Limerence.
Even the word sounds hypnotic — somewhere between science and spellwork.

It’s something I’ve carried for as long as I can remember, long before I even knew it had a name. Back then, I just thought I was a hopeless romantic. Turns out, it was something else entirely: a full-blown emotional addiction disguised as love.

What Exactly Is Limerence?

Limerence: The Love Drug You Didn’t Know You Were On Discover the truth about limerence—the addictive illusion of love that fuels obsession, fantasy, and heartbreak. Learn how to break free and heal.

Psychologist Dorothy Tennov gave it a name back in 1979 — calling it “an involuntary state of deep, obsessive attraction marked by longing, dependency, and emotional chaos.”

If you’ve ever replayed a single interaction for hours, built fantasies out of mixed signals, or felt your mood hinge on whether someone texted you back — congratulations. You’ve met limerence.

It’s the kind of infatuation that feels like destiny but operates more like a virus. It convinces you that this one person is your oxygen supply — the key to joy, safety, meaning, and self-worth. And when you don’t get their emotional reciprocation? You crash. Hard.

You fantasize constantly. You plan your future with them before reality even catches up. You begin to orbit their life, believing your happiness depends on their gravity.

The Culture That Keeps Us Hooked

Here’s the cruel part — society rewards this madness.

Pop songs, romance movies, Instagram love stories — they all sell the same promise: “You can have this too.”
But they never tell you about the emotional bankruptcy that follows when you invest everything into that fantasy.

I realized this while listening to Gloria Estefan’s Anything For You in the car one day.
Every lyric hit like an echo of limerence — devotion, dependency, pain wrapped in beauty. It could’ve easily been titled “Limerence” instead of a love song.

Still, we eat it up. Because culturally, we’ve mistaken chaos for connection. The rush feels intoxicating — until the withdrawal begins.

The Cost of Emotional Credit

Limerence doesn’t just drain your heart; it bankrupts your emotional economy.

For me, it cost health, friendships, clarity, and sometimes, dignity. I tried to buy love with obsession, but all I ever got back was anxiety and exhaustion.

Family, friends, even strangers told me to stop. They were right. But you can’t reason your way out of addiction — not when the drug feels like "true love."

Love addiction sounds poetic. But like any addiction, it destroys quietly — and recovery means rewiring your brain’s deepest pathways.

How to Know You’re in Limerence

If you’re unsure, here’s how to tell:

• You replay short moments on loop for emotional validation.

• Their flaws disappear in your mind.

• You lose touch with your goals, energy, even your health.

• Your mood soars or crashes depending on how they act.

• You convince yourself they’re “the one” — even if your relationship (or lack thereof) says otherwise.

It’s emotional roulette: every glance, every silence dictates your worth — until you’re spinning.

Love vs. Limerence

Here’s the real difference:
True love grounds you. Limerence elevates and then drops you.

Love deepens with time; it’s stable, reciprocal, and kind.
Limerence thrives on uncertainty, fantasy, and emotional scarcity.

Love connects. Limerence consumes.

One grows roots. The other builds castles in the air. And yet, both can feel the same at the start — which is why so many of us mistake adrenaline for affection.

How I Finally Broke Free

Seven years clean from limerence — that’s how I see it now.

What freed me wasn’t a person. It was a realization: the people I obsessed over weren’t my missing halves; they were reflections of what I hadn’t healed.

Each obsession represented something deeper — safety, worth, validation, escape. The moment I started building those things within myself, the spell began to fade.

The truth? Limerence feeds on fantasy. And fantasy loses power when you face reality with both eyes open.

You don’t need someone else to complete you. You need to reclaim the parts of yourself you keep outsourcing to others.

You Are the Light

Limerence tricks you into believing you only shine when someone else sees you. But you’ve been the light all along.

Stop trying to build homes inside other people.
Start building the one within yourself.

Because the only way limerence survives — is if you dim your own light to make room for it.

So turn it up. For good.