I hear you, KT. The pain can be incapacitating. I feel for what you are going through, as I am going through almost the same thing myself. Best of luck, and I hope things work themselves out for you before long.

Well that sounds like she's looking at it more maturely at least.

"[T]hat one would use their coping skills to get over them. Then she is unable to explain exactly what coping skills to use."

And therein lies the rub. The limerent is in a state much like someone with suicidal thoughts. Suicide happens when pain exceeds the resources for coping with the pain. Limerence is just like that. There is too deep of an emotional love to deal with it in any normal coping manner. I know for me, every other word in my mind can be my LO's name. Ask her how to cope with that.

-R

Meowbie, nice to see you again! I was wondering whether you might pop into our discussion. :) Your reply was very aptly stated--I think most of us can agree with what you wrote and probably resonate emotionally with it. What you said definitely holds true in my experience, but I also see what you mean about each person needing to express their own experience in their own way--in their own poetry, I guess. We all experience limerence slightly differently.

I'm left-handed, and so naturally I'm in my right mind. ;) Experience is the way to go for me to understand something!

Would it make it any easier if you were coming up with a definition that a 21 year old would understand? I'd like to change it to that, please.

Meowbie wrote" " What most of us are looking for when we try to share this experience with peers is understanding, or more accurately, empathy. “

And some are looking for treatment or a cure, I read. It seems to depend on the phase.

“Empathy is a kind of emotional resonance - an act of vicarious feeling - which relies on experience and emotional intelligence. This is beyond most people until they experience it directly, much like other powerful spiritual experiences like falling in love, or contemplating suicide. It's certainly beyond the realm of most 13yo's.”

Not to be disrespectful, but at what age do you think empathy can be felt if not 13?

“In experiential terms ...I would describe as having my soul ripped in two ... to prostitute my value system in the service of an epic romantic love which I had no other choice but to pursue, while another part of me looked on in horror, bound and gagged. Life became a rapid-cycling of hope and despair, bounded by the interval of time between my LO's emails ... floating and drowning, over and over and over again.”

Great writing, but if you put yourself in the non-limerent’s place, I think it can sound like someone who is just lovelorn, again not to be disrespectful to your feelings.

Thinker wrote:
“LOL you really like the definitions! :) “

Thanks. I think productive conversation needs to start with making sure participants agree on meanings, esp when some words can have a wide range of definitions.

“We've got differing opinions in this tribe about whether or not limerence is love, contains love, or can occur alongside love...so I'm not sure how to answer your question. If by "true, romantic love" you mean the obsessive and unhealthy kind sometimes described in pop culture, music, literature, the arts, etc.,”
yes
“ then yes...I think limerence is what these people/mediums might actually be describing. I believe Tennov says something to this effect, too. But if you mean "true, romantic love" as a more ripened, mellow/steady relationship, limerence is not that.”

No, I meant ordinary romantic love to mean the more ripened, mellow/steady relationship-- sorry for the confusion.

"Non-limerents are people that just don't feel this intensely about a person.”

After looking at RD’s description of the phases, I would say non-limerents understand the first phase but think that the people who experience the 2nd and 3rd are just overly dramatic .

Regarding the soul being ripped in two comment, could the difference between limerence and non-limerence be having to do with how the heart gets broken and the process of mending? Reflecting on stories of people who claim to be in love but one of them breaks it off, the one who doesn’t want the breakup can be heard to lament, “(s)/he broke my heart!”, placing blame on the other. Most people can relate to that pain. And most who get their heart broken that way can have a difficult time getting over their beloved but can openly campaign for and get a sympathetic ear. But when a limerent person breaks it off, I can hear “I broke my heart!”. There’s no blame on the other. And empathy is hard to find, considering the circumstances in most cases. So after having fallen in love alone, the limerent has to try to heal their broken heart alone, too, is how I'm seeing it.

The only person to whom I have confided my limerent status is one of best friends, a (now-) woman who underwent sex reassignment several years ago. She understands what I am going through because, having known since the age of four that she was "really a girl," she has a perfect understanding of the power of the mind, so limerence does not seem preposterous to her at all.

I never discuss this subject with ANYONE else, most especially my LO--and my wife. Both would write it off as a garden-variety obsession tricked up with some pseudo-scientific terminology that I found on some website. And I am in enough trouble with both of them. To paraphrase a line in one of Hawthorne's best stories, "I look about me and, lo, limerents are everywhere," so I know there are plenty of sufferers, and if one were to ask me, I would talk about it with that person. But I don't initiate the conversation.

But, of course, I do discuss my limerence here, because in this floating therapy session without a therapist, we have developed the power to heal and comfort each other.

If anyone ever asks me about limerence, I'll make a point of posting about it. But as far as I can tell, it is that strange thing, a widespread condition that causes great suffering that is not generally recognized for what it is.

Doug