level LO #4 & I were on once she started opening up and confiding in me. And, aside from providing her a virtual shoulder to cry on, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do for her. I cried for her. I shouldn’t have been crying for another woman but I was.

Hi Dr L and Jennifer,
I’m in therapy with an OCD specialist and I expect she would agree with those distinctions. I have not suffered from OCD before, and I agree the limerent experience for me is largely like an addiction. Because I found the obsessional thinking and intrusive thoughts so debilitating, I am seeing this therapist to help me practice the mantra ‘belief follows behavior’ as therapy for my obsessional thinking. That is, we are doing a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). She deeply comprehends my life circumstances as well, so we’re doing plenty of plain old psychotherapy along with the CBT. This practitioner appreciates the value of mindfulness practice and I was referred to her by the instructor (also a clinical psychologist) of a course that I took over the summer on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.

Hi Jennifer,
I have heard from a limerent who also had OCD who said that their meds helped, but generally it’s a bad idea to a) extrapolate from one person and b) experiment with meds…

One important difference between OCD and limerence is that OCD tends to involve irrational fears and anxiety, rather than irrational excitement and attraction. There is some overlap with intrusive thoughts and the involuntary nature of the emotions, but I think addiction is a better analogy. Certainly the vast majority of limerents I hear from haven’t suffered with OCD in their lives.

Thanks both for the endorsement of the course 🙂 Really glad it’s helping.

Rachel, I suspect you are hitting what I called the “recovery plateau” in the course. When your action plan has got you to the point of making big gains for recovery, but then you face the loneliness and sadness of missing LO (or, more specifically, missing the positive energy of limerence). It’s kind of like the midpoint of a marathon, when the energy of the start begins to ebb, you notice the pain and fatigue, and the distance ahead suddenly seems a lot to keep going for.

I think there are two important principles: 1) recognise that the plateau is normal and predictable, and that you do just need to keep on running, 2) spend time fantasising about new goals and new sources of energy and excitement. No-one wants to slog forever, but it’s much better to look forward to new rewards than turn around and run back towards the false (and unhealthy) reward of limerence.

Thanks Vincent.

Yes I’m totally in that place just can’t seem to shift the habbit of my mind going back to them. Although yesterday I had completed limerent feelings yesterday and was gonna ask him for a catch up. Luckily I caught myself and stopped before I went and done something I regret. I’m trying meditation especially for letting go of obsessive thoughts. Sounds like we’re over the worst! For sure. But would be nice to be free completely. Doesn’t help LO lives on my street and see him all the time!

Whilst it’s important to process your thought and feelings after a while I can become a habit, thinking about LO, and you get into a cycle that you can’t get out of. I’m 6m into NC and I can’t quite shake off the thoughts. I don’t want her anymore, I don’t want to break NC, but I still imagine future conversations, and replay our last few angry words to each other. These thoughts are no longer useful to me and are holding me back.

It does seem to be mindfulness, meditation that allows you to develop techniques to shut these thoughts off. I’ve been following this guy for a while, Dr Joe Dispenza, and he has some interesting ideas that Im going to try:

https://youtu.be/v7KQsS2kLM4

Ahh that’s a good one self care is soo important and number 1 is sleep. Lord how the mind fucks with you when your exhausted. This is a really hard process but I really do believe that once we’ve beaten it and are ‘free’ that we will be happier better people from the whole experience. Man has this been a massive learning curve for me already. Also so scary where the dark places your mind takes you too. Mindfulness is key I think. Live in the moment. Hard when your washing up and intrusive thoughts keep coming and coming back. Another technique I’ve learnt is tonl actually indulge the though to the point you’ve exasserbated it then think logically and practically and redivert your thought. After all they are mearly thouughts, right…