How to Stop Love Bombing (Limerence)

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Imagine you are attracted to someone and have a strong need for love, you must have it, but you're overcome with fear that you don't deserve it, have no frame of reference to identify it or build it, and when you try to get it it's like that tornado hitting Dorothy's small house in The Wizard of Oz. The desire to feel that love is one thing, but it gets compounded by the need to have it reciprocated, intermixed with the confusion about whether you deserve it? This is what it is often like for people with BPD when they feel attraction and find an object to love; this is also called limerence. This is defined as a cognitive and emotional state of intense romantic desire for another individual.

Many individuals with BPD have a core content of emptiness, abandonment, low self-worth, and many others that directly lessen your sense of worth. When limerence comes into play, things get even more complicated, really fast. In many cases BPD makes you think that you don't deserve love, healthy love, and perhaps you've only seen unhealthy love and affection but you desire a conceptualization of healthy love. However, you have identified a love object, and want those feelings reciprocated, but do you deserve it? The inner critic, the voice from your past tells, you loudly no! In this video, we are challenging this with knowledge as we explore the four components of limerence.

Daniel J. Fox, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist in Texas, international speaker, and a multi-award winning author. He has been specializing in the treatment and assessment of individuals with personality disorders for over 15 years in the state and federal prison system, universities, and in private practice. His specialty areas include personality disorders, ethics, burnout prevention, and emotional intelligence.

He has published several articles in these areas and is the author of:

Thank you for your attention and I hope you enjoy my videos and find them helpful and subscribe. I always welcome topic suggestions and comments.

Citation:
Tennov, D. (1998). Love and limerence: The experience of being in love. Scarborough House.

[asahdo]

I find myself constantly ricocheting between unrealistic hope and absolute despair. Like I'll never be happy unless they love me and if they don't love me it's because I'm not good enough.

[ainovortex]

Right... those days where you think it is a good thing to drop the negative people in your life, but you are the negative people in your life 👽

[cascadiagreen]

I flip between absolute infatuation, distress at the slightest rejection, the a growing resentment/hatred

[endiosconfio]

In my opinion I think there's no other professional in the industry that understands BPD better Dr fox 🦊

[bigtimefans]

I'm actually crying. I've ruined so many relationships because of this. I can't stand having another Favorite Person but it keeps happening and I can't make it stop; it's so unfair to those people. But even to this day I can never entirely tell if my relationships were really bad because I devalued them or if they were genuinely toxic because I idealized them. I spend hours thinking about these things and have spent years doing so but never an answer.

[Stacyannecole]

Loneliness is my biggest fear. That’s why I stay in unhealthy relationships .. great video

[cvb]

Why do I internally want a relationship so bad but then when someone actually shows they're trying to have a serious, healthy relationship with me it makes me uncomfortable and I don't believe them so I push them away and treat them bad and that makes me reassured because I feel in control and not vulnerable? I it

[molloy]

I spend my life in limerance, every time I cross paths with someone. I want a healthy relationship, but the people who would give me that, I avoid like the plague, because it makes me unable to breathe xx

[yeezyyeezywusgood]

I think I’m obsessive in a passive way, I be thinking of my fav person very often, almost evert time of the day, but when I meet them I’m just like: 🕴🙂

[juliejames]

This is probably my biggest symptom - that obsessive love and how overwhelming it gets.

[Lidia.Bella.Italiana]

Such a horrific struggle... It's VERY on point and so hard to deal with and so confusing.

[rhiannonrom]

I've sacrificed so many opportunities, so much self-respect and worth over my FP because I can't imagine ever being without them, I feel like I know better than to be in an unhealthy relationship but I'm so obsessed with staying with them and afraid of abandonment that I can't leave or be left by them.

[andresfelipe]

I've noticed this pattern of obsessive love and it's awful effects, so i tend to cut off people before they get too close in respond, but i'm working on it

[jonmars]

As I approach 60, the hope that things can be different is really hard to believe. I've been going through these patterns of limerence and self defeat my entire life. Most of the time I feel broken beyond repair. On the other hand I have been addressing things in other ways such as health and fitness, not drinking, pushing the boundaries of accomplishment, making a habit of going out at least once a day and interacting with other people but my negative core values render many of these efforts into little more than a superficial mask. I still don't feel worthy but I'm still trying. Truth is, no matter how I have longed for a close relationship, I've never really had a close relationship and I have no friends to talk to. It's hard to say how long I can keep doing this.

[xoltacueponi]

I'm not diagnosed, but watching this made me feel #seen. Called out and dragged. But in a positive way? Haha. Either way, super helpful. Thank you for the work you do.

[selispeks]

This is EXACTLY what happened with me and my ex, the lessening sense of worth & resentment build up thing you mentioned. I really sold myself & how I deserve to be treated short. I put up with stuff I KNEW I didn't deserve just because I didn't want to lose him, even knowing we weren't a good match. He completely disrespected me & treated me like I didn't matter. This is why I stopped dating for years. I keep finding myself in this pattern with narcissistic men. I always think I've done enough work to try again, then end up RIGHT BACK IN THE SAME POSITION. It's getting old, I'll tell ya that! I have a DBT workbook I'm working on. Hopefully it will help.

[shannynmartin]

This video describes me perfectly. I have been struggling with limerence since adolescence, and it has only gotten worse over the years. I am in a constant state of either obsessing over a romantic partner OR obsessively trying to find a new love object, and obsessively seeking male attention to reassure myself that I am attractive enough and worthy for my next crush.
I do not know why i am like this, but it has led to a cycle of painful relationships (often with narcissistic men who take advantage of my low self esteem and my need for validation to get what they want), which has led to unhealthy coping mechanisms and even su***de attempts for me.

I can't figure out if I have love addiction, borderline personality or both. A psychiatrist recently told me that I have 7/9 traits of borderline but he didn't give me an official diagnosis. This makes sense, considering that my mom committed when i was 6 years old and my father abandoned us afterwards, so I probanly have abandonment issues. However, i did some reading on love addiction and felt like that described me pretty well, too.

The bottom line is I nees help but I don't know where to turn.

[SpudEater]

When I was diagnosed 2 years ago, I fell into a heap on the floor. There was finally something I could link with what it was that I was feeling after talking to people for more than a decade trying to figure out what was going on with me. I cried my damn eyes out

[nex]

I'm kind of in shock! I didn't know that was a disorder. I thought I was just weird. I think about that person every waking second and I lose my appetite. When the person is gone, it takes me an unresonably long time to get over them and then, I usually gain all the weight back. I've just ordered the book you recommended. Thank you so much for making this video.

[LizaLavolta]

Dated this. He sabotaged a perfectly sweet and pure relationship. :/ I could see what was going on, but was powerless to stop it. In the beginning I felt so seen, in the end I wondered if he ever knew me at all. I felt like an object.