ADHD Limerence and Relationships
Limerence, which can be described as the obsessive desire or fascination with a person, is a common experience for many ADHDers. It is a confluence of hyperfixation, emotional dysregulation, maladaptive dopamine seeking, and rejection sensitivity dysphoria that can create a simulation of certainty through stories that our minds often crave. Our brains can temporarily scratch the itch for control, safety, certainty or predictability through repetitive narratives. In this case, pro-romantic or relational narratives.
Limerence is often marked by the intense or desperate longing for reciprocation, reading into a crush’s actions to reinforce a sense of possible reciprocity, and a rollercoaster of emotions related to a crush’s actions as it impacts the possibility of reciprocity. The person that’s the focus of limerence is also referred to as “limerent object/LO” and is the central subject for compulsive daydreaming and rumination that can look like fantasizing or replaying memories related to the LO. This can play out cognitively, physiologically, and emotionally. Limerence at times can come with dismissing or downplaying negative qualities about the LO, which results in obsessing over an LO someone isn’t holistically into or values maligned relationships.
By playing out romantic fantasy and memories obsessively through rumination, the nervous system bypasses what can be a distressing low tolerance for relational uncertainty, loneliness, or fear. This bypassing does not address the underlying emotional concern and can actually increase those fears over time. It is common for folks with emotional insecurity or injury within their family of origin to adopt an internal story that a secure attachment and therefore the end of their attachment pain will finally be accessed through a romantic relationship. The reality is that secure attachments with others are a beautiful addition to being secure with yourself–it is not a substitute to inner individual security.
Talk therapy and ADHD coaching can be an avenue to address the impacts of limerence and the insecure relationship we have with our fear based parts. It can be intimidating to try to get to know our attachment wounds, fears, and anxieties especially if it’s unfamiliar to turn toward those parts. Getting to know our fears of not enoughness, too muchness, or unloveability is challenging work, but uncovering what fear is beneath the out of control strategy of romantic rumination can be a step in disrupting the obsessive cycle.Rather than limerence being a totally uncontrollable experience, it can be an opportunity to cultivate a compassionate relationship with our more shadowy parts of self. These strategies will not disappear, but meeting the fears underneath can offer more harm reductive options to respond to feelings, address the underlying attachment pain, as well as increase overall compassion in the nervous system. When our fears and longings can reliably be soothed by ourselves, there is less need to bypass the pain with limerent strategies.