So you may be wondering what is limerence. Limerence is a present and deep emotional preoccupation or obsession with another person and it's something that can really take over one's life until it runs its course, or we can do some work and get out of limerence faster—like burst the bubble.
A couple quick signs of limerence are: obsession with a person, infatuation with a person, intrusive thoughts about a person, and loss of your daily focus and priorities in your life due to thinking about them. Becoming dependent on the smallest signs from them or about them, and having the fantasy kind of take over your life, sometimes in extreme ways such as almost stalking-like behaviors.
I see limerence as a carrying-over symptom of poor attachment in childhood due to childhood trauma that can come up in our adulthood and take over like a negative coping strategy. Probably the best way to explain limerence is a personal story that I think kind of gets to the root of it in a more personal way. I see limerence as an attachment issue and not just a stand-alone thing.
I must have been about seven when I think about this memory, which would have made it 1984. You'll get a sense of what limerence is from this little story. My family wasn't doing well at all, more so than the usual disaster. Back in November of '83, about six or seven months prior, my older brother passed away. He was 10 years old, I was six years old. A major catastrophe in the family—on top of an already highly dysfunctional marriage between my parents, alcoholism, domestic violence, neglect. The family was living without any emotional resources, especially the kids.
We must have all still been in this stunned daze, this existential kind of existence that happens when you lose a family member. My mother later told the story that she didn't wake up from that grieving daze until years later when she noticed I had lice—it jolted her back to life for a while. But at seven years old, I was just going about life, going to school or around the neighborhood, and no one was talking about the loss. Kids don't stop being kids. I thought about it every day, but those thoughts were private.
In my neighborhood there was PJ's Market, a little corner store, across from a sandy playground and near an old grammar school being converted to condos. PJ's was where you'd get Garbage Pail Kids, candy, subs. We'd dig for loose change in the couch and hop the fence to get there.
Down the block from PJ's was a small workout gym. For weeks, I'd wander in and out, putting on fingerless workout gloves like Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Commando." To me, at seven years old, they were totally badass. A big muscular guy teased me about not having a membership. I didn't understand what a membership was—I thought maybe I could barter with Transformers toys or a buck and fifteen cents.
At the front desk was a young woman—she could have been 16, 20, 30, I couldn't tell. To me, she was beautiful and extremely kind. I assumed she was the muscular guy's girlfriend—already interpreting at seven that she'd be more focused on someone else, which is a trauma sign. She seemed to know I was emotionally lost or just thought I was cute. She didn't kick me out. She sat with me in the reception area, with Highlights magazines, and read to me. I curled up beside her. It melted me.
Looking back, it was probably the safest I ever felt in my childhood—and it was with a stranger. Thankfully she wasn't a perpetrator. If you grew up like I did, maybe you had a safe teacher or babysitter you longed for. This woman was magical to me. A crush started, but not a romantic one—more like limerence. I was malnourished for attachment and connection, and she provided it.
That moment could have been 20 minutes, but I felt so seen and so safe. She fit the missing puzzle piece in an abused child's life: attention and care. But when I went home, my parents were angry I wasn't there for dinner, even though our dinners were inconsistent. I couldn't tell time at seven, but they expected me to. Toxic parents expect adult behaviors from children without teaching them.
So I came home from that safe, wonderful experience only to hate myself for being late. Those feelings, plus my brother's absence, went underground until they popped back up in adulthood. That, I think, is tied to limerence.
Children need a safe home base. She was that home base, briefly. Children need someone who notices them, seeks out time with them, shares a connection. When they don't get it from parents, they seek it elsewhere—and often keep seeking it their whole lives. Teacher's pets, adoption fantasies, crushes on best friend's families—all signs of attachment deficits.
Limerence is a deep emotional preoccupation. It can be infatuation or longing. It doesn't have to be sexual, but it can be. It goes beyond a crush. It's emotional, melancholic, intrusive. It can involve people we know, or celebrities we've never met. Trauma survivors are prone to it because of neglect and magical thinking.
As a child, I had debilitating preoccupations with teachers and co-workers. That wasn't about them, it was about belonging. Before the gym woman, it was my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Kelly. I was in limerence with her until she fussed at me on graduation day. I interpreted it as her hating me, and the bubble burst.
The melancholic nature of limerence is the clue: "Please love me. Please take me in. Please let this be perfect." It's longing, idealization, desperation.
In adulthood, limerence can cause big problems: fantasy relationships, losing touch with reality, starting emotional affairs, stalking. Constant fantasies, imagining scenarios, putting them on a pedestal, losing ground in real life. Crushes don't do that—they fade when the person becomes human.
For trauma survivors, limerence gets amped up to 11. Our inner child is living in fantasy, waiting for rescue. Our inner adult uses it like a coping strategy, a hit like drugs or sex. We might ignore our partner or family. We might cross boundaries.
Childhood roots: not being securely attached, fantasizing about rescues, neglect, anonymity, being the forgotten sibling, being parentified, living in tricky families where needs were met but no affection.
Limerence isn't about the person. It's 80–90% about childhood deficits. The other 10% is just attraction. It's not "they complete me," it's "I have attachment work to do."
Clues in childhood: debilitating crushes, adoption fantasies, infatuation with teachers, celebrity obsessions. These were coping strategies to survive abuse. They carried into adulthood and now make life small and messy.
How to work on limerence: journal prompts. Write examples from your life of limerence. Walk yourself through your current preoccupation—what do you want with this person? Identify unmet childhood attachment needs you're projecting. Write about what was missing with your parents. Write about what your inner child needs from your adult self: daily affirmations, bedtime connection, conversation, special time together.
Resources: my healing community, The Artist's Way (adapted as inner child dates), daily affirmations, videos on anxiety and dialoguing.
Final thoughts: limerence isn't about the other person—it's about your childhood. It's about not being the apple of someone's eye. Your inner child is looking for that. But adulthood relationships don't complete us—they enhance our lives.
If you burst the limerence bubble, that's a big victory. It's not good to stay in that place of childhood longing. We're adults now, with more power and individuality than we think.
And as always may you be filled with loving kindness, may you be well, may you be peaceful and at ease, and may you be joyous. Take care, and I will see you next time.
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