Are You a Love Addict?
Are you looking for "love" and can never seem to find it? Do you find your self in relationships where you don't receive the "love" you give. Are you or have you been in relationhsips where you fear being left alone? Do you feel that you "need" to be in a relationship? Do you lose your sense of self when you are in a relationship? You may be a Love Addict. Pia Mellody, in her book "Facing Love Addiction" characterizes the behavioral symptoms of a Love Addict:
1. Love Addicts assign a disproportionate amount of time, attention and
"value above themselves" to the person to Whom they are addicted,
and this focus often has an obsessive quality about it.
2. Love Addicts have unealistic expectations for unconditional positive regard
from the other person in the relationship.
3. Love Addicts neglect to care for or value themselves while they are in a
relationship.
If this is your approach to "love" there is nothing cute or romantic about it. This not love, but a pathological condition. And, given the concepts of love and relationships that we have be socialize to accept as reality, Love Addiction, I believe, is not uncommon in relationships, whether romantic or otherwise. The Flow advocates that relationships do not complete but enhance who we are. Love Addiction, in reality has less to do with the other person in the relationship than it is more about the inability to have a healthy relationship with oneself. It is seeking completness outside of ourselves.
Additionally, many of us have an image of love which has no basis in reality. What we call love is really possession or obligation. Real love is a choice, a choice that we joyfully, willfully make over and over again. It cannot be forced. When our relationships become prisons and cease to be a source of self affirmation we must carfully access what is it that we are really doing here? Relationships are ultimately about the self, I believe, vechicles through which both particiants become the "best versions of themselves." Anything less than this is a form of social pathology.
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Love addiction, like any other addiction is indeed pathological behavior. Additionally, in some cases, there are biological factors at play as well. There are some people who are actually addicted to the "feeling of being in love". Characteristically, in individuals in new relationships chemicals are released called endorphins which produce a sense of euphoria creating a "natural high" of sorts. Studies have shown that their are folks in it for "the high". Once that feeling starts to fade, in their eyes the "love" is gone and it's time to move on to the next high. This is yet another illustration of love addicted behavior that does not serve the ideals of being in a healthy and loving relationship.
I'm not really sure what love is but I know that I felt it once in my five year relationship. Now, I'm looking for love and I know its wrong because my entire life is dedicated to finding it. I need to learn to live life the way I want it with out the boundaries of love.
I believe that all addictions stem from something that is missing within in ourselves and as long as we have something to occupy our minds we don't have to focus on what's really troubling us.
It's like a bait and switch that we play with ourselves. We go into a relationships thinking we are going to get one thing and come away with something very different. Until we deal with what's missing within ourselves, we will always be asking "where's the beef."