Understanding that 6-10 million Americans have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). There can be a stigma to every Personality Disorder but this one is not as understood.
The name Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) originated in 1938 by Adolph Stern. He described a group of patients that didn’t quite fit an existing diagnosis. These patients were classified as past the neurotic stage but not quite psychotic. However these days this disorder is seen in a different way but the name still given the same BPD name.
BPD is relatively common, nearly 20% of psychiatric hospitalizations stem from BPD. It affects 10-14% of the general population. Women commonly suffer from depression more often than men and the frequency of BPD in women is two to three times greater than men.
A person with BPD can experience depression and anxiety that may last only an hour or at most, a day. While people that suffer with depression or bipolar disorder typically endure the same mood can last for several weeks at a time.
Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder:
• Impulsive aggression
• Self injury
• Strong feelings of anxiety
• Feelings of low self worth
• Drug or alcohol abuse
• Impulsive behaviors
• Feelings of being misunderstood
• Experience unstable relationships
This mood instability and poor self-image can bring on bouts of anger, eating disorders, panic attacks and anxiety. Sometimes people suffering from BPD view themselves essentially as bad people or unworthy. Very intense emotional turmoil appears to be a way of life for those afflicted by it.
Often times a person with BPD can present as a bright, intelligent individual with a warm, friendly nature. They can maintain this appearance for a number of years until their defense mechanism breaks down, usually caused by a severe stressor like a relationship breakup or death of a loved one.
People with BPD often formulate highly unstable relationship patterns. They may feel isolated and empty which may result in frantic efforts to avoid being alone. While their relationships with family and friends can be very intense their attitude can switch dramatically and suddenly from great admiration and love to profound anger and distaste. Often times they form an immediate attachment to another person but when even a slight conflict or separation occurs they switch suddenly to the opposite attachment extreme and accuse the other person of not really caring about them at all. They are very sensitive to any sign (real or imagined) of rejection and can react quickly with anger and distress when their expectations are not met.
Over the years treatments for BPD have improved with group and individual psychotherapy at least partially effective for a great number of patients. Dialectic Behavior Therapy, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy has proven to be helpful in regulating moods. Working with an empathetic and accepting therapist on a consistent and regular basis about present challenges and past experiences, has proven effective. Patients are encouraged to talk about their feelings rather than act them out them in their usual self-defeating manner.
Sometimes medications such as antidepressants, and supplements are helpful in treatment of BPD. Brief hospitalization for BPD may be necessary during acutely stressful episodes or if self-destructive behavior threatens to erupt.
The goals of ongoing therapy and/or treatments would be to increase an individual’s tolerance of anxiety as well as increase self awareness and build more stability into relationships. With increased self awareness and introspection, it is hoped that individuals with BPD will be able to change rigid patterns of behavior set earlier in life which in turn will help prevent these patterns from repeating themselves in future generations.
The Christian Couselor acknowledges that each person is extraordinary in their own right and that having therapy can encourage and empower individuals to gain clarity and move forward to become their very best! To learn more about help for BPD visit www.theChristian-Counselor.com.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Grieving a bad relationship at EMDR Therapy Denver
After leaving the abuser, we still may ask, "What do I do about the fact that I still love the abuser?" How can that be, she longs to know, as this is the person that injured her, brought her grief...or as some say, ruined her life? What you feel is natural to that experience.
When there has been intimate partner abuse, it's usually not about pure love after the fact; it's more about attachment. That is, attachment to the fantasy of what will never happen is now lost. We must allow ourselves this opportunity to grieve.
For some, it is more about attachment to the life they lost or the years that have passed them by. Invariably something that was...no longer is, and that's what hurts...the absence of what was once there. It is like an amputee's pain after the limb is removed. The neurons are still firing and the experience of physical pain is quite real. We call it "phantom pain." Which is real pain.
The grieving of a bad relationship has many of the characteristics of grieving of a good relationship. It doesn't matter whether your relationship was dysfunctional or healthy. When you are grieving its absence, you can experience any or all of the "Five Stages of Grief," as we know from Kubler-Ross' model...
1. Denial and Isolation - There may be denial that things have come to this. And you could isolate yourself in the shame of it all.
2. Anger - You may have rage toward yourself and/or your ex-partner..
3. Bargaining - You may even fantasize how life could be or could have been.
4. Depression - The raw sadness turns your days into tears.
5. Acceptance - And ultimately, after you reach into your resources of self-repair helping you to emerge from a relationship that didn't work.
We need self-compassion to mend our broken heart in the grieving and loss that we need to walk through. When grieving the loss of a relationship, some domestic abuse victims and survivors compound their grieving by reliving their victimization. They interpret the natural experience of grieving as something their former abusive partner did to them. However, this person can be far out of the picture.
The moment you recognize that the pain and loss you feel is part of the natural grieving process, then you own your experience. Acknowledging that, "He stole those lost years with all the pain that he caused and I lived through." And from here, your healing begins.
For help with healing from an old relationship visit www.emdrtherapy-denver.com.
So if you are asking yourself, "Why do I still love this person that hurt me so much?"…consider the fact that you are grieving the loss of a relationship that you chose to leave or that left you. And what you feel is perfectly natural to experience.
When there has been intimate partner abuse, it's usually not about pure love after the fact; it's more about attachment. That is, attachment to the fantasy of what will never happen is now lost. We must allow ourselves this opportunity to grieve.
For some, it is more about attachment to the life they lost or the years that have passed them by. Invariably something that was...no longer is, and that's what hurts...the absence of what was once there. It is like an amputee's pain after the limb is removed. The neurons are still firing and the experience of physical pain is quite real. We call it "phantom pain." Which is real pain.
The grieving of a bad relationship has many of the characteristics of grieving of a good relationship. It doesn't matter whether your relationship was dysfunctional or healthy. When you are grieving its absence, you can experience any or all of the "Five Stages of Grief," as we know from Kubler-Ross' model...
1. Denial and Isolation - There may be denial that things have come to this. And you could isolate yourself in the shame of it all.
2. Anger - You may have rage toward yourself and/or your ex-partner..
3. Bargaining - You may even fantasize how life could be or could have been.
4. Depression - The raw sadness turns your days into tears.
5. Acceptance - And ultimately, after you reach into your resources of self-repair helping you to emerge from a relationship that didn't work.
We need self-compassion to mend our broken heart in the grieving and loss that we need to walk through. When grieving the loss of a relationship, some domestic abuse victims and survivors compound their grieving by reliving their victimization. They interpret the natural experience of grieving as something their former abusive partner did to them. However, this person can be far out of the picture.
The moment you recognize that the pain and loss you feel is part of the natural grieving process, then you own your experience. Acknowledging that, "He stole those lost years with all the pain that he caused and I lived through." And from here, your healing begins.
For help with healing from an old relationship visit www.emdrtherapy-denver.com.
So if you are asking yourself, "Why do I still love this person that hurt me so much?"…consider the fact that you are grieving the loss of a relationship that you chose to leave or that left you. And what you feel is perfectly natural to experience.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Typical Love Addiction
The typical love addiction demonstrates the most predictable relational patterns for the majority of people who fall into addictive relationships. Time and again they become preoccupied and obsessed with attaining or keeping the perfect person, "soul mate," "Superman," or "Wonder Woman" who will make their lives meaningful and give them unconditional love/positive regard they are so desperate for.
Reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_addiction.
In love addiction obsession, fantasy, and denial they quickly fall into and become infatuated in relationships. Essentially their identity is formed only through their relationship with their partner. Because of impaired boundaries, they are in constant pursuit of merging with their partner; therefore, they become overly dependent ("clingy") and smother their partners. They take all focus off themselves (escaping) while throwing themselves into their partner's life. They try to earn love and attention that will guarantee they will not be left, abandoned, and alone—one of their greatest fears.
Romantic Love Addiction
Romantic love addiction are "romance junkies" and relationship "hoppers." They compulsively hop from one infatuated relationship to another in an attempt to keep their supply (dependency or addiction) going. Initially they often believe they're in love with a person they start a relationship with, but they don't truly fall in love. Romantic love addiction is addicted to the fantasy created in their minds and have false hopes (unrealistic expectation) that one day they will find the right one who somehow will keep the "rush," passion, and intensity going all the time—an impossible task for anyone.
Anorexic Love Addiction
The anorexic love addiction compulsively decides to avoid intimacy. It is the avoidance of giving or receiving sexual or emotional intimate contact. Their emotional state becomes a rigid and compulsive avoidance of relationships. The Anorexic Love Addict falls victim to in an obsessive state in which the physical, mental, and emotional task of avoiding romantic relationships rule one‘s life. Again and again (sometimes it may be just one painful experience) they experience the painful grief and withdrawal symptoms when a relationship ends. They come to a point where they are tired of feeling let down and betrayed, and they decide "no more relationships." In their distorted perception the experience of feeling betrayed, abandoned and rejected again and again is too much to take. Anorexic love addiction types move from one emotional polar extreme to the other with no in-between. Their reality becomes either all black or all white (either desperate for love or desperate to keep away love).
Non-romantic Love Addiction
The non-romantic love addict becomes obsessed with another person but the obsession has nothing to do with romantic love. They can become obsessively addicted to anyone—an acquaintance, friend, priest, teacher, co-worker, child, or celebrity. Even if the non-romantic love addiction is in a committed relationship or married, they can become emotionally attached, dependent upon and addicted to someone outside without romantic or sexual intentions, including someone of the same sex.
Avoidant Love Addiction
The avoidant love addiction is the type of partner "typical love addicts" most commonly and repeatedly fall for in relationships. Avoidant love addiction become dependent on their partner's neediness and are only attracted to people who they can control. They rely on feeling empowered from a person who looks up to them, worships them, puts them up on a pedestal, which provides a kind of narcissistic supply. Traits of narcissism—being wanted, needed, and worshiped—is their drug. It is why they are attracted to love addict partners in relationships. The sense of having control in relationships is very important, and control feeds their grandiosity and sense of being entitled. Feeling power, and therefore control, over their needy love addict partner provides them a source of self-worth and meaning in their own lives. Moreover, it keeps them from potential intimately connecting and being vulnerable in relationships, which is often one of their greatest fears.
Abusive Love Addiction
The abusive love addiction is an individual who employs both emotional and physical abuse, violence and intimidation in relationships. Abusive love addicts virtually always attract typical love addiction willing to tolerate callous and spiteful acts against them. They exhibit the same elements of the emotionally avoidant love addict but with the added element of becoming abusive. Their goal is to keep their partner in prison, emotionally and physically. They feel empowered and secured when they control their partner.
Battered Love Addiction
Battered love addiction is love addiction types who routinely tolerate and stay in relationships with abusive love addict partners. Women and men who fall into abusive relationships are virtually always dependent at some level on their partner despite the harm they receive. Battered love addicts are usually but not always females.
Sex and Love Addiction
The sex and love addiction displays the uniform patterns of the "typical love addiction", but the additional characteristic is the sex and love addict type also is highly preoccupied with sex and sexual fantasies with only one particular person, usually a romantic partner. They are not in love with their partner so much as they are in love with the sexual acts with their partner. The sex and love addict rarely seeks sex outside of a romantic relationship (unlike the pure sex addict). The sexual obsession with one partner becomes a significant driving force for staying in a relationship. Like most love addicts they will tolerate misery and pain in a relationship; however, they do it solely for maintaining sexual intimacy with that one person.
Parental Love Addiction
The Parental Love Addiction is distinct from the other types of love addiction in that romance, infatuation, or sexual fantasy is not involved. A Parental Love Addict's obsessive and preoccupation is directed toward their children. In order to escape feelings of inner emptiness and impaired sense of self, the parental love addict becomes dependent on one or more of their own children. These children become "parentified". They see their children as extensions of themselves and become enmeshed in their daily lives. Intensely over-involved with their children, they have a great need to make their children anything that makes them (the parent) feel secure. They want their children to like them at the cost of providing healthy parenting. They placate, give too much, and do too much, which leave their children feeling inadequate, invalid, and suffocated. They can not see that their children are doing bad while claiming to do good. They frequently violate their children's boundaries. They share too much information, vent, and manipulate their children for their own gain. Love is not the problem in these cases; the problem is in the choices parental love addicts make in the name of love.
For more information on love addiction visit www.sexandloveaddiction.com.
Reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_addiction.
In love addiction obsession, fantasy, and denial they quickly fall into and become infatuated in relationships. Essentially their identity is formed only through their relationship with their partner. Because of impaired boundaries, they are in constant pursuit of merging with their partner; therefore, they become overly dependent ("clingy") and smother their partners. They take all focus off themselves (escaping) while throwing themselves into their partner's life. They try to earn love and attention that will guarantee they will not be left, abandoned, and alone—one of their greatest fears.
Romantic Love Addiction
Romantic love addiction are "romance junkies" and relationship "hoppers." They compulsively hop from one infatuated relationship to another in an attempt to keep their supply (dependency or addiction) going. Initially they often believe they're in love with a person they start a relationship with, but they don't truly fall in love. Romantic love addiction is addicted to the fantasy created in their minds and have false hopes (unrealistic expectation) that one day they will find the right one who somehow will keep the "rush," passion, and intensity going all the time—an impossible task for anyone.
Anorexic Love Addiction
The anorexic love addiction compulsively decides to avoid intimacy. It is the avoidance of giving or receiving sexual or emotional intimate contact. Their emotional state becomes a rigid and compulsive avoidance of relationships. The Anorexic Love Addict falls victim to in an obsessive state in which the physical, mental, and emotional task of avoiding romantic relationships rule one‘s life. Again and again (sometimes it may be just one painful experience) they experience the painful grief and withdrawal symptoms when a relationship ends. They come to a point where they are tired of feeling let down and betrayed, and they decide "no more relationships." In their distorted perception the experience of feeling betrayed, abandoned and rejected again and again is too much to take. Anorexic love addiction types move from one emotional polar extreme to the other with no in-between. Their reality becomes either all black or all white (either desperate for love or desperate to keep away love).
Non-romantic Love Addiction
The non-romantic love addict becomes obsessed with another person but the obsession has nothing to do with romantic love. They can become obsessively addicted to anyone—an acquaintance, friend, priest, teacher, co-worker, child, or celebrity. Even if the non-romantic love addiction is in a committed relationship or married, they can become emotionally attached, dependent upon and addicted to someone outside without romantic or sexual intentions, including someone of the same sex.
Avoidant Love Addiction
The avoidant love addiction is the type of partner "typical love addicts" most commonly and repeatedly fall for in relationships. Avoidant love addiction become dependent on their partner's neediness and are only attracted to people who they can control. They rely on feeling empowered from a person who looks up to them, worships them, puts them up on a pedestal, which provides a kind of narcissistic supply. Traits of narcissism—being wanted, needed, and worshiped—is their drug. It is why they are attracted to love addict partners in relationships. The sense of having control in relationships is very important, and control feeds their grandiosity and sense of being entitled. Feeling power, and therefore control, over their needy love addict partner provides them a source of self-worth and meaning in their own lives. Moreover, it keeps them from potential intimately connecting and being vulnerable in relationships, which is often one of their greatest fears.
Abusive Love Addiction
The abusive love addiction is an individual who employs both emotional and physical abuse, violence and intimidation in relationships. Abusive love addicts virtually always attract typical love addiction willing to tolerate callous and spiteful acts against them. They exhibit the same elements of the emotionally avoidant love addict but with the added element of becoming abusive. Their goal is to keep their partner in prison, emotionally and physically. They feel empowered and secured when they control their partner.
Battered Love Addiction
Battered love addiction is love addiction types who routinely tolerate and stay in relationships with abusive love addict partners. Women and men who fall into abusive relationships are virtually always dependent at some level on their partner despite the harm they receive. Battered love addicts are usually but not always females.
Sex and Love Addiction
The sex and love addiction displays the uniform patterns of the "typical love addiction", but the additional characteristic is the sex and love addict type also is highly preoccupied with sex and sexual fantasies with only one particular person, usually a romantic partner. They are not in love with their partner so much as they are in love with the sexual acts with their partner. The sex and love addict rarely seeks sex outside of a romantic relationship (unlike the pure sex addict). The sexual obsession with one partner becomes a significant driving force for staying in a relationship. Like most love addicts they will tolerate misery and pain in a relationship; however, they do it solely for maintaining sexual intimacy with that one person.
Parental Love Addiction
The Parental Love Addiction is distinct from the other types of love addiction in that romance, infatuation, or sexual fantasy is not involved. A Parental Love Addict's obsessive and preoccupation is directed toward their children. In order to escape feelings of inner emptiness and impaired sense of self, the parental love addict becomes dependent on one or more of their own children. These children become "parentified". They see their children as extensions of themselves and become enmeshed in their daily lives. Intensely over-involved with their children, they have a great need to make their children anything that makes them (the parent) feel secure. They want their children to like them at the cost of providing healthy parenting. They placate, give too much, and do too much, which leave their children feeling inadequate, invalid, and suffocated. They can not see that their children are doing bad while claiming to do good. They frequently violate their children's boundaries. They share too much information, vent, and manipulate their children for their own gain. Love is not the problem in these cases; the problem is in the choices parental love addicts make in the name of love.
For more information on love addiction visit www.sexandloveaddiction.com.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Therapy Denver - Love Addiction, Avoidants and Types of Love Addiction
Love addicts and avoidants form relationships that inevitably lead to unhealthy patterns of dependency, distance, chaos, and often abuse. Familiarity is the central engine of the love addiction. Each is attracted to the other specifically because of the familiar traits that the other exhibits, and although painful, come from childhood. When the two addictive lovers come together --- a common and predictable relational process is ignited.
Reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_addiction.
For more help visit: www.therapy-denver.com
This cycle of love addiction encompasses a push-pull dance full of emotional highs and many lows where the one is on the chase (love addiction) while the avoidant is on the run. They both engage in "counterfeit emotional involvement. Healthy emotional intimacy is replaced with melodrama and negative intensity- ironically creating the illusion of true love, intimacy, and connection - usually on an unconscious level.
Love withdrawal is when with love addiction comes inevitable negative consequences. The negative consequences of love addiction can vary. Depending on the level or extreme of ones love addiction, negative consequences can range from violence (to others or self) to increased feelings of shame, depression, impaired emotional growth, chronic emptiness, loneliness, loss of intimacy and enjoyment in life. In the extreme- love addiction certainly causes more murders and suicides than any other addiction.
The consequences of love addiction are most revealed as the love addict experiences withdrawal; when a relationship ends; or when a relationship is perceived as falling apart. This is when withdrawal of being with one person is experienced at its most intense level. When a break up occurs, love addiction longs for the attachment and apparent loving feelings of the lost relationship, as much as a heroin user craves a their heroin when the drug is no longer available. This longing is a form of emotional withdrawal, resulting in extreme debilitating pain, obsession, and destructive behaviors where they would likely never participate.
The types of love addiction are:
* Obsessed love addiction: This type of addiction comes with the inability to live independently from another person, or a feeling of possession.
* Codependency addiction
* Relationship addiction: This can represent itself as an addiction to the idea of having a relationship instead of a person. There are two types: those who are constantly in and out of relationships and those who will not let go of a bad relationship for the sake of having a relationship.
* Narcissistic love addiction
* Ambivalent love addiction
* Satutory love addiction
* Torch bearers
* Seductive withholders
* Romance addiction: This can represent itself as an obsession over romance itself, including, but not limited to adven
ture and passion. People suffering with this type of love addiction worry about romantic rituals such as dates, dinner, sex, and everything else that has to do with a passing romance. This can often be a representation of the person's individual fantasies. A typical example is the legendary Don Juan. Love addiction will seek seduction and conquest, but quickly tire of it.
Reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_addiction.
For more help visit: www.therapy-denver.com
This cycle of love addiction encompasses a push-pull dance full of emotional highs and many lows where the one is on the chase (love addiction) while the avoidant is on the run. They both engage in "counterfeit emotional involvement. Healthy emotional intimacy is replaced with melodrama and negative intensity- ironically creating the illusion of true love, intimacy, and connection - usually on an unconscious level.
Love withdrawal is when with love addiction comes inevitable negative consequences. The negative consequences of love addiction can vary. Depending on the level or extreme of ones love addiction, negative consequences can range from violence (to others or self) to increased feelings of shame, depression, impaired emotional growth, chronic emptiness, loneliness, loss of intimacy and enjoyment in life. In the extreme- love addiction certainly causes more murders and suicides than any other addiction.
The consequences of love addiction are most revealed as the love addict experiences withdrawal; when a relationship ends; or when a relationship is perceived as falling apart. This is when withdrawal of being with one person is experienced at its most intense level. When a break up occurs, love addiction longs for the attachment and apparent loving feelings of the lost relationship, as much as a heroin user craves a their heroin when the drug is no longer available. This longing is a form of emotional withdrawal, resulting in extreme debilitating pain, obsession, and destructive behaviors where they would likely never participate.
The types of love addiction are:
* Obsessed love addiction: This type of addiction comes with the inability to live independently from another person, or a feeling of possession.
* Codependency addiction
* Relationship addiction: This can represent itself as an addiction to the idea of having a relationship instead of a person. There are two types: those who are constantly in and out of relationships and those who will not let go of a bad relationship for the sake of having a relationship.
* Narcissistic love addiction
* Ambivalent love addiction
* Satutory love addiction
* Torch bearers
* Seductive withholders
* Romance addiction: This can represent itself as an obsession over romance itself, including, but not limited to adven
ture and passion. People suffering with this type of love addiction worry about romantic rituals such as dates, dinner, sex, and everything else that has to do with a passing romance. This can often be a representation of the person's individual fantasies. A typical example is the legendary Don Juan. Love addiction will seek seduction and conquest, but quickly tire of it.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Therapy Denver - Love Addiction
Love addiction is a human behavior in which people become addicted to the feeling of being in love. Love addicts can take on many different behaviors. Love addiction is common; however, most love addicts do not realize they are addicted to love. Love addiction can be treated with various recovery techniques, most of which are similar to recovery from other addictions such as sex addiction and alcoholism, through group meetings and support groups.
Reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_addiction.
The normal process of falling into love addiction begins when a person begins to feel sympathy with another person after going through an initially innocent moment of attraction and automatically idealizes the other to the point of divinity. The individual is then blindly attached to the other person, becoming incapable of making a realistic analysis of the situation; they may project all kinds of illusions onto the other person, believing them to be the only one that can bring happiness. This process can be very quick. For some, this can be a brief experience that is only the first step toward a more mature relationship. There are, however, those who never go past this stage of blind love. For help with love addiction visit www.therapy-denver.com
Obsession can be considered the primary symptom of any addiction. In love addiction, the individual's insecurity gives rise to an obsessive attachment to the object of their affection. Love addiction typically manifests as an insatiable hunger that distorts the person's perception of reality and often results in various unhealthy behaviors and suffering.
The addictive love addiction relationship is as becoming obsessed and preoccupied to a person in relationships, giving too much time, and value; all the while neglecting and abandoning their own wants, needs, and desires. Like other addictions (drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, work, and the list goes on), the dependency to a person (their object- drug of choice) allows the love addict to feel alive- a sense of purpose- and to gain a sense of meaning and self worth in the world.
Love addicts commonly and repeatedly form an addictive relationship with emotionally unavailable avoidant partners. The avoidant partner is compulsively counter-dependent – they fear being engulphed/drowned/ and smothered by their love addict partner. They enter relationships with closed off emotionally - where they will let nothing or no one in - which makes intimate relationships impossible. Behind their emotional walls, hides low self-esteem and feel if they become truly known (display emotional intimacy) - no one would ever love, accept, and value who they are. Avoidants are attracted to people who have difficulty thinking for themselves, having healthy emotional boundaries, or taking care of themselves in healthy manners like those who suffer from love addiction.
Reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_addiction.
The normal process of falling into love addiction begins when a person begins to feel sympathy with another person after going through an initially innocent moment of attraction and automatically idealizes the other to the point of divinity. The individual is then blindly attached to the other person, becoming incapable of making a realistic analysis of the situation; they may project all kinds of illusions onto the other person, believing them to be the only one that can bring happiness. This process can be very quick. For some, this can be a brief experience that is only the first step toward a more mature relationship. There are, however, those who never go past this stage of blind love. For help with love addiction visit www.therapy-denver.com
Obsession can be considered the primary symptom of any addiction. In love addiction, the individual's insecurity gives rise to an obsessive attachment to the object of their affection. Love addiction typically manifests as an insatiable hunger that distorts the person's perception of reality and often results in various unhealthy behaviors and suffering.
The addictive love addiction relationship is as becoming obsessed and preoccupied to a person in relationships, giving too much time, and value; all the while neglecting and abandoning their own wants, needs, and desires. Like other addictions (drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, work, and the list goes on), the dependency to a person (their object- drug of choice) allows the love addict to feel alive- a sense of purpose- and to gain a sense of meaning and self worth in the world.
Love addicts commonly and repeatedly form an addictive relationship with emotionally unavailable avoidant partners. The avoidant partner is compulsively counter-dependent – they fear being engulphed/drowned/ and smothered by their love addict partner. They enter relationships with closed off emotionally - where they will let nothing or no one in - which makes intimate relationships impossible. Behind their emotional walls, hides low self-esteem and feel if they become truly known (display emotional intimacy) - no one would ever love, accept, and value who they are. Avoidants are attracted to people who have difficulty thinking for themselves, having healthy emotional boundaries, or taking care of themselves in healthy manners like those who suffer from love addiction.
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