This summer, I fell in love. Having been single for a few years, it hit me hard. I was euphoric. I was energised. I felt sparkly and alive, finally awoken from the grind of parenthood.
He was the kids’ hot new tennis coach – the ultimate middle-class, midlife mum cliché – but I didn’t get to run off with him because, in my shame, I just squashed my feelings down where they grew into an all-consuming fantasy. You know, the kind where you think about a person on waking and while falling asleep, spend hours dreaming up ways to orchestrate a “chance” encounter with them. I imagined what I’d say, what I’d wear, what we’d get up to. Could he tell during those lessons? Was I obviously flustered? When we locked eyes, was it because he was interested, or is it inevitable that you’re going to make eye contact with someone if you’re constantly staring at them?
You see, I didn’t actually want him to know. I reacted to friends’ repeated suggestions to “just ask him out for a drink, FFS” with horror. What if he rejected me? How would I explain the end of tennis to my kids? No, I was enjoying my fantasy of him as dreamy escapism with none of the risks of a real-life relationship.
Except I couldn’t actually handle my crush. My mind had been hijacked – it was like malware had been installed, rendering it capable only of replaying every conversation, looking for signs of interest, or rehearsing future encounters. I compulsively checked his WhatsApp movements and pored over our astrological compatibility. It felt Kafkaesque and suffocating in its relentless. At meal times, my kids would say: “Mum? Why are you so quiet?”
Being “madly in love” was starting to feel like a mental illness. It was the intensity that made me feel crazy – I lost my appetite, I couldn’t sleep, I lost interest in the outside world. I’d find myself in tears when I was forced to accept that this was a one-sided obsession, or ecstatic if there was a crumb of interest to feed off. I had melted into a puddle of helplessness.
“Help, I’m infatuated,” I found myself typing into Google. I quickly found my diagnosis. I was, I discovered, suffering from “limerence”, a word coined in 1979 by the late psychologist Dorothy Tennov in her seminal book Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love. Limerence, I learnt, is a type of love addiction involving near-constant rumination about the “limerent object” (LO), who is typically idolised, while the limerent (that’s me) experiences extreme mood swings: euphoria when you think you stand a chance, despair if not. Check, check and check. It was a hallelujah moment.
"Love" - Google News
November 23, 2022 at 06:57PM
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What Love Addiction Feels Like - British Vogue
"Love" - Google News
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