OBSESSIONS OF LOVE

I have noticed that there are many people who remain obsessed and obsessed with a person, an ex, a first love, or a rejected love. And that absorbs all his energy and gives no chance for others to take that person’s place. Instead it would be good to be able to process that obsessive love and get out of it and start a new relationship, learning not to fixate on anyone. Unfortunately, obsessive love tends to idealize one’s partner as the “object” of one’s love. The difference between healthy and obsessive love is that with the latter, the feelings of infatuation become extreme, expanding to the point of becoming obsessions rather than maturing in that next phase, which includes values ​​such as friendship, tolerance, respect and trust. Jealousy is therefore the main cause that can transform healthy love into obsessive love, a condition that can eventually lead to murderous fury. At this point we speak of “delusional jealousy”, a condition that denounces a state of mental illness.

The fear of abandonment, separation, loneliness generate a constant state of tension. The presence of the other is no longer a free choice but is experienced as a matter of life or death: without the other, there is no perception of existing. Your individual needs and desires are denied and nullified in a symbiotic relationship. In obsessive love, what is experienced as love becomes a drug. The symptoms of addiction are the same:

intoxication: the subject feels a sensation of pleasure when he is with his partner, which he cannot obtain in other ways and which is essential for him to feel good.
tolerance: the subject seeks ever greater doses of time to devote to the partner, reducing more and more his own independent time and contacts with the outside
abstinence: the subject feels that he exists only when the other is there, his lack throws him into a state of alarm. Thinking about one’s life without the other is unimaginable. The other is seen as the only source of gratification, daily activities are neglected, the only important thing is the time spent with the other.

inability to control one’s own behavior: a reduction of lucidity and critical capacity that creates shame and remorse and which in some moments is replaced by a temporary lucidity, followed by a sense of prostrating defeat and a relapse into addiction, which makes one feel more imminent than first one’s own needs linked to the other. These processes are tinged with anger and guilt

At the base there is always a strong personal insecurity, for which the other becomes indispensable to feel that they are acquiring value. This leads to the constant search for confirmations which, however, do nothing but reinforce a dysfunctional and pathological relationship.
The more you need the other to feel good, the more you devalue yourself, continuing to feed a circle that progressively leads to a relationship of dependence.

It is impossible to be alone, the other becomes necessary despite the fact that the relationship is less and less satisfactory. This inevitably happens because in order to avoid abandonment, one is willing to do anything, up to extreme sacrifices.

The more you need the other to feel good, the more you devalue yourself, continuing to feed a circle that progressively leads to a relationship of dependence.

It is impossible to be alone, the other becomes necessary despite the fact that the relationship is less and less satisfactory. This inevitably happens because in order to avoid abandonment, one is willing to do anything, up to extreme sacrifices.

Fear and insecurity lead us to believe that we are not worthy of love, what is brought back into the relationship is a deep sense of inadequacy so we cannot allow ourselves to express ourselves, but we tend to an extreme sacrifice in an attempt to adapt to the other, the only chance to be loved and saved.

The other is obviously not even perceived for what it really is, it is simply invested with a series of idealizations and expectations that will have to be constantly chased. The underlying illusion is that then everything will change, finally the other will realize the mutual need, the love that binds indissolubly and every effort will be rewarded. In reality, however, all they do is feed the obsessions of love.