Am I normal?

Questions around limerence and pathology

I think before diving deeper into the entrancing waters of limerence, it is important to first locate limerence on the spectrum between pathology, crisis, and normal human experience.

Limerence is unique from love in that not every human experiences the state. The actual numbers of how many people in the population do or don’t experience limerence is inconclusive at this time, however the original researcher Dorothy Tennov was able to determine that many humans categorically don’t experience limerence in their lifetimes. However, that does not change the fact that many do, and have been doing so since the beginning of human history.

It doesn’t take long when perusing historical literature, poetry, or music to see the haunting touch of limerence, obsession, and romantic despair appear throughout human works of art. And yet, when one suffers their first limerent experience it is common to feel utterly alone and painfully abnormal, worried that they are among the first to experience this disconcerting break from reality.

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These isolating and shameful emotions which make us temporarily unrecognizable to ourselves are why our first instinct is often to pathologize the limerent experience. We look for threads to our childhood trauma, roots from other mental health diagnoses, and desperately search for the reason there must be something inherently wrong with us.

One of the other main reasons it is so easy to assume limerence is pathological rather than as an aspect of being human, is because of it’s involuntary nature. Tennov writes, “Limerence is not the product of human decision: It is something that happens to us… People have been trying to control limerence without much success for as far back as records go, but it is remarkably tenacious, involuntary, and resistant to external influence once it takes hold… Limerence is unaffected by the intensity of our desire to call it into or out of existence at our wills…it can override self-welfare, and its power over life seems neither diminished with age nor less for one sex than for the other.” This involuntary sense of powerlessness is another key element, along with the intensity, which distinguishes limerence from a usual attraction or a crush.

However, it is this very takeover of our will despite our psychological stability, intelligence, emotional maturity, or self-awareness that feels so disorienting and unfathomable. The limerent process is irrational by its very nature, and our current world of science, reason, and pragmatism is deeply threatened by such an experience. We long to quantify and contain this “madness” through clear diagnoses, childhood trauma factors, attachment styles, and imbalances in the brain. However, the reality is there is no one factor that can be seen across all limerent experiences.

As writer Maria Popova states, “Tennov is careful to make clear that although limerence is at odds with rationality, although it can be painful to the point of agony for the limerent and uncomfortable to the point of exasperation for the LO at whom its glaring beam of attention and need is directed, it is not a psychopathology, nor does it have correlation or consistent co-occurrence with any known mental illnesses.” The reality is limerence can appear unbidden to people who are otherwise reasonable and high-functioning.

In saying all of this, I am not saying that attachment style, childhood factors, or brain chemistry does not bear weight or have correlation with specific individual limerent experiences, in fact, that is some of the work that I dig into with my clients. I am just clarifying that there is not one singular factor that we can see across all limerent experiences that unifies or consistently causes the initial seed of limerence. And for that reason, similar to other painful human experiences which take us over unbidden such as grief, illness, or the physical pain of a breakup, I situate limerence in the spectrum of potential experiences which connect us and make us human.

Limerence does not discriminate against age, race, class, gender, or sexual orientation. There is evidence that it may disproportionately affect more creative, thinking type personalities. However, even though we experience limerence often alone and full of shame, the reality is we are connected to a long line of ancestors who have been similarly plagued, tortured, and inspired by this temporary brain state.

Limerence is not love, but it is human.