Limerence Explained: Why Do We Get Addicted To People? - Crappy Childhood Fairy

Anna says if you could just get over it, you would have by now. The secrecy and unrequited nature are what keep the hope alive. She gets pushback that the other person should leave, but she points out that the limerent is the one losing their happiness, so they must take action. She recommends leaving the job if the person is a coworker. This is the first and most critical step.

Anna advises that friends should not indulge the limerent's yammering; they should say they don't want to hear about it because it's disturbing. She removed all sad, unrequited-love songs from her iPod to avoid entertaining that energy. Friends can help by bringing the person back to present time and planning fun, distracting activities.

Anna says this is the technique she was shown and has practiced for 30 years. It is a core part of her book 'Re-Regulated'. She emphasizes that reality is the only place you ever get loved, and this practice helps you return to reality from the fantasy of limerence.

Anna shares her personal story: she met her husband at 42, came on too strong, and he broke up with her. She then asked a formidable male friend from 12-step for help. He coached her to 'sit on my hands. Let information come to me. Don't initiate anything.' She followed this for months, even turning down a last-minute Saturday night invitation by saying she had plans (when she was actually home alone). This shift caused him to gradually come back, and he later told her it made him 'fall back into' her. She emphasizes she did it to overcome her own problem, not to manipulate him.

Anna says most people she coaches, men and women, secretly want to be married, but there's a huge social taboo against saying it. She calls the alternative 'being cool girl'—pretending to be okay with casual situations when you're not. This 'cool girl' act grinds you down and costs precious time. She gives people permission to want what they want and to be open about it.

Anna says, 'for women even more than men, you have to guard that thing that happens... because it will bond you with somebody whether they're right for you or not, whether you like them or not. It just will, you know, throw you over a cliff.' She advises treating yourself like a drug addict in love, imposing strict rules because your natural judgment is impaired.

Anna shares that she only healed when she asked for help from a 'formidable scary person'—a man she knew from 12-step who had helped dozens of men turn their lives around. He taught her to 'suit up,' set standards, and work the steps. This was instrumental in her eventually marrying her husband. She contrasts this with therapy that just validated her feelings, which she found unhelpful.

Anna, drawing from hundreds of letters she receives, identifies a common denominator: people stuck in limerence grew up with a lack of enough attention, not being seen or validated as a person. This neglect may have affected neurological development. She references the wire monkey experiment to illustrate that the need for love is so primal we will die for it, and limerence hijacks that instinct. The obsession is not about the other person but about an escape mechanism and a learned pattern of finding love where there is no love, originally a survival mechanism from childhood. She notes that limerence appears across history in literature, showing it's not just a modern phenomenon.

Anna explains that no one who is limerent perceives themselves as avoidant; they feel hungry, chasing, begging. Yet by continuously choosing unavailable people, they guarantee failure. Chris likens it to 'death by cop'—the relational equivalent where you outsource the avoidance so you can see yourself as the good one while the other person holds the power. Anna agrees, noting it's not conscious but a way to assure private failure while avoiding public failure. This avoidance extends to avoiding one's own life and true connection.

She explains that if your primary caregiver was abandoning—due to addiction, mental illness, or absence—that abandoning dynamic can become the thing that activates you. You can't help it; it feels like love. This is why the 'bad boy' or unavailable person is so compelling. It's not a conscious choice but an imprint. She ties it to the broader concept of trauma bonding and intermittent reinforcement.

Anna says the high comes from cresting over from devastation to hope again, like a slot machine. The limerent person doesn't actually want the relationship as much as they want that moment of relief and elation. This is why secrecy and unrequitedness are key: disclosing feelings risks the definitive rejection that would kill hope. She compares it to heroin addiction and says therapy that endlessly discusses the feelings is like asking a heroin addict to describe the high—it fuels the addiction. The only way out is to cut off the supply of hope by cutting contact and stopping rumination.

She recounts her grandmother's crystal bowl of plastic fruit that she and her cousins couldn't resist biting into, only to find it was fake. She says that's what limerence is like: the person seems like the most beautiful, fulfilling thing, but it's not real. The analogy underscores that the limerent object is a figment of imagination, not the actual person.

Anna shares that she grew up 'feral'—with a heroin-addicted mother, poor, and without guidance on how to be a human. She learned from bad sources like Cosmo magazine and perfume commercials, which gave terrible advice. She is developing content called 'charm school for feral girls' to teach practical skills. This ties into limerence because without a framework for healthy dating, people are more vulnerable to obsession and bonding with the wrong person.