The Secret Love Affair I Can't Tell Anyone About... 🤐 | Love Addiction Part 2

It can feel agonizing to be addicted to someone you can't have or don't have or can't have consistently in your life. This happens when we build this fantasy life in our own head about the possibility of having a relationship with this person that feels so good and so exciting and feels like it's the perfect thing. It's the answer to all your problems that you become obsessed and addicted to it. Now this can happen in a few different situations. You can have a mad crush on someone who's in your regular daily life, like maybe it was a boy at school or a woman that you work with. You can also have this addicted type love to a person that you've never even met in real life. But you feel like you know them. Like how sometimes people can really, really like fall for like a celebrity, an actor, a musician, a politician, because that person is usually putting their self out there in such a way that you feel like you know them even though they don't know you back. And you just feel like you're the perfect match because you build this perfect fantasy world in your head of how having this person will 100% complete you. And to be honest, it's the not being able to have the person that actually fuels the addiction. At some point, you either had an interaction with a person or a imagined interaction with a person that triggered something in you that was so deep that you just can't stop thinking about it. Some signs that you may have this kind of an addiction going on would be number one. Obviously, you can't stop thinking about the person. It starts to take up a lot of your time and energy. You find yourself imagining different scenarios where you can be together. And you'll also notice that you desperately look for any signs or clues that that person feels the same way about you. Now when you're in this state, it is very easy to convince yourself of things that just aren't true. Because you're so hyper vigilantly looking for signs and clues. It's easy to make up things that just aren't there or to meant more of something than a person actually meant for it to be. Now this is a lot more than maybe like you have a favorite celebrity actor that you just think is so hot and you're just like, oh, I have a mad crush on him. Yeah, you can have that. And that's kind of like a fun playful thing. This addicted love is like an obsession. It takes over limerence. Limerence is an addicted phase or form of love. And just like with any Other type of addiction. The problem is the thing that you're addicted to can't ever really satisfy or settle that need inside, which is what keeps you going back over and over and over again. So just like when someone's addicted to alcohol, the addiction is actually the obsession with the alcohol and the behavior is drinking. When someone is addicted to another person, the addiction is the obsession about them which results in a behavior of stalking. Now, yes, stalking. I mean it in like that term. Like you all think like you're following them around, like watching them from the bushes or something. Yeah, that counts too. Okay. But there are also a lot of other forms that come more subtly and you could be doing these and not really admitting that you're stalking them. Such as making up excuses or reasons to be where you know they're going to show up. Like making sure that you show up in a store where you know they're going to be on a certain day or that you get into a class that you know they signed up for. It's like this secret planning of these little run ins with that person because there's a desperation to have any kind of closeness because of the fantasy you've created in your head that you could finally have that thing that you really desire. Another form of stalking is social media stalking. Now, most of us are familiar with that, so I'm not going to talk too much because you know what I'm talking about. Like when you're literally stalking someone's Facebook, Instagram, their Snapchats, their TikToks, their YouTube videos, you're like obsessively watching, like you're looking at your phone or your device a million times a day. And you have this anxiety and need to check and see what they're posting or what's happening on their social media. You may start to make up reasons or excuses to reach out to this person or have any kind of contact with this person. You might be trying to like spy on this person through other people. So you're spying on them in person, you're spying on them when they're social media. And then you start to like recruit other little spies in your ring by asking other people, trying to get certain information out of other people. It's like vicarious stalking. Now these stalking behaviors can seem kind of funny and cute and maybe even a little romantic in the beginning, but they grow into a nasty, ugly, abusive situation. And in the most extreme forms of it, you see it like, like it is on tv, like someone literally following around person, like peeping in their Blinds, which then results in all kinds of other crazy behavior and bad, bad, bad decision making. You've got to really be careful when you're in this addicted love state, because you're very likely to do something that you're going to regret. You're probably already doing things that you feel embarrassed about and shame about and that you probably wouldn't want to tell anyone else that you're doing. And as long as you fuel this addicted state of mind, you'll become more and more and more desperate, leading you to make some really bad choices. For example, maybe you are addicted to a person that's married. And you know that ultimately you can't have them because they are married. You're probably going to start engaging in fantasies about what if they left their partner? What if their partner died? What if they got a divorce? What if, what if, what if? You've got to be careful, because obsession can be dangerous, and obsession can happen to anyone. The more you allow this to happen, I call it going in the rabbit hole, the more it takes control. And you start losing more and more and more control over yourself. It ends with regret. It ends with bad decision making. It ends with loss, sadness, hurt for yourself and for the people around you. Because you can't truly be present consistently in your life. When you're in an addicted state, things around you start to fall apart. People around you start to get unhappy with you. You start to get pretty unhappy with yourself. You might even find you fall into a depressive state. This is not a fun place to be. And if you're thinking, yeah, Amber, I know that, I agree with you, it's miserable and I'm ready to be done with it. Then let's talk about what to do to get past this addiction. Well, you do the same things as you would to get past any addiction. Stop engaging in the obsession. I know what you're thinking. Well, I can't help what I think about. But you can help what you think about. Yes. The thought of that person. Because it's become a habit at this point in the fantasy life, it's going to creep into your mind. But you decide whether you're going to fuel that thought, whether you start planning and scheming and fantasizing and remembering when and really like indulging this thought process. You are in control of that gas pedal a lot more than you think you are. You have to make the decision to stop trying to be around them, to stop looking at their social media, to stop finding reasons to reach out to them. Because, like with Any addiction, it's easy to trick yourself. You could be like, well, it's their birthday and they called me on my birthday and I gotta call them back or I'll be rude. You make up all these excuses to do all these things that you know deep down inside you shouldn't be doing. It's the very same thing with any addiction. Stop asking other people about them. And for gosh sake, please stop stalking their social media. You are never going to get over this addiction until you stop stalking the social media. I know you're going to have a thousand excuses, but if this addiction is really taking over your life and it's causing you to do things that you know you shouldn't be doing and make bad choices, then you're going to have to do some really big things to get rid of the addiction, just like you would if you had any other type of addiction. One of the basics in recovery is you have to change your people, places and things. And when you're addicted to a person, you're actually addicted to the thought of that person. So it's a lot more than just stay away from that person. It's staying away from the thought of that person, from the fantasy life that you have built related to some kind of relationship with that person. You cannot let yourself go into that rabbit hole. So if there are certain places you go that really remind you of that person, stop going to those places for a while. If there are certain people around that maybe are connected to that person or remind you that person, take a little break from being around those people for a while. Avoid your triggers and redirect yourself when you find yourself going in that rabbit hole of thought process. There's nothing good down there. And every time you do that, it's like you reactivate the addiction. It's the same way as if somebody's trying to get sober from alcohol. Every time they take a drink, they literally reactivate the addiction. And you're doing that same thing to yourself, too. And you do have some power and control over it. So take this seriously, because it is serious. It can and does destroy lives. Now, up next, we're going to be talking about love addiction when you're actually in a relationship with a person. So join me in part three of this series.