LIMERENCE Flourishes When Grief and Loneliness Are Filling Your Life

if you suffer with romantic obsession you can't stop longing for someone you're thinking about them all the time your life and your emotions are kind of chained to this fantasy of being with them someday even if you know they're not into you if that's happening for you there's a very good chance that when you were a small child you didn't get your emotional needs met neglect in childhood is a huge risk factor for developing limerence later on now limerence is a romantic obsession or infatuation with someone who you're not with you're thinking about them is like an addiction and it can kind of take over your life and if you've gotten limerent before you probably have some shame about the way you felt things that you did or said or maybe you kept it secret from other people but you know what limerence it turns out probably has a big genetic component and it's driven neurologically it's most likely to happen if you were neglected in early childhood and i'm telling you when it strikes limerence is so painful so why does this happen my letter today is from a woman who happens to be a nun and i'll call her sophia she writes dear fairy since i discovered you i've improved so much i can't tell you how much you're helping me but i have a problem i'm hoping you can help me with i've got my fairy pencil i'm going to circle things i want to come back to but let's read through sofia's letter one time to see what's going on all right she says i grew up in a poor family when i was 20 days old my mom became very ill and wasn't able to take care of me my father had to take me to a neighbor to be breastfed i'm told my mother sometimes used to hit me when i was a baby i think she had postpartum depression her illness lasted almost two years i'm at least grateful that they told me what happened at school i was bullied and sexually abused by a teacher i had no friends until i was in fifth grade and thank god she's still my friend today i'm a nun and i'm sending you this letter because i'm living through an unbelievable situation and i'm struggling i fell in love with someone 17 years younger than me it's not the first time i fell in love with someone once i fell for someone the same age as me and once with someone older but i take my vocation very seriously and i was responsible so nothing happened the feelings i have now may be love or they may just be limerence this is a man who contacted me a year ago because he needed advice around a problem he was having in his life i talked to him and we had regular conversations and there was no problem i saw him as a young man who needed to talk and that's it and nothing happened in my heart but five months ago my mother died and he became very close to me he said that i helped him and now he was helping me thanks to his friendship i didn't go into depression maybe two months ago i became concerned about what i was feeling for him i thought if he's going to tell me that he has a girlfriend i am going to cry a few days later someone told me that he is seeing someone i didn't expect what i felt in that moment i almost cried and then changed the subject quickly so that i could prevent the tears in my deepest heart i said thank god i found out about the girlfriend from someone else which i thought would be less painful than having him tell me personally and maybe two weeks later he called to give me the news i said i'm very happy for you and i was happy but i wanted to end the call very soon because i felt that i was going to cry i was happy because i thought now that i know all that remains is to overcome this but it was a month ago and it's getting worse like i'm having an obsession with him it's hard for me to believe this is happening i deleted all our conversations but i can't stop thinking about him and waiting for a text from him i can't help writing to him when we started communicating he was really responsive he used to write to me or answer my messages right away and he appreciated that i knew when he saw my messages then he began to leave me in scene and i think that's another way of saying on red and he answered two or three days later after i wrote to him and he always would apologize for leaving me in scene always in a friendly way saying something good about me like i like the way you are you're so intelligent when i read your messages it's like i'm hearing your voice i became very attached to him and i think not in a romantic way i never imagined kissing him or something like that but now i don't trust myself that i can cut this contact several times i promised to myself i wouldn't message him and then a few minutes later i'd be texting him and i began to wait again for his answer it's like a curse i feel like i'm a bottomless sack nothing he could say or do will fill this deep hurtful feeling i'm living through i'm having insomnia and anxiety and sometimes i cry like a child the situation is so difficult for me honestly i didn't expect this to happen to me because i'm a nun and because of the difference in our age i want to know what you think about this and if you can give me any advice please i need your help sophia okay sophia i do think i can help i feel for you oh my goodness how painful this is um what you told me about your childhood it just makes so much sense that limerence would strike you and i also take very seriously your vocation as a nun and i feel protective of you i worry that commenters are going to jump in and say oh you're having feelings about somebody you're getting limerent because you have taken a vow of celibacy but i would just like to point out that lots of people get limerent and they are free to date and sleep with and marry whoever they want to but people get limerent because of a childhood wound and unmet needs at that time but yes you have a challenging vocation you're in a situation that is uh complicates the whole thing a little extra bit there but because he's so much younger than you and because your relationship began as a spiritual support or mentorship you have ordinary complications here that any kind of relationship of this nature would have so i'm just with you i think you're normal you're what happened to you as a child what's happening now it all makes so much sense i don't think there's anything wrong with you sophia and uh this is this is one of the things that happens to us so you had said you grew up in a poor family and when you were 20 days old your mom was so sick she couldn't care for you and you had to go to a neighbor to breastfeed so i as i understand it you lived in a in a place rural i know english isn't your first language i did modify a little bit for clarity and but going off to breastfeed at a neighbor i'm glad somebody could do that and give you that physical contact but there's no nut you know that separation from your mother who you were already bonded with at 20 days is so painful and sad and then your mom used to hit you to hit a baby you have to be pretty pretty messed up and your conjecture that she had postpartum depression sounds quite possible especially because it went on for two years and then it's and then she was back to whoever she was before okay but then at school you were bullied you were sexually abused by a teacher you had no friends until fifth grade what's up with that what happened i wonder if that was your your abandonment wound still activated who knows you know we can always look back and try to guess like why am i the way i am what caused this but of course we're each created differently and you are you and very unique and special in just how you are and these aren't necessarily horrible things about you that you would have that you are slow to make friends that you fall in love even though you've taken a vow that these are you're just human and your your humanity is beautiful and i accept you i'm so sorry you were bullied and abused by a teacher that is something so many of us have gone through and it just does something to you that's very hard to talk about or address or do anything about and then we find out later how it plays out so today you're a nun and i commend you for living a life of service making that level of commitment to serve others to try to be good to try to have a consciousness that brings love into the world is a very noble and holy thing and i appreciate you for that and now you're struggling so you fell in love with someone 17 years younger and you didn't say how old you are but i assume he's an adult and you're 17 years older than that whatever that is it's not the first time you've fallen in love before that happens and nothing happened with those people but this time your feelings are so strong so first you had a friendship with you with him he contacted you he needed advice about a problem and you talked and had regular conversations which is totally normal for people um to talk to clergy or religious for you know emotional or spiritual support that's common and occasionally people get feelings for each other the responsible thing is what you have done is restraint so you because you're in a position of authority and also because of your vow you you have an obligation to restrain yourself and you have and you're asking for help and i again i commend you well done well done so everything was okay but then five months ago your mother died and then you became close to him so you say thanks to him you haven't had a depression but i'm going to suggest something i'm not a therapist but i think that limerence is like a depression it's a it's a depression that's twisted a little bit it's kind of rotated around and we have all the same emptiness but we're coping with a terrible pain and loss with a fantasy of love with somebody who can never be like limerence doesn't work on somebody who's actually with us it can't persist because real people who actually can be with us you know they just have all their annoying habits they disappoint us they overwhelm us we get to have the experience of day-to-day life with them and so we can't really have magical thinking so much around them but in a state of of grief and depression not only because it's your mother but because of your mother's wounding of you when you were little what i notice is that that feeling of just being totally loved that you didn't get to have from day 20 until about 2 years old that feeling of uncertainty that everything being scary and you being alone in the world that that would be the feeling underneath limerence that would drive to manufacture at any cost the feeling of love the idea of love the idea that another person would be this side by side comfort to you and i get what you mean limerence often doesn't have like a sexual romantic component like it does but but it's it's usually not about that it's um it's some kind of like emotional completion fantasy if i could just be with this person and they would return my feelings i could be fully myself but have it not be you and i know that feels like a terrible sacrifice but this is how you can get back your joy and your integrity and he's still out there in the world you know who knows maybe there's a day sometime down the road when he will be your friend again but it's not very likely right once once limerence has sort of like you know put its claws in a relationship it kind of ruins it and so you can you can you can take your time about this decision if you want to but you're asking me i would just do it quickly just back off of it don't tempt yourself don't text him no matter what just stop the texting because that's right now the texting is functioning as a trigger and you are having a neurological reflex that is triggered by contact with him and then waiting for his reply it's it's a happy feeling isn't it texting somebody you really like and they text you back it's such a happy feeling you just want more and more and more of it i don't blame you it's a nice feeling but you know and i know that the nice feeling is like a tip of an iceberg and the bottom of the iceberg is going to smash the ship it could it could really hurt him and it could really hurt you so this thing about leaving you on c in scene or on red and how the things are getting farther apart that suggests to me that he senses that stuff is getting a little too close so that's your cue now is the time now is the time to straighten this out i love what you said here you described limerick so well uh it's like a curse yes it is it's like a curse it's like this love for something that you can never have and i feel like i'm a bottomless sack yes nothing he can say or do will feel the deep hurtful feeling that you're living through and that you know i usually don't psychologize but i do think i do think sophia that the reason no matter how nice he is or even if in a magical world you could get together and marry this guy and he would love you it still wouldn't fix that feeling of the loss that you had as a baby for which there is no replacement there's no replacement i mean we're resilient beautiful souls and we carry on and we learn to love and be loved and in your role as a nun i imagine you give love and support to so many people you're a friend to all a mother to all a sister to all and that's so beautiful and so you have love in your life but nothing can replace what you lost when you were a baby so i had a similar thing my mom left when i was little she eventually came back she would come and go a little bit and you know we can't remember what that was like but it was just like this you know it was just like this i know you know babies i've had babies and they are just inconsolable when they think that you've gone so a mother who is uh mentally healthy and who who is not in some sort of traumatic situation or with postpartum depression is very vigilant to making sure the baby never fears about that it's hard to avoid though and i could tell you stories about times my kids got scared thinking i wasn't going to come back it was a mistake and i did come back but they thought so and the crying and the redness and the very sad very moving for me and i've had some deep conversations with the kids then when when those incidents happened and now again to just say you know you've got me and you can be you in front of me and whatever the problem is i'm i've got your back i love you i'm with you i believe in you and there's nothing you can do that will change that and of course as young people who basically got their needs met they're like yeah yeah yeah yeah mom okay shut up but you and i know sophia how precious it is to have your mother feel that way about you so we didn't get it but we're giving it to others so then you said you're having insomnia and anxiety and sometimes cry like a child that sounds like grief it sounds like grief this situation is so difficult and you didn't expect it because you're a nun and i'm i'm just still gonna guess this is displaced grief your mom died just five months ago a lot is coming up and it's displacing onto this guy because it's kind of hard to face about your mom because she's gone and b she hurt you she used to hit you so it's hard to feel pure gentle grief and let it pass through you but i know you can do that and i believe you have support to do that in the situation that you're in and you certainly have my support and i hope i hope that you will stay connected to our community where we can all support you and love you through this as the grief just washes through you about what happened in the past and what you've lost and then all the good things that you will be doing in your life going forward so you can do this if sophia's story speaks to you i've got a video lined up for you next about the heartache of stepping out away from the idealization of the one you love and then facing the loss of them honestly and i've got that video right here and i will see you very soon [Music] you

Channel: Crappy Childhood Fairy

Views: 616,687

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Id: kNTXwcoXY0o

Length: 16min 38sec (998 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 24 2022