How Close is Too Close? (Uncovering the Truth About Love Addiction: P3)

This is part three in our series on love addiction. So in this video, we're going to talk about what does it look like when you are addicted to a person that you're actually currently in a relationship with? Because being in an addicted state is very different than being in love with a person. And if you're not sure what those differences are, then you definitely need to watch part one. Now, being addicted to a person that you're in a relationship with happens under a few different kinds of circumstances. Let's explore some of them. One way that you can become addicted to a person that you're already in a relationship with is if that person has an addiction. If they have a personality disorder, if they're narcissistic, if they're antisocial or any of those kind of things, it's because what happens is there's a real inconsistency with the way that that person relates to you. And sometimes it's really good, and sometimes it's really bad. That is what makes it addictive. Addiction is always an illusion. Addiction means chasing something you can't have. And so you're in a relationship with someone who has an addiction, or you're in a relationship with someone who's narcissistic or any of those other things we named. It's like sometimes they're really great, and they relate to you, and they connect you, and you get that serotonin and dopamine and oxytocin, all those good brain chemicals, and you feel wonderful about that person. But then they don't. And sometimes, even worse, they do something very negative, and they make you feel terrible and awful and desperate. That inconsistent cycle is what can lead to addiction. Now, another scenario that can result in being addicted to being, like love addicted to a person is when you have an anxious attachment. Now, if you don't know what the attachment styles are, I do have a separate video on that, which I will link up here at the end. But when you have an anxious attachment, you have this fear of losing a person, this fear of losing a person that's so big that it can cause you to do desperate things. And that fear can actually block and interfere with your ability to actually have a real loving because it puts you in a desperate state. And when you're in a desperate state, you can't really ever be present in a relationship or consistent in a relationship, because it makes you desperate. You're coming from a place of fear. Now, another scenario where you can kind of be in, like, an addicted state to a person in the beginning of a romantic relationship, you go through this phase. It's called infatuation. Most people call that, oh, I'm in love with the person. But it's really different. It's infatuation, and sometimes it's even limerence. But during these initial state, you're full of dopamine and great chemicals, and all you can think about is the other person. You're just obsessed with them, and you just want to be near them. You just want to smell their shirt. You just want to look at their pictures, all those things. There's just an obsessiveness about that person. Because it feels really good when you're in that state. But in real life, that state always wears off. Usually when you're in a relationship with that person somewhere between, like, eight and 12 months or so. And that's normal. But what can happen is this. Most of the time when you have two people in a relationship, they go through that infatuation stage. And it's fine in the beginning because you both feel that way about each other, and it's all working fine. But one of you is probably going to leave that infatuation state before the other one does. Because when you leave that infatuation state, you start kind of like coming back down to reality. Like, the high starts to wear off. It's not that you don't like that person anymore, or you don't want to be around that person anymore, but you start to think about your regular hobbies, interest activities, your work, your care, your school goals, being around your friends, you know, all the regular stuff. And so some of your attention starts to drift back to that. Because that's what happens when you're not in an addicted state. You're more balanced. You think about more things. You want to do more things. You enjoy more things. When you're in an addicted state, you only enjoy one thing. So when someone starts moving out of that state, it's natural that they want to pursue some other things. They still want to be around you. They still love you and care about you. That can trigger kind of like a desperate response out of the other person. When you get in that desperate state, you feel like you're losing that person. Then you start coming from this place of fear and desperation, which leads to making bad choices. So let's talk about what those bad choices look like. These are the choices that can happen in any one of those different scenarios that I talked about. But I'm going to add to it, because there's some different kinds of stalking behaviors that Will go on when you're actually in the relationship with that person. Because for the most part, when you have the stalking behaviors and you're not in a relationship with a person, Most of that stalking stuff is behind the scenes. But when you are in a relationship with that person, the stalking will become controlling, which can become abusive. So you gotta be really careful here. So when you're in that state, you could do things like threaten. If you don't quit your job where susie is, and I know you like susie, then I'm going to break up with you. You start to demand that person be around you more, do certain things because you want that infatuated feeling back. And you start trying to force that other person to do things that you think are going to give that feeling. Another way that desperation can come out is you could start fawning over someone. And what fawning means is like laying it on really thick, like being really overly nice, overly complimentary. It's extra. And when you do any of these behaviors that I'm talking about, these addictive behaviors, Any of them are going to push the person away from you, which is gonna make you even more desperate. So it's like a negative feedback loop that just continues to cycle itself. Another thing that you might do when you're in this state is you might try to make that other person jealous. Because in your mind, it's like, oh, if I can remind them of what they have, they're going to come running back to me, and that's going to solve the problem. Can you see how all these things are controlling? It's like I'm trying to bring this feeling that I get from this person. It's like I'm desperately trying to get it back. When you find yourself getting to the point that you're threatening, you're demanding, you're given a lot of ultimatums, you're putting a lot of rules and demands on the other person. You're trying to make them jealous. You're threatening to break up with them all the time. You are breaking up with them every other day. You're chasing, you're spying, you're doing all that stuff. You have now reached a level of desperation that is moving into the abusive category. And I promise you, these behaviors will never make someone want to be closer to you. But it can be very hard to control because it's an addiction, and any addiction is really hard to control. The best thing you can do if you're in that state Is to go all the way back in the chain reaction. Process to the obsessive part, because that's where the heart of the addiction lies. And you've got to stop that obsessive piece, which means stop doing all the things that trigger that desperation. And you stop looking at their social media, stop doing the spying, stop driving by their work, stop allowing yourself to go in your head into this crazy what if land. Because when you do that, you are fueling your addiction. I have seen some people do some really, really, really crazy things when they're in this state. And most of the time when they're doing these things, they just don't realize how abusive and out of bounds they're really being. Throwing crazy jealous fits. Telling someone they can't go or be, can't go certain places or do certain things like unreasonably calling other people and connecting that person, like calling someone's boss or co worker or, or schoolmate or something like that and telling them to stay away from your loved one. All of those are the kinds of things that happen when you're in this state. It's not your best self, people, it's your desperate self. And that's not good. Now just like with any addiction, you have got to be careful because you will lie to yourself about what is happening. You will justify, you will rationalize, you will make excuses for, you will blame the other person, you will blame the other people, you will blame the other environment and you will justify these behaviors and you'll say it's okay to continue to do these things when it's really not okay. And let me just go ahead and tell you one more really important thing here. Just because you have your feelings hurt does not give you the right to turn into a crazy, psycho, abusive person. It doesn't. I know it feels that way sometimes, but it just doesn't. Addiction is obsession. It comes from a fearful place. When you're addicted to something, it is an illusion. It never feels satisfied. It's an itch that will never feel satisfied. And the chasing of whatever that thing is will lead you down a very dark path. So join me in the next part in this series. We're going to talk about what happens when you're addicted to a person after the breakup.