Well, it’s November. Another month has passed by. That means it’s time for another visit to the LwL virtual coffeehouse.
To kick off the pre-gossip discussion this month, I thought it might be interesting to reflect on how limerent feelings fluctuate with mood.
I love autumn, but it definitely has an atmosphere of melancholy about it.
Earlier today I popped into a gift shop and the lady behind the counter greeted me with the opening: “Oh, isn’t it getting dark early now?”
That got me (over)thinking about the links between limerence and mood and that it can be a bit “chicken and egg.”
Sometimes a bad experience with a limerent object can plunge you into a low mood.
Sometimes a low mood can make you crave your limerent object more.
This creates a nasty little merry-go-round; a self-perpetuating cycle:
LO seems distant → I feel bad → fantasising about LO gives temporary relief → I want them even more → I feel bad.
When limerence has set in as a prolonged state, so that it’s passed from euphoria into person addiction, it can be very difficult to disentangle cause and effect.
Mood swings happen because of the limerence, but then reinforce the limerence, and so become associated with the limerence.
Eventually, everything that influences your mood becomes linked to LO in your mind.
So, if a gloomy autumn afternoon makes you feel down, your mind instinctively skips to Them as the possible source of relief.
Limerence becomes the default method for mood repair.
Even worse, when person addiction is well established, other rewards can lose their impact. Dopamine signalling for anything other than the source of addiction is blunted… meaning it’s more likely your baseline mood will be pretty joyless.
I suspect this is one of the reasons why thoughts about LO can become so relentless and intrusive.
Our subconscious mind has created an enduring connection between our baseline mood and our primary source of emotional reward, and so it brings them to mind at the slightest emotional discomfort or distress.
After a while, mood becomes so indelibly linked to LO that it feels impossible to disentangle them.
They are the centre of your emotional world.
Well, there we go. A few downbeat autumnal musings to get the conversation started.
Over to you folks.
How does your mood affect the intrusiveness of your limerent thoughts?
I can certainly identify with everything in this article.
I think I am getting past the point where a bad experience with LO makes me want him more. I mentioned elsewhere that LO blew up at me over nothing (again) last week, and it’s getting old. Rather than wanting him more, I am feeling angry and resentful, which is preferable.
I have gone out of my way to be extremely thoughtful and kindly, to no avail.
LO is in the throes of a ghastly financial situation that is looking more and more bleak. I can’t do anything to help him, and am actually beyond wanting to help him.
He is practically catatonic, and I can’t imagine how much worse things can get.
It feels wrong that his financial problems and attendant foul mood could be part of the key to my own salvation, but it is what it is.
Dear Norma
I’m sorry to that your LO blew up at you but unless I’m mistaken, you did nothing to cause his financial woes so I say more power to you and use it to your advantage to hopefully finally get over him and reach the place that us limerents are all striving to reach.
I dug up one article from Dr. L he had written several years back about one way to try to get over your LO is actually trying to pick apart their bad habits or features that your brain and eyes are refusing to see. For example, bad teeth, big ears, or an obnoxiously bad temper, etc…
All the best.