Have you ever been so consumed by a crush that you couldn't stop thinking about them? Or when you weren't around them, you felt sick to your stomach?
There's a word for that, and it's called "limerence." The term was coined by the psychologist Dorothy Tennov in the 1970s to describe romantic obsession characterized by extreme emotional highs and lows.
Neuroscientist Tom Bellamy explores the condition in Smitten: Romantic Obsession, the Neuroscience of Limerence and How to Make Love Last. The book, published in April, offers a roadmap for those looking to overcome infatuation and foster healthy romantic relationships.
"Limerence is a state that many of us go into in the early stages of love: a profound romantic infatuation with another person," Bellamy says. "They give you an extraordinary natural high, so you feel a powerful desire to bond with that person."
But if you're unable to actually bond with them, and the limerence goes on too long, "it can shift from happiness and euphoria into anxiety and craving," he says.
Bellamy, an author and academic based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, talks to Life Kit about how to identify limerence and break its cycle. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you first get into this topic?
I hadn't had much interest in limerence until I developed limerence when I didn't want to, when I was happily married.
That was in 2015, with a colleague. You had been married for 11 years at that point.
When that happened, I obviously had a bit of a problem to solve. So that was when I started investigating it. Because of my background as a neuroscientist, my first thought was, what's going on in the brain? How can I make sense of this experience?
So you started a blog anonymously to share more information about it, and it grew and grew until you had a large following and a community of people who'd been through the same thing.
That gave me a huge database of information on what limerence is, how people experience it and the effect it has on our lives.
Those findings, along with your own research, turned into your book, Smitten. You say in the book that symptoms of limerence include frequent intrusive thoughts about the other person, an aching sensation in the heart when uncertainty is strong, and a remarkable ability to emphasize the positive features of the other person and minimize the negative. Yeah, I've been there.
When I describe the symptoms of limerence, people either say, "yes, I've experienced that," or "that doesn't sound healthy." Some of us go into that very intense state of intoxication and addiction, but others don't.
It sounds like limerence can be fine if it's aimed toward a romantic partner who has mutual feelings. But if that's not the case, it can take a turn. Who do people tend to develop unhealthy limerence for?
People who are unreliable, unsuitable or incompatible to you for whatever reason. Or people who you can't form a relationship with. Maybe the other person is already committed to somebody else, or they're giving you mixed messages. The key factor is uncertainty. If it's possible to form a healthy bond with your "limerent object," then the limerence doesn't usually progress to the stage of "person addiction."
But if there are barriers, uncertainty or either the limerent or limerent object is indecisive or gives mixed messages, then it drives the reward system into that state of addiction. If the romantic reward is unpredictable, the desire doesn't calm down, it escalates.
Let's talk about getting out of it. How do you start to say, "OK, I'm breaking this addiction"?
The starting point is to recognize what's happened. You followed completely natural processes and urges that felt good, because falling in love with another person actually does feel fantastic if things go well.
But it's happened in a context that's not good for us. So the mindset shift is to realize: "This is happening in my head. So that's where I need to fix it."
You have several strategies in your book on how to get over limerence. One is to limit contact. That might mean trying not to think about them or talk to them or avoiding their social media.
Exactly. First look at the things that are within your control, like blocking them on social media, then try to reduce in-person contact as well.
Another strategy is to spoil the rewards you're getting from this person. You talk about that in terms of daydreams. If you find yourself fantasizing about this person, turn your daydreams into your "daymares." Can you talk about that?
So the idea with the daymare strategy is that you take a daydream you've had and turn it into a nightmare.
If you had a daydream about driving off into the sunset with them, change it. Maybe they suddenly shout, "Stop the car! This is a terrible mistake!" And they run off and you're left feeling foolish and ridiculous.
Sometimes it's not daydreams, it's actual memories. Anytime you start thinking about a positive memory of a time with them that was really good, force yourself to think about memories of terrible times. That way you are flipping the script again to say, "No, the reality is that they made me feel awful."
How do you replace those limerent urges with something else?
Have something positive to look forward to as you're going through this process. Think about using the experience of a negative limerent episode as an opportunity to improve your life.
Find new goals, new projects, new rewards that will give you a sense of purpose and meaning. Then it's a lot easier emotionally to feel like you can leave that limerence experience in the past.
This story was edited by Meghan Keane. The visual editor is Beck Harlan. We'd love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.
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