Let me start by saying that this is most likely going to be a series! In my past posts, which…I’ll get to that in a minute, I shared quite a bit of personal information in regards to leaving a decade of narcissistic abuse, living in a homeless shelter for a few months while I got myself together, bouncing through several therapists on the way to a trauma-informed recovery coach, all the while navigating alcoholism, naming traumas, and normalizing my life as best as I could. In the process of that, I’ve rebranded and even renamed myself in order to find comfort where I would feel none at the time — this is actually a perfectly normal thing, even for people who don’t deal with trauma all the time — it’s called rebranding. I always came back to Admo, because that’s just me, and I realized that there’s no reason to have shame for anything.
Regarding Past Posts
In regards to my past posts, I felt a lot of them were very personal, almost too personal, and I’ve had reservations about bringing them back due to things that happened during my therapy and learning to name and address (and rectify) the things I was dealing with. I do not want to erase what I’ve been through, but I wanted to make it less…I’m not sure, really. I don’t know the word…but every post, everything I wrote about was an account of everything I’ve done to get to where I am now. I just…I want to leave other people out of it. Or…I don’t want to name people so much. It definitely took a whole community of folks to get me where I am. I needed people in places, I needed friends and a good support system. I was wholeheartedly inspired by a person. I don’t feel like it’s necessary to directly name people anymore, which is not a slight to anyone at all. Nor is it me reinforcing the lie that, in spite of everyone being who and where they are, I am alone in this. It’s just…this is my recovery, and I need to honor it as my own.
Trauma Mind vs Rational Mind
When my coach helped me reframe my perspective on things like feeling guilt shame for my actions in regards to my behavior vs trauma response, I began to mentally separate my own feelings and thoughts in relation to the trauma itself, which greatly assisted our first goal of separating who I am at present from what my trauma wants me to believe is real. Over time and a lot of talk therapy, I learned to stop apologizing for my trauma and start recognizing and apologizing for my behavior. When I began to recognize my behavior and what it was doing, the lines between my trauma self and rational self became more evident. I slowly became more able to divert my energy to what was rational.
Am I perfect at this? Nah, no way. Will I be? Well…where I thought I would never completely beat this, nor get out of the constant cycle of having everything be traumatic, I am starting to have doubts that this will stay with me forever. I will always have the experience of living through things that nobody needs to endure or even be exposed to, but I’m starting to understand that I have a lot more strength and courage than I originally thought.
But all of this leads up to where I am now, which is naming what I feel is the last big thing on my plate of abandonment trauma recovery: limerence.
What Limerence Is
Limerence is an involuntary obsession with the ideal of another person. Not the person specifically, but the ideal of them.
What Limerence Isn’t
Limerence is not parasocialism, though the parallels are horribly similar. Both involve an obsession or fascination with another human being, both involve a desire for attention, both involve a desire for reciprocity, and both involve a very lopsided balance problem in the relationship. The differences are that the desire for attention in a state of limerence is about feeding the ideal of a person, where parasocial needs for attention are to reinforce a one-sided relationship. In limerence, a the one with the glimmer understands where the relationship is and still carries the fear of losing it. In parasocial situations, the person can become possessive and even in some cases dangerous. In limerence, the only danger is in the person’s ability to focus on life, work, or other important matters.
Limerence is not always romantic. While most romanticized versions of limerence involve some fantasy about the subject of love and such, the truth is that it’s normally nothing more than a hyper-fixation on maintaining a relationship in any form. The limerence itself isn’t about the other person, it’s about the ideal of them, and in some cases, ideals often involve attraction. But it’s also not romantic in the sense that it’s a beautiful thing to experience. It’s emotional hell on the person experiencing it, and it’s uncomfortable for the person on the receiving end as well.
My Experience with Limerence
My experience with limerence involves being inspired to go way beyond my comfort zone in order to leave a decade of narcissism and rebuild my life. I was quite comfortable in the connection that formed with the person over time, but never saw it as a friendship or anything actually close. If anything, the only thing different between the person and my actual friends is that I talk to my actual friends occasionally. Not because I saw the person as a friend, but because of my history. I have difficulty developing most relationships beyond acquaintanceship, and am quite satisfied with my closest friends being who and where they are, which is far away and with very little communication except leaving footprints on their socials from time to time. In all honesty, it’s the people I do not view as friends who get the most conversation out of me.
It wasn’t until the suggestion of abandonment came into view by way of being told that I was actively being shunned or ignored and that I needed to find a new community to hang around that I began to obsess and worry about what I was doing something wrong or that something was wrong with me. I’ll be honest, this is also the part where I still am on the fence with my coach calling it limerence (it is what it is). I don’t feel I saw anyone as perfect, I simply began to see myself as so imperfect that I could not fix myself enough to be worthy of the attention that I believed I needed in order to keep my head up for my efforts.
It became so debilitating for me that I was struggling with going to work, meeting day-to-day life requirements, and even taking care of myself physically (showers, dressing decently, etc). It was also the excuse I used to drink myself into oblivion. With the inhibitions gone, the fears came out via social media posts and well…anyway.
When I finally got to meet my coach in April, one of the first things she asked me about were why I was wanting to find a therapist. I told her (it was a long list), and in regards to this subject, she asked me, “are you committed to letting people miss out on you?” I said no, I can’t do that. She said “then there’s a lot of work to do, because you have to let people miss out on you, and you have to let yourself miss out on them.” I asked her why, and she explained that confident relationships of any kind at any level require the trust that missing a day around a person won’t be the end of the relationship, even comparing this one to that of people I actually call friends. I don’t feel compelled to check on them every day. I don’t feel the need to hover and watch and wait and hope and worry like that, and I said that to her. She reminded me that I also didn’t have the suggestion that I was being avoided by them, either.
Where I am with Limerence Now
Either way, and regardless if I bucked against the term, working through the situation as if it were actual limerence seems to be paying off. Which, my coach reminds me over and over that it may be a paint horse amongst quarters and clydesdales, but limerence is limerence.
For me, limerence wasn’t the perfect ideals I had about a person, it was about the ideal of the connection being so important that I was obsessed with performative efforts to be seen or given attention or having reciprocity. It was less about connecting to a person and more about proving to myself that I was good enough for someone – anyone – to decide I was worth keeping in their sphere, no matter how distant. It was the connection itself.
But as my coach said, a horse is a horse, no matter the color of its coat.
I’d say I’m about 50% through the HP bar on this BBEG. I’m able to discern when I’m wanting to act performatively, when I want to reach for attention/reciprocity, and when I’m really just wanting to boost or encourage. As I work through the process of reestablishing my individuality, I’m seeing this behavior with a lot of folks, not just this person specifically. This observation about myself had me breathing a sigh of both relief that it wasn’t just “one person,” but it was also quite disheartening to discover that this affects all of my relationships in some form or fashion — not the limerence itself, but the root of it. Disheartening, and encouraging, as I discovered this during therapy, so I’ve already got a one-up on the topic.
Conclusion
Essentially, limerence sucks. Regardless the reason, regardless the motives, and no matter who or where it happens, the best thing you can do if you’re experiencing it is to talk to someone with the ability to work with you to get out of it. We are social animals, but we also need to learn to love ourselves without needing to rely on the approval, acceptance, or reciprocity from others. What we need is confidence to be ourselves without input. In relationships, we need the trust and security to not knock on its door to know that it’s there. That’s what therapy is for.
My next installments about limerence will include information about its roots, its different branches, how it blooms, and proper pruning techniques you can use to ensure that you’re coming from a place within yourself when you come to the table.