Love, infatuation, infantilism, love addiction?

All people, to one degree or another, think about what love is. Almost the entire world culture is filled with stories about love in various forms - painting, literature, sculpture.

This suggests that love is something complex that can be experienced, but is difficult to understand.

Modern culture is obsessed with the word “love”, but very few people talk about what it is.

I do not pretend that my thoughts in this article are the ultimate truth, but let's think together about how love differs from other very similar feelings for her. In the end, only the lazy do not talk about love and write about what they think about it.

I hope you already understand that the meaning of love is not to “fall in love” or “to make someone fall in love” with you.

Of course, this is a wonderful experience, it is akin to drug addiction - there is a release of pleasure hormones - endorphins and you ride on pleasant waves of pleasure, constantly waiting for the next dose of pleasant sensations.

If you have a strong desire to be touched, caressed and aroused, this is most likely passion, not love.

If you feel an urgent need to solve problems for you, take care of you, provide for you and give gifts, this is most likely immaturity - that is, infantilism.

When you wish that another person could not live without you, was with you constantly, put aside all his interests and plans and dealt exclusively with you - this is more like selfishness.

A strong desire to give birth to a child from a man is simply a manifestation of animal instinct - that is, biology, which has little to do with love. You just found a suitable male for breeding.

If you have a strong desire to get married, or for her to become your wife, so that you can finally be happy - this is most likely not love, but dependence on the opinion of society , whose expectations you want to meet.

So what is love? Love is simply the desire for the good of another person.

You can live in another country, go about your business, work, eat, sleep and communicate with other people, but still know that you love another person and you want him or her to be happy.

And it doesn’t matter at all whether this person knows about your feelings or not. This does not stop you from loving him at all. You live with the thought that you have a loved one and he feels good and it makes you happy.

Of course it is very impractical and strange, but this is love. Other feelings can be added to this, and passion and desire to get married and falling in love - but love can do without this.

Love cannot be built, it cannot be artificially caused. It either exists or it doesn’t. You can build a relationship with a person, but you cannot “build your love,” as “Dom-2” calls us.

You can expect good treatment, responsibility, sincerity and understanding, but you cannot expect love.

Love has no practical result, it just is.

There is also love dependence on another person. This is very painful, you are constantly on an emotional swing from hatred to adoration, but you cannot break out of this circle, although partners change.

Emotional dependence is caused by the lack of something very significant to you.

Usually, when a person lacks something, he either tries his best to satisfy his need, or gives up. Any person needs recognition, love and simple human participation, he needs to receive it from others and give it away - otherwise there is stagnation, life energy no longer flows as it should. If a person cuts himself off from what brings him vital energy and does not hear his true needs, he begins to fill these unconscious needs with what gives an imaginary feeling of fulfillment - drugs, food, work. All this, of course, cannot fill the internal vacuum - so depression sets in. If we are thirsty, but eat instead, then the body will calm down for a while, but then it will again demand water. If this behavior becomes chronic, illness begins. For example, a headache is a signal about a lack of water in the body.

The need for love is the same - we can’t do anything about it, it’s built into us, and we need to reckon with it.

Whether we like it or not, the choice of a partner is programmed into us in childhood, when we were in a dependent position on the people who raised us. If they treated us coldly, then we will look for the same partner. This is how we perceive love. If we were rejected in childhood and sent us conflicting signals, then we will look for just such a relationship.

Neuroscience suggests that our susceptibility to stress is largely influenced by our childhood experiences and how we were cared for as children. The more love the brain received in childhood, the better it became accustomed to the release of serotonin and dopamine and the easier it was to tolerate the removal of cortisol from the blood. If we experienced emotional turmoil in childhood, our parents did not take care of us, abandoned us, did not protect us, then cortisol in the blood was always poorly excreted. Accordingly, in adulthood, exactly the same neurotransmitter balance pattern that was present in childhood is consolidated - that is, a tendency to depression and an inability to tolerate stress.

Exit from this mechanism, which is already built into us in the awareness of what we expect from our loved ones. We need to heal this trauma of being an abandoned child in order to stop expecting from our loved ones what our parents did not give us as children.

In psychotherapy, this can be done through something that affects our limbic system, bypassing creation - the technique of working with images. It is helpful to release blocked emotions and heal them. Thanks to the neuroplasticity of the brain, we can change these neural connections. You just have to put a little more effort into it than others. Verbal psychological techniques will also help you because they build connections between the subcortex and the cortex, helping you better understand your experiences and desires, which will help you realize the right path to satisfying your needs.

The path to full love from an addictive relationship lies in restoring contact with yourself, desires, needs, feelings and their satisfaction. Volitional efforts, unfortunately, bring only temporary relief (as with food).

Only through awareness and recognition of feelings can you free yourself from the cage of your childhood experience towards the true love of a mature person.

I invite you to walk this path with me. You can sign up for a consultation with a psychotherapist online or in person by clicking on the button below.

Take action and everything will work out for you!