Limerence and the art of detachment
You know this isn't healthy. You know they're probably not thinking about you nearly as much as you're thinking about them. So why can't you stop? When a crush becomes an unhealthy obsession, there's usually something deeper going on. Limerence hijacks your brain's reward system, and understanding it is the first step to breaking free.
Have you ever been so consumed by someone that you couldn't eat, sleep, or focus on anything except whether they were thinking about you too? Refreshing their Instagram profile, checking to see if their following count went up. Staring at your phone, waiting for them to text you back. Stalking their Spotify listening activity and TikTok reposts. It sounds a bit unhinged, doesn’t it? No judgment here, by the way – I’ve been here before.
Well, there’s a word for what you're experiencing. The constant thoughts, the checking behaviors, the inability to focus on literally anything else… it's a psychological state that operates more like addiction than anything.
This is called limerence, and understanding it might be your first step toward finally getting free.
What limerence actually is
Limerence is a term that was coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in the 1970s to describe an involuntary state of intense romantic obsession. We're not talking about a normal crush here – we're talking about a consuming preoccupation that takes over your entire brain and makes rational thought basically impossible.
When you're in limerence, you might experience:
Intrusive, constant thoughts about the person (clinically referred to as the "object of limerence")
Extreme emotional dependency on any sign that they might feel the same way
Overanalyzing every single interaction – the way they looked at you, how long they took to respond, which emojis they used, etc.
Physical symptoms (e.g., heart racing, loss of appetite, inability to sleep)
Mood swings that depend entirely on their behavior toward you
Idealization of the person, often to the point of ignoring obvious red flags
A desperate, aching need for the feeling to be mutual
Limerence feels like love. The intensity, the longing, the sense that this person is uniquely special and nobody else could ever compare. But limerence isn't love – it's closer to addiction. Your brain gets stuck in a loop, chasing a high that has very little to do with the actual person.
Your brain on limerence
Limerence hijacks the same reward system in your brain that's involved in addiction. When anthropologist Helen Fisher put people who were "madly in love" (Fisher et al., 2005) into brain scanners, she found activity in the VTA – a region that produces dopamine and is part of the brain's reward system. As she put it in an NPR interview, “the same brain region where we found activity becomes active also when you feel the rush of cocaine."
Every time you get a hit of attention from the person – a text, a like on your post, a moment of eye contact across the room – your brain gets a little dopamine surge. And then it wants more. So you keep checking. Keep refreshing. Keep looking for the next fix.
Every time you get a hit of attention from the person – a text, a like on your post, a moment of eye contact across the room – your brain floods with dopamine. And then it wants more. So you keep checking. Keep refreshing. Keep looking for the next hit.
The problem is that this reward system evolved for pair bonding, not for situationships with emotionally unavailable people. Your brain can't tell the difference between someone who's genuinely interested in building something real and someone who's giving you just enough breadcrumbs to keep you hooked.
And here's the cruel part: inconsistency actually makes limerence worse. It's called intermittent reinforcement – the same principle that makes slot machines so addictive. You never know when you're going to get the payoff, so you keep pulling the lever. Keep checking their story. Keep rereading old messages, looking for crumbs of hope.
If they were consistently available and clearly interested, the obsession would probably mellow into something calmer. But the uncertainty – the "do they or don't they" – keeps your nervous system stuck on high alert.
Limerence vs. love: how to tell the difference
People in limerence often believe they're experiencing the deepest love of their lives. It feels so intense, so all-consuming. So… it has to mean something, right?
Actually, the intensity is exactly what reveals how different limerence is from real love.
Love is calm. Limerence is chaos.
Love grows as you get to know someone – including their flaws, their annoying habits, the ways they inevitably disappoint you. Limerence often depends on not knowing the person very well. The less information you have, the more room there is for fantasy.
Love can hold ambivalence. You can love someone and also be annoyed by them, need space from them, see them clearly. Limerence is all-or-nothing. They're either perfect or you're spiraling.
Love is about the actual person. Limerence is about the story you've constructed in your head.
When you're in limerence, you're not really relating to another human being. You're relating to a projection – an idealized version built from limited information and a whole lot of wishful thinking. The real person is almost beside the point, because what you're actually attached to is the fantasy and the feeling.
This is why limerence can persist even when the person treats you terribly or barely knows you exist. You're not attached to them; you're attached to the idea of them. And ideas are much harder to release than actual people.
Why some people are more prone to this
Not everyone experiences limerence. Some people crush on someone for a few weeks and then move on with their lives. Some people can date casually without completely losing themselves. So, what makes some of us fall into this obsessive spiral over and over again?
A few things tend to make limerence more likely.
Anxious attachment
For those of us with anxious attachment, the uncertainty of a limerent connection feels familiar. We grew up feeling like we had to work for love or "earn" attention, so a person who is hot-and-cold feels more "right" than someone who is stable and boring.
Emotional unavailability in the other person
Paradoxically, we often develop limerence for people who aren't fully available to us. Their distance creates the uncertainty that fuels the obsession. If they were clearly and consistently interested, the mystery would dissolve – and so would a lot of the intensity.
Unmet emotional needs
Sometimes, limerence has very little to do with the actual person and more to do with what we’re hoping they'll provide. Validation, excitement, escape from a life that feels empty or unfulfilling. The obsession becomes a distraction from something we don't want to look at.
Low self-worth
When you don't believe that you're lovable, being chosen by someone becomes proof that you are. The stakes feel impossibly high because it's not just about the relationship anymore – it's about your entire value as a person.
If you keep falling into limerence with unavailable people, there's probably something underneath worth exploring. That pattern is trying to tell you something.
Why we hold on so tightly
Limerence is painful. Anyone who's experienced it knows this. You're stuck in your own head, running the same loops over and over, unable to concentrate on work or friends or anything that used to matter to you. Your entire emotional state depends on someone who probably has no idea how much power they hold over your day.
But there's a specific kind of suffering that comes from how tightly we grip the obsession.
Part of why limerence persists is that we don't actually want to let go. The obsession hurts, yes – but it also gives us something. Hope. Excitement. A sense that something meaningful is about to happen. The fantasy is more interesting than reality.
So we feed it. We check their socials not because it makes us feel good, but because we can't stand not knowing what they're up to. We replay conversations because the memory of connection feels better than its absence. We construct elaborate scenarios in our heads because the imaginary future is more appealing than the uncertain present.
We hold on because letting go feels like loss. Like admitting defeat. Giving up on something that could still happen if we just wait a little longer, try a little harder, hope a little more.
The art of detachment
What if limerence is so painful not just because of the obsession itself – but because of how tightly we cling onto it?
In Buddhist philosophy, there's a concept called attachment – the grasping, clinging quality of mind that tries to hold onto experiences, people, outcomes. Attachment comes from believing that something external can complete us. If I can just get this person to love me, then I'll finally be happy. I'll finally be enough.
Detachment isn't about not caring – it's about recognizing that nothing external truly belongs to us. Not people. Not relationships. Not even our own thoughts and emotions. Everything is just passing through. Everything is temporary.
Apply this to limerence, and it gets very practical.
The thoughts about them? Just thoughts. They arise, they pass. You don't have to engage with every fantasy your brain generates.
The feelings of longing? Just sensations in your body. Intense, uncomfortable – but ultimately temporary. They won't destroy you. You've survived every wave of emotion you've ever felt, and you'll survive this one too.
The outcome you're desperate for? It's a fantasy. It doesn't exist yet – and it may never exist. The only thing that's real is this moment, right now, where you're reading these words and they haven’t texted you back but your life is continuing anyway.
Detachment means loosening your grip. Letting thoughts arise without following them down the rabbit hole. Letting feelings move through your body without drowning in them. Accepting that this person, this relationship, this imagined future – none of it was ever really yours to begin with.
How to actually practice this
Philosophically, you get it. You need to let go. But your brain is still doing the thing. Here's how to actually work with it.
Observe without engaging
When the intrusive thoughts show up – and they will – practice noticing them without chasing them. "There's a thought about them." "There's an urge to check their profile." The goal here isn't to force the thoughts away (that usually backfires) – you're simply watching them from a slight distance, like clouds passing by.
This is mindfulness in practice. It's harder than it sounds. But over time, you start creating space between the thought and your reaction to it. You realize you don't have to act on every mental impulse.
Get curious about what's happening in your body
Limerence isn't just in your head – it lives in your body. The tightness in your chest. The restless, buzzing energy. The pit in your stomach.
Instead of interpreting these sensations as proof that you need to do something (check their profile, double text, stalk their location), just get curious about them. Where do you feel it? What does it actually feel like? Can you describe it without the story attached?
Emotions that get named and felt tend to move through faster. Emotions that get suppressed or acted upon tend to stick around.
Starve the obsession
Your limerence is being fed by information. Every time you check their Instagram following, every time you lurk their TikTok reposts, every time you stalk their Venmo history – you're handing your brain more material to obsess over.
You probably already know you need to stop doing this. So stop – or do whatever you can to make it more difficult to engage in the obsessive checking behaviors. Mute or block their accounts. Archive the conversation thread you have with them. Delete their number if you have to. Create as much friction as possible between yourself and the checking behaviors.
Think of it as harm reduction – you're cutting off the supply.
Build a life that doesn't need them in it
Limerence tends to thrive when life feels empty. The fantasy fills a void. It injects meaning and excitement into days that otherwise feel flat and monotonous.
So ask yourself honestly: what would make your life feel full without this person in it? Not as a distraction, but genuinely. What have you been neglecting? What used to bring you joy before they took over your brain? What would you be doing with all this mental energy if it wasn't going toward them?
Rebuilding a life that feels meaningful on its own is the long-term solution. It's slower than a quick fix, but it's the only thing that actually creates lasting change.
Let yourself grieve
Underneath limerence, there's almost always grief. Grief for the relationship you wanted. Grief for the future you imagined. Grief for the version of yourself who would finally be loved the way you've always wanted to be loved.
We avoid this grief by staying stuck in the obsession. As long as we're still hoping, we don't have to feel the loss.
But the loss is already here. The relationship you're fantasizing about doesn't exist. Letting yourself actually grieve that – not just think about it, but feel it in your body – is part of how you finally move through.
When limerence keeps happening
Sometimes, limerence is a one-time thing – a crush that spiraled out of control because the circumstances were just right (or wrong). But sometimes, it's a pattern.
If you keep finding yourself in this place – different people, same consuming intensity, same loss of self – there's probably something deeper driving it. Attachment wounds from childhood. A core belief that you're not enough without someone choosing you. Unprocessed pain from past relationships.
Limerence can actually become a doorway into really important work. Not because the obsession itself is valuable, but because it shows you what you're truly hungry for. And that hunger usually has very little to do with the person you can't stop thinking about.
Working with a therapist can help you understand what's underneath the pattern, develop tools for interrupting it when it starts, and build the kind of relationship with yourself that makes you less likely to lose yourself in someone else.
You're not broken for feeling this way
If you're recognizing yourself in all of this, you're not crazy or pathetic.
Limerence is a real psychological phenomenon. It happens to a lot of people, especially those who feel deeply and attach quickly. Your capacity for intense emotion isn't a character flaw – it's just been directed at someone who probably can't meet you where you are.
The goal isn't to stop feeling, but to redirect all that energy toward people and experiences that can actually hold it. To build a life that feels meaningful without needing someone else to complete it. To learn how to sit with uncomfortable emotions instead of numbing them with fantasy.
You can free yourself from this. Not by forcing yourself to stop caring overnight, but by slowly, gently, loosening your grip. By recognizing that thoughts are just thoughts. Feelings are just feelings. And this person – whoever they are – was never going to save you anyway.
That job belongs to you.
Hi! I'm Jenny, an associate therapist (and recovering lovergirl) based in California ☻
I specialize in working with insecurely attached Gen Z and millennial individuals/couples who are stuck in messy dating situations and exhausting relationship cycles. If you're tired of spiraling over text messages, settling for breadcrumbs, and wondering why you keep attracting the wrong people – I can help.