Limerence, Attachment, and Childhood Trauma
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มี.ค. 2024
- Hello Everyone!
At the moment, I won't be releasing a weekly podcast but
I'd like to from time to time as requested by YOU the subscribers.
Thank you!
So you may be wondering "what is limerence?"
Limerence is a present and deep emotional preoccupation or obsession with another person, and it's something that can really take over one's life until it runs its course, or we can do some work and get out of limerence faster like burst the bubble...
Join me for Episode 4 where we explore "Limerence, Attachment, and Childhood Trauma."
Learn more about Patrick Teahan,
Childhood Trauma Resources and Offerings
➡️ linktr.ee/patrickteahan
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My videos are for educational purposes only. Information provided on this channel is not intended to be a substitute for in person professional medical advice. It is not intended to replace the services of a therapist, physician, or other qualified professional, nor does it constitute a therapist-client or physician or quasi-physician relationship.
If you are, or someone you know, is in immediate danger, please call a local emergency telephone number or go immediately to the nearest emergency room.
If you are having emotional distress, please utilize 911 or the National Suicide Hotline
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The more I learn about trauma, the more I see how things I thought were normal are just trauma response...
Yeah, no kidding. In fact one way I think of it is that we've actually built enormous aspects of our culture and society around normalizing these trauma responses, and sadly, sometimes enabling abusers. (Forgiveness first responses (you need to forgive them, just drop it etc), "boys will be boys", "they don't really mean it", etc)
Thanks for sharing. It helps me to feel less alone surrounded by some of this madness, knowing that other people care and are working in/on/through it.
@@johnpienta4200 I totally resonate with this. Our media through movies, tv, and music normalizes a lot of dysfunctional behavior and relationships too. It's one of the reasons I avoid most media now as an adult. It feels like I'm being "programmed" to think and feel in ways I don't want to.
We're like fish that have been raised up in polluted waters.
Same for me....or hearing Patricks story triggers suddenly pop into memory, having an aunt reading a story at approx 5 yrs old felt so wonderful because I never had parents who cared enough to do these things for me
@@anniemac7545Your parents could not because of their own trauma
“A toxic parent will expect adult behaviors from small children without teaching them those behaviors.” This is so helpful to understand
Yep, my parents treated me as an adult from my earliest memories.
I was praised by my mother for being so “mature for my age.” One of the few things I remember being praised for and I wasn’t even sure what it meant. My 1st marriage was at 16. After 2 teen marriages I married my husband of 41 yrs at age 21. Now widowed, I sometimes wish I could marry again for companionship. But sometimes Im glad I live alone. I seem to find a reason to end every relationship that seems to be getting serious. Then later we go back to being friends. I’m not sure what I want but I fear growing old alone with no one who really loves me.
Limerence is like an addiction. I think it's honestly the reason that I never got into drugs/alcohol when I was young - I was getting high on other people.
Funny and sad at the same time hahaha
100% all the time..if I couldn't get it from actual people, I got it from books
felt like that but i got out of it somehow
I've chased after men who weren't interested in me most of my life, and have felt shame for it. This helps me have compassion for myself remembering how terribly alone I was in childhood. Thanks!
Listening to these videos has made me realize just how un-unique my lived experience has actually been. It’s simultaneously heartbreaking and comforting.
Right?!! On the one hand, we're not alone. On the other hand, we're not anything particularly special.
I still can’t get over the feeling of wanting someone to be with me every day, wake me up each morning and help me get out of bed, meet me for coffee every day, text me to check on me each day, giving me an encouraging word, telling me how thankful they are that I’m on earth and in their life. I had no attachment to my mother. Father traveled a lot. Non intentional emotional neglect is still neglect. I’m working on it. Trying to be there for myself. Thankful to PT and his videos ❤
❤ ty for sharing
💕
"Trauma survivors think that we're gonna lose people before we even get to say hello to them"...man..that really resonated with me.
"Relationships enhance our lives - not complete them." ❤
Limerance is the closest thing to drug addiction I've ever experienced. I was in such an unsafe and unhappy place in my marriage that I built a whole fantasy world with someone else. It ran my life 100% for almost 5 years...I neglected my family, made some really crazy and risky choices. I finally "got sober" and cut off the extramarital relationship, but it was so difficult to stop thinking about this person every second of every day (the OBSESSION!) Looking back, I was so desperate for an escape/rescue from reality that I built a whole alternate reality with a person who was NOT my soulmate, as much as I wanted him to be. My mantra to shake it was "The strongest wolf is the one you feed"...but I fully admit that I could NOT break off that relationship until I was ready and was working my Codependency Steps. So glad things are better now...thanks Patrick, your videos and podcasts were a big part of helping me to wake up from the dream fog I was in for so long.
My limerence was so bad it just jumped from person to person until I finally removed romance from my life. I didn’t even know this is what was happening in a repeating pattern. It’s embarrassing, but I have to just give myself grace because to move forward and make something of my life, I have to. This is the first time in my life, at 39, that I’m finally only focused on myself and my own growth and health. It’s like being free from prison: liberating, I can breathe freely, and also so angry about the years I lost. The forward movement is so slow, but it is happening.
Are you going about doing this? I can really relate. I'm going through a breakup and struggling so hard with letting go. I've jumped from relationship to relationship for the most part. I really need to focus on myself but it's excruciating. Any thoughts?
@@H01143 I’m sorry you’re going thru a breakup. They don’t get easier. What I did: I blocked every single ex or situationship who might come back or who I missed. I knew I couldn’t trust my judgement when it came to choosing romantic partners. Deleted pictures. Went ghost on social media. I had to go thru a hardcore grieving process. Letting go of the romance ideals we grew up with is not easy at all. Don’t do it until you’re ready and give yourself tons of grace and forgiveness 💜💜
I had a similar experience. I went to hospital when I was small for a minor operation. I felt so cared for by the nurses, even though they were just probably professional and warm, that hospital came like something to look forward to, or to wish for. That little bit of warmth and caring was something outside of my normal experience.
I felt the same way about school. ❤️
I had this really complicated relationship with being sick, hurt, or unwell in some way, because that was the time when I got undivided, sympathetic attention; but I was also made to feel guilty for getting sick because it was a disruption of the routine. "You'd better be really sick" was the unspoken message. Your comment hit me deeply, thank you for sharing it
I used to bump my head all the time into... everything, when I was a kid. I think it had to do with the fact that I loved hospitals. Gosh, I loved being taken care of like that.
Same. I used to daydream about breaking bones and going to the hospital. And having casts that the kids at school wrote something nice on. Dreaming this in bed, made me able to fall asleep.
Yup that's how people become hypochondriacs
"A toxic parent will expect adult behavior from a child without ever teaching them those behaviors."
My childhood, summarized. Neglect is a terrible thing, and it leaves an emptiness and despair that feels like it will never be filled. Lately I'm struggling every day with my anger towards them. They just didn't understand how to be parents.
Because of their own trauma
I experience limerence with fictional characters a lot of the time, not even real people. Wanting to be cared for by someone in completely different universe.
That seems like it would feel a lot safer than having limerence on real people.
It's simply a need to escape. I wanted to live on Planet of the Apes. It was safer 😂. What a minefield- what a waste - sad really but thankful to have these resources now 🙏
That’s my life as well. Your not alone there. Feels like I can’t have a real relationship with someone or I’ll unintentionally hurt them 😢
I turned my limerent object into a fictional character. My idea of who he was had nothing to do with the actuality of the man.
Omg yes. I’ve had it with movie characters. I honestly feel like I’m in love with Jack from the titanic when I watch that movie 😳😂
My dad was an alcoholic and more and destroyed me. I once asked my mom if Michael Landon from Little House on the Prairie could be my father. I understand that better now. Hurts to wake up even more to how I felt as a child, I feel incredibly sad.
I wanted Michael Landon to be my father too 😞
@@tanyacarlyle1422 I wasn’t the only one! Thank you for relating with me. Peace and healing.
Just realized. I had limerance with my friends and their families growing up
I remember my best friend’s dad teasing me and joking around with me whenever I stayed the night at my friend’s house and I loved it so much because my dad just basically either never interacted with me or when he rarely did it was to yell at me for something or hit me. It was mindblowing to me to know that an adult man I saw as a father figure could treat me as an equal and joke around as he would with his adult friends.
For years, as a child, I told everyone I was adopted. I so badly wanted to escape my bio family. I wished and wished someone would come take me away, and love me.
I so hear you on this, I too used to wish I was adopted and would ask my parents if they were my parents. Sadly they are 😢.
Adopted kid here, it didn’t help with the abuse or identity issues. Just was another layer to deal with. 😅
My sister (who is wonderful by the way) told me, when we were children, that I was adopted. Instead of being upset by it I hung on to that idea in hopes that my real family would come back for me. As well as being grateful that I wasn't really related to my mom.
"Trauma survivors think we're going to lose people before we even get to day hello to them" - 6:50 - this is a really powerful statement!
I agree...that sentence said it all for me.
I feel like Hollywood movies and TV shows like set a big limerant tone. Like so much unrealistic fantasy, longing etc that we grow up watching. In my life limerence has made me feel a high like nothing else and a low like nothing else. Cant wait to tell them they are just a bozo on the bus of my life i really want to. have to keep snapping myself back into reality because i live in the clouds it feels like
I thought Patrick said some hilarious things - "bozo on the bus of my life" has me in tears. Not to downplay the sentiment of your comment b/c I 100% agree and have the same issue CONSTANTLY. Thank you for bringing your A Game in the comments!
@@jessicamalloy8372 I agree I like the way he uses humour in his videos. I think therapists who do that are awesome
So true Megan! Love songs and other forms of pop culture have normalised limèrent feelings and behaviours for hundreds of years.
Agreed, it is so fake. My wife and I often joke about when is a good time for sex in the shows we watch. Usually it is right after something violent and traumatic, and they are like instantly having sex, and finish all while you watch the scene in a matter of seconds. The people on TV and movies all suffer from limerance, falling in love on cue and having instant perfect sex, anywhere, anytime. Fantasyland.
They really messed us up by teaching us that mean people just need some lob and compassion to turn into sweethearts. That’s not how life works. Sometimes a person is a jerk because they need kindness. But most of the time a person is a jerk because they are a jerk.
many of my limerence experience were about fictional characters... 💀
Limerence is why man men, misinterpret signals from women, because no one has been nice to them before. I think its also why so many people go into therapy and teaching etc why musicians/ actresses go into those professions to be adored
I have had that sad realization, too. Then they deal with the stigma of being called creepy for it
I think this is partially true, but the research on this subject has also discovered heterosexual men are prone to overperceiving women's sexual interest (i.e., engaging in cognitive biases) due to factors like maintaining a heightened sociosexual orientation (an individual's interest in uncommitted sexual activity), men's general lack of perceptual sensitivity, scoring higher in self-reported masculinity and self-rated attractiveness (men as a whole tend to rate themselves as more attractive compared to women), perceiving oneself as especially high in mate value, a tendency to project one's own personal sexual interest onto the object of desire (despite no valid external confirmation originating from the object of desire herself), and the fact that within our culture, men are still encouraged/expected to initiate sex and romance. It's a confluence of individual and cultural factors.
@@chancletadeldiablo894 you clearly arent a male
Hard to know limerance from infatuation in the honeymoon stage of a new relationship
I remember I was SO gutted when I told everyone that I had a crush on this girl in my class in grade 7 at a party and she said she didn’t like me. I always thought “that’s just what kids do at that age: overreact.” But I was TOO upset, and I never thought about why. Like that messed me up irrationally for way too long. I reacted as though someone had died. And I’m realizing now that it may have been limerance due to never being accepted at home and implicitly rejected every day of my existence, but this was my first explicit (and public) rejection and it was like she said what I’d always secretly thought about myself because of my parents: I was not loveable. She just confirmed what I’d always known. I’m so exceedingly good at handing rejection now after years of therapy and working in many sales jobs (rejection is a daily occurrence in sales and you need to be cool with it). So I’m stronger for it. But it still took years and years to separate my parents not loving me vs someone rejects me or my work and it has nothing to do with me personally but I can’t see past that. Rejection from a girl or being dumped by a girlfriend felt for so many years like rejection from the entire world because I was unlovable, and my brain was always like “yup I knew it, it was only a matter of time until she finally found you out that you’re not loveable.” Thankfully I have a partner who loves me now and we’ve been together forever, but even with her it took over probably 7/8 years before I could not spiral into “she finally sees I’m unloveable” any time she was mad about something. She had to literally be like “shut up. I’m not leaving you. I still love you. You’re not unloveable. You were just being a jerk. Get over yourself.” And that actually really helped. Sometimes a bit of a metaphorical slap in the face can really help me stop spiralling.
OMG, I'm so... speechless. All my life I thought it was normal to imagine someone rescuing you from your parents, avoiding reality, living in my thoughts... hahaha :((((((( thanks for sharing this information, it was very useful :3
Many thanks. Still occasionally doing this in my 60s. It gets more painful 💔 but just as addictive 😢
When you are starving to death, everything looks and tastes delicious.
We were starving for affection. So the slightest bit of kindness, a gentle touch, compliment or even a smile looks like The Man / Woman of our Dreams!
I was obsessed with a man who loved me back but had avoidant attachment, in direct opposition to my anxious attachment. His avoidance drove me away and my clinging drove him away.
Because he defined love to me, I spent the next 38 years trying to turn other men into him. As much as he genuinely loved me, he was incapable of loving me the way I needed him to. He too had been severely traumatized.
What I’m doing now is thinking about a relationship where a person can love me the way I loved Gary. He’s gone with God now but will always reside in my heart. I hope to see him again someday. But in the meanwhile I reluctantly move on.
I ruined a really good relationship with a doctor after I was concussed in a car accident and I am pretty sure now that it was because of limerance. I was being harassed at work and by family. The doctor had such a kind manner and I was so hungry for compassion and I fell deeply in love and it was entirely me. So I had to stop seeing him for care. This was because of the lack of empathy in childhood after numerous traumatic events.
I've never felt to seen by a podcast before ❤
I have the strongest urge to give you a giant hug, Patrick. It should never happen to anyone, it shouldn't have happened to you, but you're turning your trauma into so much vulnerability and healing. It's moving. HUGS!!
Could you talk about how insecure childhood attachment, people pleasing, co-dependence, and limerance come together?
Yes....this is me, the trifecta.
This is so incredibly helpful and I can't say my thanks enough. I feel like limerence isn't talked about much, and there can be a great deal of shame surrounding it. This has given me a lot of insight and I am journaling some thoughts too. Much appreciated!
Patrick, so sorry for the loss of your brother. So much for a kid to handle.
Thank you for this video. Lots of new to me concepts to absorb.
I had an experience with limerence but it sort of came about in a strange way. My first girlfriend that I met and dated long distance in high school and into early post secondary where we lived closer and could see each other more regularly.
I had a very good start in life, my first 7 years with my father(I was an accidental pregnancy, my parents have hated each other since before I was even born) were my "golden era" when I didn't think about thinking about my life because I was just living it and having fun. At age 7, I went to live with my mother who is an emotionally immature parent that has not dealt with her own childhood trauma, even to this day as she is nearly 60. She has a very short temper and is prone to irrational fits of rage and yelling without any kind of filter, and also she would hoard. Things, garbage, recyclables. Things that she "just hasnt sorted yet" that would build up for decades. I couldn't have friends over, I couldn't be honest about my home life at school. A few years later my father's mom passed away and some part of him checked out mentally and, again, to this day, he's never been the same. Mostly absent from my life and not interested in knowing me as an adult.
I met my first girlfriend at age 15, and we immediately got far too serious, I think we were both looking to fill the hole in our lives left by our unfit parents. It was not healthy, we did not have appropriate boundaries and we did not have any healthy relationships to model our own after, both of our parents were generally single most our lives. We lasted for about 3 and a half years, it ended over my jealousy and this is where the limerence began for me.
In so many ways it felt like she had saved me from the life I was stuck in, counting the days until I could move out for college. I had direction, I no longer viewed my trajectory as "don't know what's coming next, but I know I need to get away from where I am", now I had hope, I actually had something in my life that I was looking forward to. And then when it ended I felt like I was left alone drifting in a void. Every plan we had, all the days spent waiting for everything to come together was just abruptly ended. We went from talking about marriage one day to not speaking to each other over the span of about a month, and I just couldn't handle that. I self medicated for years, I tried therapy but I couldnt find a therapist that spoke to me in a way that made sense and I bothered this poor girl for years on and off, trying to re-establish what we once had, despite her not being interested, but also not wanting to hurt me. I can't say exactly what finally made it click, even after she had told me to never speak to her again and going no contact, I still thought, "maybe she'll realise one day", until one day I just didn't anymore. Suddenly I went weeks without thinking of her. I no longer wondered what she would think of my life choices, I didn't care anymore. I no longer made plans for my life with a hidden back door *just in case* she ever changed her mind about me.
I am still immensely grateful to have had that opportunity for connection and love in my life, because there has been none before or since, but I have truly finally accepted years and years later that our time in each others lives is done, and that's okay.
I'm quite impressed that you're the only source I know that explained my teacher's pet issue so well.
The worst part I think is that it kinda worked for me, throughout adolescence. I was pretty good at school without trying too much and every year there was at least one or even several of my teachers that gave me the kind of positive affirmations I was desperate for, who looked me in the eyes and smiled, who sometimes gave me a bit of their time to explore further a topic I got curious about, who sometimes got curious themselves about my drawings and my inner world, who seemed to somewhat "follow" what was going on with me. And when they'd meet my parents, they'd praise my curiosity, my creativity, my learning abilities, say things like "if only all my students were like her", advocating how attention-worthy I was... buuut my parents took it as a confirmation that they were doing something right. The results were good, therefore I was doing perfectly okay on my own and they could continue to leave me completely alone at home or in my room and not pay much attention to me at all. But at least I always had those other adults affirming me and giving me those little spotlight moments at school... until they didn't. I went on to pick art studies, and got in a very elitist and competitive school, in another city. I was even more on my own than I'd ever been, and no teacher, nobody really, was there to build you up in that school, quite the opposite... There was no transition or preparation, I was quite naive as a young adult and didn't see it coming at all, it was BRUTAL.
I also had a lot of issues with more romantic types of limerence, in parallel to that, and I feel that I've healed from that quite a lot... but that brutal fall in art school deeply and utterly shattered my confidence and my relationship to my art, and it's turning out to be one of my more stubborn pieces of trauma. I just realized your first video on the topic was a year ago and I wish I'd progressed more since figuring it out... I'm gonna check out that Artist's way book.
It suddenly makes sense why I’ve always had intense crushes, whether it was with someone my age or a grown up family friend 😅 I find it bizarre that my 9 yr old niece isn’t interested in boys, but her dad is emotionally close and affectionate to her. I’ve always looked for that through limerence.
@ 10:09, I can totally relate to this statement about toxic parents expecting you to _already_ know the things they’ve failed to yet teach you. I recall being in BIG trouble for _(at about age four)_ not knowing how to tie my shoes and for _(at about age 6-ish??)_ not understanding the value of routinely brushing my teeth...just to name a couple examples.
One Saturday morning I had asked my NARC father for help with tying my little red sneakers and out of nowhere he went off, yelling at and hitting me...implying something to the effect of _"Why I do I have to do this for you?? You should be doing this yourself!!"_ Whimpering, he made me go sit in a corner until I could figure it out on my own. As for the brushing my teeth incident, I did do it, but _(as a very young child)_ likely not as thorough as I should have or as routinely. Did this matter to him?? _No._ NOT until I saw the dentist and it was discovered that I had numerous cavities. THEN he took notice; not for my sake, but only due to the cost of needing what could have been an avoidable dental expense.
After we came home from that initial dental exam, once he heard about this situation from my mother he _re-acted_ by yelling at, hitting and taking away any _sweets_ from me. _(Ironically, he likes to now go around saying he never laid a hand on his kids, which is another enormous lie.)_ _Geez,_ as a young kid, I was already naturally afraid of seeing a dentist, but this only made me dread it even more so. No comforting or reassuring me _(a little kid)_ of the _unknown_ dental work that lie ahead for me...just more torment. _(That word “torment” is really what our childhoods amounted to…hopeless misery.)_
Our narc father was _(and still remains)_ a monster. However now that he's much older his evilness towards me is much more underhandedly covert and devious, as he now resorts to undermining, back stabbing and smear campaigning me despite that I am the child _(of three)_ doing the brunt of helping him out with his unplanned final years. Nothing I do ever satisfies him and he likes to let others know this _behind my back._ He expects a lot from someone he did so little for and has spent a lifetime destroying.
Ironically, as I'll take the time to explain to him how to do something, he doesn't even make the effort to listen and remember. _(
All those feelings started for me at around 5 years old. I spent so many years isolated from people/relationships, that maladaptive daydreaming took over my life until I was probably 24 or something. Idk if Patrick has any videos related to maladaptive daydreaming, but that’s something I’d love for people to talk about more
Wow... I didn't even know there was a word for all the things you described. Unfortunately I ticked the box on all of the above. Thank you for this.
Wow, I'm so glad I watched this. I thought this whole time I had maladaptive daydreaming and was a weirdo for thinking the way I have.
Such a compassionate take on limerence. Thank you so much.
All through school and university I would obsess over any male teacher who was even remotely "nice" to me. It motivated me to do well in classes I probably would've bombed otherwise. Still, even at 31, I do this. I have my own kids and I still crave attention from a father.
I was patiently waiting for the universe to give me this info bc I never heard about it before. Thanks for always describing things easily and without shame.
When I was growing up I used stay at my BF house for days or weeks until they would tell me I had to go home. I so wanted to be apart of their family. They played around with eachother & played games together and my family did none of that. I was neglected, abused physically & psychologically...there was no joy...just physical fighting & yelling. To this day, I wish I could be adopted by a woman to be my mom. My parents are gone and I'm in my early 50's. I didn't know this was a thing!😢
Limerence is so real in my life, something I've been aware of all my life...and I'm 64. I remember my earliest was my father's business partner...wtf when I was 6 playing with barbie dolls, playing acting he was my husband. I still to this day, my dentist, my new neighbour. I'm very aware of it, and fight my self over it.....because I know what I'm doing psychologically to myself. I have become hermit like a little agoraphobic, partly to escape from this pain
I cried through this entire thing. I had to pause and come back, but this is at the heart of my childhood familial issues and the sudden death of my partner of 31 years
I'm very sorry for your loss.
I was around 7-8 after school I would go stray to the local grocery store and ask strangers if they could adopt me. every day I wish it was the day I would be going home to another family. Today, I look back at that child, neglected, alone, seen but not heard. to this day I do not connect with my siblings
It is so comforting to have some ideas about what to look at and what needs to be changed. Thank you for persisting and modeling that.
I have a distinct memory in kindergarten, 1981ish, where one of my friends invited me over to their house. I was all excited about it and didn't give a thought to telling my parents. Why would I want to go home to chaos when I could spend time with my friend and her "normal" family? I got my tiny butt handed to me afterwards when my neighbor had to pick me up at school because I missed the bus etc.
You are such a blessing Patrick! This video helped me to understand a fantasy scenario I would often have. Being on my deathbed and having the object of my desire there upset about my imminent demise. I would play different versions of this type of scene with different love interests often throughout my life. I thought it was an unconscious death wish yet I never wanted to die (well sometimes but it wasn’t the core of these fantasies). I never understood them until now. In my family of origin I was so unseen that dying seemed the only way to get their focus.
GREAT video! I’ve never heard the word “Limerence” before. Makes so much sense now!!! Thanks! BTW, I couldn’t tell time until I was in 4th or 5th grade. We had a big, beautiful clock above our fire place but it had Roman Numerals. I remember my parents not understanding why I wasn’t “getting it” finally one day I broke down crying and said, I can’t tell time because this clock doesn’t have real numbers!!! Duh!?! They finally got it, lol and I got a Mini Mouse watch for Christmas & they began helping me more with time & comparing it to the Roman Numeral clock & also a “digital” clock radio I had.
Very enlightening. I’ve had limerance for so long. It always changed from person to person. Now it’s more ideas and fantasies. Sadness knowing I can’t truly get the needs met. I’ll try to do the exercises you mentioned. Thankyou for making these videos ❤
I had very long attachments to old friends way beyond what was actually expressed - like someone moves away after a day of hanging out and I would remember that person like they were proof my friends were far away. ❤
Wow. So helpful for my inner child. Clarifying. Like the journal prompt ideas.
Ha! This made me realise ...
🌟 I can't be me, because I have to be perfect. 🌟
I spent all my time and energy trying to be who my parents needed/wanted me to be, (perfect), so there was no time for me to learn who I am, and to be me.
Goes to listen to music (it’s 7am in Australia) and sees this podcast instead 😂 excited 😛
What has my life become 😂❤️
Umm, it’s been a whole emotional response 😂😂
I feel like this episode ended too soon. Listing all those expectations inner child has, because of all those unmet needs that form the attachment wound - I just feel so lost. I feel like I'm at the edge of what I can heal alone, so I'd love to have a relationship to work on this stuff, but it's too much to ask! Just like all those perfectionist expectations of how this person would save us. I dunno. I'm going to grieve all these unmet needs, and hopefully that does something. I'd like to know more about how to heal the attachment wound, there doesn't seem to be a way out other than having a safe enough relationship, but I can't tell if it's idealization again or real. This is difficult.
Journal prompts:
1. Write out examples throughout your life where limerance may have been going on for you.
2. Walk yourself through the limerance/preoccupation that you have with someone. What do you actually want from them?
3. Can you define or name pieces that are rooted in healthy attachment as a child? What were the unmet needs?
4. Write about any of those elements that were missing with your parents in childhood.
5. What does your inner child need from adult you?
You remind me of John Bradshaw in his time he nailed the addiction dynamics, family dis function, and he did his work like you, I love your insights,..
im starting to wonder if ive ever had a non-limerent crush. its probably the reason ive never been in a relationship too, i didnt want to break the limerence.
My mantra as an adult is you are on your own, no one is coming to rescue you.
It is a reflection of my childhood and the current time of my city with the defunding of the police.
Sadly, I experienced heavy limerence with my Drs because they were caring and listened to me. I didn’t have a father growing up and had a narcissistic mother and narc husband who ignored and made fun of me. I want to cry thinking about how I was so lonely and longed for their love.
Me after a single drought having someone show interest and I'm obsessing because I feel wanted again like someone is rescuing me from my lonely single life. And in turn I create fantasy lives and think about what if I said something wrong or if they don't like me as much I thought. These last few crushes have made me very apprehensive in dating
As always, thank you Patrick.
How do you cope with memory loss?I feel so lost I can't imagine any memory pre 13 years old let alone 6 years, just flashes. It feels like a big barrier to my recovery but I don't know if I'm just trying to cling onto the past, but it feels like I don't even have trauma if I can't think of any examples, just the results of it. Thanks for sharing your story, I highly relate to limerence: I always wanted my childhood best friend's family to adopt me. My parents never let me stay the night. I was and am a teacher's pet. When I get answers wrong, still as a 21 year old, I feel like I dissapointed the teacher and get upset.
Your feelings are the link to your trauma. You dont need to remember. ❤️
@@marielarsson6718 definitely! it could be a built-in safeguard against the trauma. Like their brain won’t allow them to remember because the memories would make them feel so unsafe/unstable
I have this lack of memories too. I think it was because my childhood was profound neglect, like there are no memories because nobody was there. Sometimes I've envied people with more direct abuse because there's something to point to. Trust your path, things will become clear.
Ah yes, my needs were always on the back burner and I have fantasies of being best friends with people. Sometimes it weirds me out because it will be a fantasy of befriending a TH-camr I really like and I'll know it's unhealthy but I can't stop the obsessive thoughts. I always manage to pop the bubble, tho. Knowing this information about limerence is going to make it easier to deal with in the future, I think. Just knowing that what I'm really craving is being seen and cared for and taking steps to do that for myself will help a lot. Also, omg, Garbage Pail Kids! My mom hated Cabbage Patch Kids and thought they were evil, so you can imagine her feelings about Garbage Pail Kids. That just made them so much cooler to me! I was never allowed to own any cards, but I vividly remember living vicariously through the other kids by looking at the cards they brought to school. I had an intense love of them!
Yes, I recall very similar experiences. I had a sense it was related to the lack of positive connection at home, especially when I got attached to teachers, but struggled with people my own age. This really helps with what’s behind all of these similar but different situations. I think I’ve messed up a couple of relationships more recently due to Limerence, but nevertheless, idealizing people but feeling I can’t really connect with them closely. I really want to solve this once and for all- these last couple have evoked feelings of SI like after all the work I’ve done this stuff is still happening. I’m too old for this!
Spot on. Thank you with all my heart for your compassion and insight
I'd love to hear a video on the difference between limerence and rumination.
I remember how massively and painfully attracted I was to my first boyfriend. He would cheat on me, like, a lot. He screwed other people so often I really cant remember how many times it happened. I would always "forgive" him. But I wasn't really forgiving him. I felt like I had to forgive him because for so many years I was not attracted to anyone else. I literally felt trapped by my attraction. Fated, doomed, to forever love this guy who was not a total asshole, but he sure didn't treat me very well.
did you get past this and over it?
I idealize and expect someone to rescue me, and then I notice one little thing about them which just crashes their status in my life. Makes sense now that these are limerence experiences.
This is so accurate. Thank you putting it into words 🙏
Thank you for the writing prompts. It really helps to integrate the issues around limererance and what was attached to that.
This offered more value to me than a bar of gold..thanks again!
I hear you!..it yook my breath away for almost a year. He ended it. Takes a long time to stop thinking about them. 😢
My Limerance Story, by hanabanana
tldr: I used to have really intense limerance for Simon le Bon. I still do, but I used to, too. But hear me out.
I was 14 in 1985 and absolutely nothing could shake my absolute love for Simon le Bon. He was the air I breathed. I wrote a super cringe fanfic about Duran Duran over the course of 4½ years that's currently sitting under a landfill in Indianapolis. (Looking back I can see how that was my journal all that time, but that's beside the point.)
When he met his future wife in 1986, I just don't have words for how much that crushed me. To this day I feel the huge bricks on my chest when I remember the article, that it was 3.5 pages long, and exactly how that article was laid out. I can even draw out for you how they were posed.
Even in spite of that, all these years I've carried a torch for that man through all the different phases of my life so far. It broke my heart, almost literally, when reality came crashing in, but over time the infatuation part of the limerance started to erode and sort of smooth out into to seeing him as a teacher, maybe even as a dad, and the idea of that is what keeps that spark in my soul alive.
Probably the reason why this limerance happened in the first place, is that I went to 17 schools before I finally graduated (with high grades might I add). That fanfic and Duran Duran were my tether to an outside world, and in my mind, *that* world was the real one and *this* was the fake one. But because of that, I studied absolutely everything about him and the band that I could get my hands on. For example, lyrics about Voltaire and Renoir led me down amazing self-taught paths, and today I'm very well read and know a lot about art history. Studying art history on my own sparked an intense interest in history when I was in my very early 20s, and now, because of a Duran Duran lyric about Renoir written by Simon le Bon, I know a lot about the history of the world and the UK in particular (since that's his home). (I live in Alabama.)
I got my autism diagnosis in August of last year (2023), and finally I was able to understand how a simple limerance/special interest light could turn into a super concentrated laser that carved my life behind my mother's back. And now I'm not ashamed to know so much about him.
Said all that to say, sometimes limerance can be an actually good thing, if you use it as a tool to learn more about the world, especially when your world is the eternal flame of dumpster fires
Def something I needed to hear. Very helpful. Thanks mate.
One of my rescue fantasies was that Star Trek Voyager was real they traveled back in time and took me with them. And another was running away with hobbits. (Pre-Peter Jackson movies) The other ones were that real people were coming to save me and weren't as interesting.🤣
I can admit that I am a hugely flawed person, and a lot of it , I can blame my parents for.
I need so much therapy work done.
I am 46 and a parent of a 6 year old.
I had a child late in life , I think mostly because I had a feeling I was not "good parent material".
I knew that I couldn't really handle myself , much less a child.
But we are.
I have no idea what I am doing as a parent.
My husband has no clue either.(he is a whole different story)
I don't know how to not screw up my child the way my parents did me.
I don't think my parents knew either.
Or their parents before them.
Definitely no manuals on it, lol.
As I got older, I realized more what my parents must have been going through as adults who had no idea how to be parents.
I feel bad thinking that some day, my son might look back on things as I have looked back on things, and blame me for something that went wrong in his childhood.
He would blame me for something that I had no idea that I was doing or not doing right.
Parents who never had a way to deal with their inner child, trying to raise a child, so , basicly, children raising children.
I watch your videos , and now I am at least aware of what my problems are... and maybe my partners problems..... I can't get him to change and I can only change myself.
So, I just worry I am going to screw something up parentally and have my son, later in life, resent me or something.
Love the way you tell your stories, Patrick 🌞
wow, thank you, this is great. This really helps me make sense of most...ok, basically ALL of my relationships.
I want to say that your videos have enlightened me beyond belief and i am so grateful of you and your content.
Just by understanding that i was a victim of childhood trauma has opened my eyes and has helped validate my inner child.
I am an aspiring psychologist and i love the way you "therapy." You are truly an inspiration and a blessing to us all. Thank you for all you do ❤
When I learned about limerance, it was freeing.
I have always been certain that I was “switched at birth.” I don’t look like my parents or my siblings and my core self is nothing like them. I actually really do feel that I might have been switched at birth. Maybe it’s a survival tactic.
Think about getting an ancestry DNA test. They are cheaper in November arounder black friday. Might shed some light on the family differences. Family doesn't always tell the truth. Blessings to you 🙏 ❤
@@seahorse251 that’s a great idea!
This gon be gooood... Lez GOOOHHHH!!!
😎🙏🏼
Always good to hear the truth.
Cannot wait to hear this
Thank you, so helpful as always especially with your very specific examples. I thought I understood limerance was with romantic partners but I know so much more now and understand this can scope so much wider
This was AMAZING!!!!!!!
thank you, SO MUCH Patrick
I love your podcast!!😊
Thank you for the podcast
Thanks for giving practical writing topics
I relate to all of this. Thank you.
Thank you.
This explains a lot …❤
Thank you for your incredible content! 🙏🏼💕
Great, to have this explained! It's so important.
Thank you very much ❤❤❤
Perfect timing 😅💔
Patrick mentioned he would include the journaling prompts in the description so I didn't write them down, but I don't see them anywhere. Where are they?
This has been so helpful. This is really important work.
Thank you 🙏