I suggest you read about repetition compulsion. This sounds like limerence and is indicative of having an attachment wound and is being recreated in your romantic relations. Try to consider the parallels between what you're experiencing and your relation to both your parents - especially relating your narcissistic father (symbolized in your crushes) but also your co-dependent mother (symbolized in yourself).
There's nothing wrong with having personality adaptations (disorders), by the way. Many many people have them and never even learn about it, either because they're in the subclinical range. A diagnostic label is not a life sentence, it's just a map for a healing journey. If one was raised in a pathological narcissistic family, it's more than likely one will take on such patterns, and though it's understandably a source of toxic shame... it's nothing to be ashamed of, really.
I am a woman who also experiences attraction to men in this way. I'm not commonly attracted to many people, I don't go around being like "ooh, that guy's hot" every day, but when I fall for someone I fall hard. And it's really miserable. The intensity of my emotions has actually ruined what would otherwise have been some great friendships with men that I was attracted to.
I have found that the theory of attachment styles has helped me understand the patterns in my behavior. Basically, childhood trauma causes people to be incapable of forming secure attachment. There are several different ways that manifest, depending upon the person.
I never considered connecting ADHD to these types of thought patterns, but I will start to reflect on that thanks to the comments here! Also, potentially look into borderline personality disorder. I know that personality disorders are kind of like bad words, scary big bad diagnoses, but any framework that can help you understand yourself can be a powerful tool. Especially if you can find a mental health care professional to work with who is compassionate and willing to help you unpack your thoughts and behavior patterns.
And from a more Jungian in perspective, I have started thinking about the way that I internally relate to animus and anima. Sort of processing the way that I relate to the masculine--why is it that I get so fixated? Why is it that I lose myself so much when I am romantically interested in someone? Why is it so important that I be loved and accepted by men? What disproportional weight, value, and authority am I placing in the masculine? Things along those lines.
There are so many ways to approach this, I think the level of reflectivity you have is wonderful! These things can feel unchangeable, but they aren't. It just takes time and patience. Good luck!
thank you for the thorough reply, it’s comforting to know other people have felt the same.
the questions you provided seem very interesting and insightful. i’ll journal about this and try to figure out my answers. i feel like i never had a positive experience with a man in my entire life so that’s why I yearn to prove to myself that I can be loved by a man.
thank you, you’re really wise❤️
Definitely sounds like an anxious attachment style! Could also have some avoidant/fearful/disorganized attachment patterns, not ruling that out, but what you're describing is certainly a very common experience for people who have an anxious component to their attachment system! \*Raises hand\*
Nothing to be ashamed of (easier said than done!), and very common. That doesn't make it easy or downright debilitating at times, though. The book "Attached" might be a good starting place.
Some YouTube resources worth checking out:
Heidi Priebe, Alan Robarge. And if you're intent on dating you might want to look at Matthew Hussey. I like some of Anna Akana's work, too. She's funny and does skits and comedy bits, but that doesn't mean she's not substantative.
In my experience, healing attachment wounds will throw you into the deep unconscious realms of your psyche. There will be encounters with the numinous, synchronicities, confusion, exaltation, as well as feelings of shame and helplessness. Learning a little bit more about attachment wounds and getting perspective on your family system might be helpful in building some self-compasssion for yourself, which will be necessary. It may eventually bring up painful feelings too towards caregivers, including primal feelings of rage and grief which will be necessary to individuate, but it can get messy! I'm not saying this to dissuade you or discourage from you, but just to give you some ideas of what you might encounter so you don't think you're doing it wrong or going crazy! It's not an easy path, but it's so, so, worth it.
This self-inquiry you're doing sounds like a big step towards becoming yourself. Respect!
I have ADHD and I’ve been like this since I remember though to a different degree (I never had physical reactions but I can relate to the emotional hyper fixation). I don’t know if it’s related to my ADHD but this comment made me think about it. Was all that fixation really just hyper-focus on emotional level? It’s making my mind spin.
That sounds like early developmental trauma with huge impact on attachment style and self-image, that's why you always anticipate abandonment because you feel yourself like needy, never good enough infant in cry for her mother. You suddenly feel that emotional hunger and idealisation, so it's so overwhelming. From my experience the most intense projections happen when it consists not just of parental image but also sort of inner child projection which feels like twin flame and all that. Which consists of "anti-shadow" kinda, good things we can't admit in yourselves because they never been recognized. You need to address that in therapy, figuring out what exactly in these men resembles your paternal or other figures and work on your self-perception, reasons of it coming from family dynamics.
i started crying reading this reply, it really triggered something inside of me. this was the only reply that spoke directly to my soul in an irrational way, i can’t pinpoint why exactly
This sounds like a form of limerance. I had an experience with it while growing up.
Here is [another post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Jung/s/gZk1U1Akaz) that talks about some Jungian solutions in the comments. I hope others have more suggestions for you, too.
Came to the comments to suggest exactly this - sounds like limerence: [https://psychology.fandom.com/wiki/Limerence](https://psychology.fandom.com/wiki/Limerence)
I found [this](https://livingwithlimerence.com/the-two-tribes/) interesting to read earlier. I actually have been talking with my sister about her own style of limerance. I had one very big limerance crush from middle into high school but never had crushes quite to that extent of self hating again. It’s like the crushes got less intense as I got older? Or maybe therapy helped me out with recognizing it would hurt me if I had a crush like that again so I broke the cycle early? Those big feelings were still there in new relationships etc. but not to the obsessive extent the first one was.
i understand that but I can’t directly connect it to my trauma. my father never left me, he was overbearing, even obsessed with me in an emotionally incestuous manner so I left HIM. why am I so scared of being abandoned by men if my father never abandoned me? to me it would make more sense if I turned out avoidant and cold, instead of whatever this is
Abandonment can mean a lot of things. It doesn't mean someone actually physically left, necessarily. Your father abandoned you in many ways, it sounds like, by failing to show up for your most basic needs and treat you with the fundamental dignity you deserved. Also, and this may be hard to hear, but it's almost impossible for that to happen without the other partner or other members in the family/caregiver system abandoning you.
Growing up, I always thought my mother was "the good one", but she failed to protect me, because it was easier to ignore what I was expressing (in my behaviors, words, and actions) rather than confront her husband and risk her marriage. Even though my father was the overtly abusive one, I think the failure of my mother to attune to me, hear me, protect me, and validate me was actually more injurious. To this day she still thinks of herself as completely innocent and that she just "didn't know", but she was very much emotionally invested in *not knowing.*
And the reasons for that abandonment have nothing to do with you. Other people's trauma, fears, and circumstances are all at play, which includes our current historical moment-- individualism, materialism, patriarchy, legacies of colonization, capitalism-- these are all words describing certain forces that have shaped our collective family dynamic for some time now, and which wend their way right down into the interpersonal experiences we've had growing up, and continue to experience when we go out and face the world.
This is hard stuff, u/patriziabateman. I hope you can find some support from a trauma-informed therapist or someone who is developmentally-oriented in their practice. I for one am very glad you're here!
this really resonates. my mom left my father after 20 years of abuse, but during their marriage she was always trying to silence me when i criticized him out of her own fear of him. she ignored my cries for help and let him humiliate me and insult me daily, rarely standing up for me. i do tend to look at my parents in a black and white manner, imagining my mother as the saint and my father as a villian, but as I grow older I realize I still do hold some grudges against my mother as well. thank you for your insightful reply :)
Totally get it, totally empathize. It's a very confusing thing to go through. Part of the function of any defense, including black-and-white thinking, is to defend against grief. We can't grieve because we don't have the validation, perspective, or safety to make sense of it all and to be vulnerable enough to tune in to our affective experience. And what lurks underneath is so confusing-- you have a right to be furious, sad, heartbroken, dismissive, etc etc, and it's a tangle to work through until finally you will arrive at some level of compassion and acceptance that this happened and these were who your parents are/were, but also a clear sense that what happened is also not excusable or tolerable and no one deserves to be treated that way.
I know a number of people here have mentioned BPD, and that could end up being an accurate diagnosis, which might help you get some tools and perspectives that are helpful. However, if you do end up receiving that diagnosis, I would very much caution against overidentifying with it as a "personality disorder", which I find inherently pathologizing and which individualizes what is really the expression within one person of a dysfunctional system. I've worked in a BPD clinic and it felt in some ways that there was an attitude of hostility and disrespect towards the people we were working with, which I'm afraid is all too common. Every single patient we worked there had a trauma history, without exception, though many clinicians did not see that because they had a very narrow view of what constituted "trauma". We were doing a lot of DBT directly out of Marsha Linehan's books, but I felt like the spirit of what Marsha Linehan was trying to teach was missing entirely. She is explicit that BPD is always the result of sensitivity (which is a beautiful quality) interacting with a invalidating (to use DBT phraseology) environment. Dr. James Chu is also someone to check out.
Best wishes to you and I'm glad you're looking over here for answers. Behavior modification and skill-building have their place, but themselves can be tools of self-abandonment and abuse when you have no context for why you are experiencing what you're experiencing. Your impulse to look deeper is a good one-- don't lose it!
Edit: Oh, and also, I just want to say I'm really sorry you went through that. That little girl deserved so much more. I trust and believe you will learn to show up for her in a way your family could not. It's a hard journey, but *you* are worth it, I promise.
I actually didn't finish my sentence, because no one likes projection, you know? But this sounds like a trauma response that indicates childhood sexual trauma.
Hashtag MeToo.
Your body remembers how it felt when you were being pressured to engage in intimate activities (or something like this).
That's how your brain was "trained". Intimacy = terrifying pressure to sleep with someone scary.
So *of course* your body shuts down! That shit is scary!
Your awake, knowing-knowledge isn't matching with your traumatic experience.
The solution is usually therapy where you focus on your inner child and healing them from these experiences that they never should have had to deal with. 💙
i don’t remember being sexually abused in my childhood but all the therapists I visited indicated that it might be possible I was, as I display many signs of it
you described this very well and I really relate to what you said. it’s significant to me that whenever I feel this kind of pain and sadness I’m also sexually aroused. whenever I’m happy and content in life generally, I lose my libido completely
So this is something called misplaced arousal.
For children that go through this, our bodies redirect our fear response into an arousal response. They're actually very similar.
It's a self-defense mechanism. Being aroused makes injury from sexual situations far less likely. Acting aroused and if you enjoy things *keeps you safe from the anger of the adult*.
It's not pleasant to think about, but it's all a self-protective instinct that gets "trained" into our heads. It's the essence of grooming.
For a long time, when I was very stressed, I *thought* that I used sex to "get out my stress".
No.
It was a conditioned response. My stress triggered old coping mechanisms. One of those is providing sexual pleasure to another, so *that's what my body tried to get me to do.*
I wasn't horny. My body experienced arousal, a chemical process.
Kind, loving situations were alien and made me *scared*. When was the violence coming? Where were the threats? Why am I not scared? *This isn't what sex is. Sex is terrifying and awful!*
It took a lot of work with inner little me, letting them know I'm not ashamed of them, and I accept them, to start to get over my trauma, but knowing the source of it, and understanding that arousal isn't the same as being horny helped me a lot.
Note: **You don't need to have ever been touched to have this burned into you.** I *was*, but it's only one of the ways.
Religious trauma, exposure to pornography, even hearing conversations can do it. Anything that makes you afraid, or you can't understand, before you're old enough to know what it is.
Wow! It sounds like you’ve doing a lot of “the work”. Very brave and very inspirational. Thank you for sharing vital perspective on this particularly terrible trauma that impacts so many.
I wish you the absolute best in whatever you do! You certainly sound like a great person.
This resonated so much. I wasn’t sexually abused, but I grew up in the Catholic Church, and the way I was taught to relate to my body and to sex I would guess created this response in me.
Thank you for commenting this. I edited my comment above to reflect that *you don't have to have been touched to suffer like this.*
A lot of people have religious trauma that causes it. It really sucks, because it influences you to engage in risky behaviors to bring in that fear response tied to your arousal.
And *now* you're ashamed of what you did, but you're not any better off. You're just worse, and it spirals.
I hope you're doing better these days. There's nothing shameful about wanting to enjoy your body. Even the Bible says God wants you to enjoy what he's made for you. The church doesn't sound very much like the being in the book though.
What an illuminating comment!
>that arousal isn't the same as being horny helped me a lot.
I might wanna ask you to clarify the difference between these two. How does the latter feel like
Being horny is the desire to have sex. It's psychological. It's a part of your mind.
Arousal is something *that happens* to the body. It's triggered by subconscious pattern matching.
Your body becoming aroused doesn't mean you want to have sex. It just means your brain has recognized subconscious patterns that caused it to trigger arousal.
For those with trauma surrounding sex, that pattern is often the presence of the possibility of intimacy, *plus fear*.
But you don't consciously control your sexual arousal response. It's an unconscious thing.
Many teenage boys would be THRILLED if it WERE conscious, but it's not.
That makes it easier to deal with internalized shame regarding things that "turn me on but shouldn't". The truth is that you're experiencing arousal from a pattern in your memory being matched. It doesn't mean you want to have sex.
From a Jungian perspective, I think you are experiencing an imbalance or overidentification with the anima archetype. The anima represents the feminine, feeling side of a man's psyche. For women, an overactive anima can lead to the kind of emotional flooding, dependence on others, and vulnerability to mood fluctuations that you describe with your intense crushes. Your upbringing, with a narcissistic and aggressive father figure who was emotionally unavailable, along with your very close bond with your mother, likely conditioned you from a young age to seek love, approval, and validation through romantic partners. This fulfills an unconscious desire to repair the wound of not receiving adequate care from your father. Jung would say that through shadow work, exploring this relationship with your parents more deeply could provide insight into how it shaped your psyche and contributed to codependent tendencies or fantasies of being rescued. Practicing individuation by spending solitary time alone would help separate your sense of self from others' opinions and lead to developing independence and self-validation, which is key to regulating intense emotions. Finding creative outlets like art, music, writing to express yourself could help stabilize emotional energy rather than directing it all onto crushes. With time and effort, gaining understanding of unconscious motivations through this inner work may help bring more balance, so future romantic relationships are approached less desperately.
How would Jung deal with this is the funny part. Jung was a victim of CSA. He never truly dealt with his with own interpersonal trauma. His mother was BPD and he probably had schizoid personality. Given he was also autistic he decided to go further than anyone else with his endless ocuttist exploration of the psyche.
I'd suggest what you have described is Freudian territory. It sounds like you are experiencing limerence ( idealising a person as a replacement maternal figure), somatic reactions ( guilt & shame when having feelings for this idealised object/betraying the parent) . Emotional dysregulation ( urge to self harm) and anger with friends/family).
From my experience with recovering from my own complex trauma. This can be a lifetime of work. Just keep learning about yourself and avoid the easy option of finding a potentially unstable man similar to your father.
Sounds like limerence and maybe you are experience rejection sensitive dysphoria. I experience minor things as rejection when logically I know they aren’t but sometimes it feels physically painful when I feel rejected. Journaling the reality and what my brain has created has helps and sometimes I need to talk it out and that has caused disruptions to relationships
You claim you don’t have a personality disorder, and that may be true, but you absolutely have symptoms of one.
Growing up with a narcissistic parent will do that damage to you, and if you haven’t brought it up specifically to your therapist, I’d recommend doing so. Especially if even a crush pushes you to thoughts of self harm. That is an absolute extreme, sister, and far from normal.
Like another commenter stated, it could be ADHD. Having ADHD, and a Narc parent will fuck you up in the most fun, subtle ways. 🫠
No one on this planet is normal, anyone who says they are lies to themselves. I was right around your age when I learned that, and REALLY started healing from the damage I’d taken in my youth.
yes, i am. i mostly deal with my childhood trauma in therapy, hadn’t had the chance to discuss this specific issue yet but i definitely will on my next session
I experienced the same symptoms with my crushes (there were many) and also have the same parental relationship. I suffered with idealization of the masculine and devaluation of the feminine. I also had self love deficit and was the scapegoat of all of the relational systems I was involved in. I have filled my deficit with SELF love and became a self sustaining system and are now only able to attract other people with self sustaining systems. It is painstakingly difficult and slow but it is worth it. I started with self care (baths, alone time and doing my own nails, hair, etc.) and it evolved from there into changing my perspective of the true nature of being and accepting myself. I had a personal pole shift where I now value the feminine over the masculine. That is the only Way. Feelings are strong but you are stronger. Much ❤️ on your journey to self love.
Yeah I've had girls do this so me and it's so sad because I know they are suffering but I don't know how to help.
If you find a good dependable loving man, I think this issue will mostly minimize itself. I can say personally that obsessive women are far more attractive than cold or dismissive women.
Like I'm talking atleast 2x multiplier on attraction. But that's just my personal feelings as a male.
The question is if you were in the presence of that man you are crushing on, would you still have all of those thoughts and feelings or would you be infatuated with him?
it's nice you find it attractive, however i think the ego-based fascination men may feel when i display these feelings fade away once they realize how much reassurance and attention i actually require to feel loved and seen. to answer your question, i have been seeing a man for 2 months now and ever since i've met him I haven't had a normal functioning day. i'm failing my exams, i'm not eating or sleeping right, all i do is lay in bed and cry because i feel like he might leave me. when i'm with him, i feel like i've been lobotomized or drugged... i'm usually quick witted, rational and loud, but with him i become submissive, insecure and slow. i enjoy our time together but i feel like i'm completely controled by my intense emotion and i'm not really being my best self. i also tend to annoy him by constant outbursts of jealousy, fear etc.
idk i just really liked him as a person in the first place because he seemed mature, down to earth, wise, grounded. however now i think the main reason for my obsession is because he often pulls away, becomes cold and distant, he’s sometimes outright mean to me, so i feel the need to try extra hard to impress him/make him love me
Yeah it makes sense. Going from 40 to -50 feels like shit but going back up to 60 from -50 feels amazing. And then you are forever chasing the thrill of that.
Well I hope things get better for you. I don't know you or your partner, but I think the world would be a better place if there was more love and kindness. Sounds sappy but I think it is actually true.
Do you think if he was more grounded and stable, that you would be less obsessed?
My compassion to you. 🙌🏻
You have described me when I was younger. I’m
53 years old. From 12- 42 I had serial relationships and dating experiences that bordered of deadly.. they lead to self harming, self-destructive behavior, and suicidality.
I relate to your description of all consuming despair. I would feel the same… couldn’t function, would obsess when the next meet up with said love interest would occur. But feel detached when it would occur. It’s like life would just completely be put on hold and I would literally be immobile, sloppy, emotional until they next meet up with said person.
I’m not sure why the intensity has faded ( I’ve been in an 8 year relationship ). But it has mellowed immensely. I have had tons of therapy. I have not been diagnosed with borderline, but I suspect I have traits. I do have ADHD and C-PTSD, and I suspect childhood trauma and parental abandonment ( my father literally walked out of the house one day when I was 6 and my mother had to work. I was a latch-key kid with no supervision and this created such terror in me) that led into adolescent trauma experiences.
I’m now on a mood stabilizer Lithium ( low dose ) and I have found a correlation between starting it (10 years ago ) and it helping tremendously with these intensities. I also suspect menopause occurring has helped.
Lastly… it hasn’t completely gone away. When I “feel” any perceived indifference from my partner, I automatically go into a mild panic mode ( he’s going to leave me) or a mild immobile mode. Not to the depths it once was. DBT therapy has help me look at day to day situations with a logical mind-set.
You are not alone OP. Seek out the root with a professional. I really found DBT helpful. 💜
Thank you so much for sharing your story! It made me understand my own crush-stories better at least a bit.
You are very honest to yourself. It's a good start! I believe you have absolutely everything to work the situation out. Be kind and patient to yourself, it takes time!
I would suggest you to look into attachment theory, there is this book titled "attached" which helped me a lot when I had a huge crush on a girl I barely knew. I wondered why I was going crazy for days waiting for her to text me back even though I havent met up with her at that point and why it hurt so bad when she kind of rejected me after a few dates.
I eventually found out that our relationship with our parents greatly influences our attachment and relationship style and that we subconsciously seek the relationship experiences we are familiar with.
It's also worth looking at your relationship with your father, especially the pain he caused for you, and healing from what you endured. I know it sounds like a huge stretch and a lot of work, but it's really worth it. After a life long of irrational crushes and failed relationships, doing this kind of healing work led me to a relationship that is more beautiful than I could ever have imagined.
first of all, transform your language.
Crush is not the best word to understand your experience, and one that is shaping this intensity.
Clearly you have inner child wounds that you need to heal.
My first language is not english but spanish, but it doesnt matter. You are talking in english in here, and using that word can also mean a car accident, an injury, etc.
Learn how to fall in love with sophistication and subtlety.
Could be ADHD. I feel like I somewhat relate
I know you said you have no personality disorder, but what makes you absolutely certain?
Not saying it is ADHD. Just tracks for me on a personal level and what you've said.
I also functioned 'normally' until at 29 I realised, what I assumed was normal, was in fact- not.
i do have diagnosed ADHD, it’s very interesting that you pointed that out! i heard that ADHD in women can come off similar to BPD or some other disorder so that’s why I’m experiencing such symptoms.
how do you deal with this?
The part that sounded most like ADHD to me was the obsessing over people you like.
My entire life I've been unable to get a person out of my head when I start to like them no matter how hard I try.
I would ruin every single relationship or potential relationship because I'd come on too strong, then when by miracle they started to succeed I'd become so unsure of myself and so certain I'd end up hurt, I'd push people that did like me AWAY, without realising it..
I can't say how I resolved it, because I didn't. I just got lucky one day and fell for someone who was exactly like me.
Rejection!
Might be in your erased memory from your early childhood or so.
Well, I am no analyst. But I want to tell you that I, although as a man, felt same towards women!
They all drove me crazy. Exactly the same thing for me, too...
I suggest you read about repetition compulsion. This sounds like limerence and is indicative of having an attachment wound and is being recreated in your romantic relations. Try to consider the parallels between what you're experiencing and your relation to both your parents - especially relating your narcissistic father (symbolized in your crushes) but also your co-dependent mother (symbolized in yourself). There's nothing wrong with having personality adaptations (disorders), by the way. Many many people have them and never even learn about it, either because they're in the subclinical range. A diagnostic label is not a life sentence, it's just a map for a healing journey. If one was raised in a pathological narcissistic family, it's more than likely one will take on such patterns, and though it's understandably a source of toxic shame... it's nothing to be ashamed of, really.
I love this advice. I think I needed to read it. Thank you!
I appreciate that. Now kindly go on, reclaim your fullest, most vibrant sense of self, and proceed to life your best life. You deserve it!
I am a woman who also experiences attraction to men in this way. I'm not commonly attracted to many people, I don't go around being like "ooh, that guy's hot" every day, but when I fall for someone I fall hard. And it's really miserable. The intensity of my emotions has actually ruined what would otherwise have been some great friendships with men that I was attracted to. I have found that the theory of attachment styles has helped me understand the patterns in my behavior. Basically, childhood trauma causes people to be incapable of forming secure attachment. There are several different ways that manifest, depending upon the person. I never considered connecting ADHD to these types of thought patterns, but I will start to reflect on that thanks to the comments here! Also, potentially look into borderline personality disorder. I know that personality disorders are kind of like bad words, scary big bad diagnoses, but any framework that can help you understand yourself can be a powerful tool. Especially if you can find a mental health care professional to work with who is compassionate and willing to help you unpack your thoughts and behavior patterns. And from a more Jungian in perspective, I have started thinking about the way that I internally relate to animus and anima. Sort of processing the way that I relate to the masculine--why is it that I get so fixated? Why is it that I lose myself so much when I am romantically interested in someone? Why is it so important that I be loved and accepted by men? What disproportional weight, value, and authority am I placing in the masculine? Things along those lines. There are so many ways to approach this, I think the level of reflectivity you have is wonderful! These things can feel unchangeable, but they aren't. It just takes time and patience. Good luck!
thank you for the thorough reply, it’s comforting to know other people have felt the same. the questions you provided seem very interesting and insightful. i’ll journal about this and try to figure out my answers. i feel like i never had a positive experience with a man in my entire life so that’s why I yearn to prove to myself that I can be loved by a man. thank you, you’re really wise❤️
Definitely sounds like an anxious attachment style! Could also have some avoidant/fearful/disorganized attachment patterns, not ruling that out, but what you're describing is certainly a very common experience for people who have an anxious component to their attachment system! \*Raises hand\* Nothing to be ashamed of (easier said than done!), and very common. That doesn't make it easy or downright debilitating at times, though. The book "Attached" might be a good starting place. Some YouTube resources worth checking out: Heidi Priebe, Alan Robarge. And if you're intent on dating you might want to look at Matthew Hussey. I like some of Anna Akana's work, too. She's funny and does skits and comedy bits, but that doesn't mean she's not substantative. In my experience, healing attachment wounds will throw you into the deep unconscious realms of your psyche. There will be encounters with the numinous, synchronicities, confusion, exaltation, as well as feelings of shame and helplessness. Learning a little bit more about attachment wounds and getting perspective on your family system might be helpful in building some self-compasssion for yourself, which will be necessary. It may eventually bring up painful feelings too towards caregivers, including primal feelings of rage and grief which will be necessary to individuate, but it can get messy! I'm not saying this to dissuade you or discourage from you, but just to give you some ideas of what you might encounter so you don't think you're doing it wrong or going crazy! It's not an easy path, but it's so, so, worth it. This self-inquiry you're doing sounds like a big step towards becoming yourself. Respect!
I have ADHD and I’ve been like this since I remember though to a different degree (I never had physical reactions but I can relate to the emotional hyper fixation). I don’t know if it’s related to my ADHD but this comment made me think about it. Was all that fixation really just hyper-focus on emotional level? It’s making my mind spin.
That sounds like early developmental trauma with huge impact on attachment style and self-image, that's why you always anticipate abandonment because you feel yourself like needy, never good enough infant in cry for her mother. You suddenly feel that emotional hunger and idealisation, so it's so overwhelming. From my experience the most intense projections happen when it consists not just of parental image but also sort of inner child projection which feels like twin flame and all that. Which consists of "anti-shadow" kinda, good things we can't admit in yourselves because they never been recognized. You need to address that in therapy, figuring out what exactly in these men resembles your paternal or other figures and work on your self-perception, reasons of it coming from family dynamics.
i started crying reading this reply, it really triggered something inside of me. this was the only reply that spoke directly to my soul in an irrational way, i can’t pinpoint why exactly
Sending hugs. 🖤 You will be okay, and that child inside of you will be okay too.
❤️
Damn 😮💨
This sounds like a form of limerance. I had an experience with it while growing up. Here is [another post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Jung/s/gZk1U1Akaz) that talks about some Jungian solutions in the comments. I hope others have more suggestions for you, too.
Came to the comments to suggest exactly this - sounds like limerence: [https://psychology.fandom.com/wiki/Limerence](https://psychology.fandom.com/wiki/Limerence)
[удалено]
I found [this](https://livingwithlimerence.com/the-two-tribes/) interesting to read earlier. I actually have been talking with my sister about her own style of limerance. I had one very big limerance crush from middle into high school but never had crushes quite to that extent of self hating again. It’s like the crushes got less intense as I got older? Or maybe therapy helped me out with recognizing it would hurt me if I had a crush like that again so I broke the cycle early? Those big feelings were still there in new relationships etc. but not to the obsessive extent the first one was.
This feels like a very strong trauma response.
i understand that but I can’t directly connect it to my trauma. my father never left me, he was overbearing, even obsessed with me in an emotionally incestuous manner so I left HIM. why am I so scared of being abandoned by men if my father never abandoned me? to me it would make more sense if I turned out avoidant and cold, instead of whatever this is
Abandonment can mean a lot of things. It doesn't mean someone actually physically left, necessarily. Your father abandoned you in many ways, it sounds like, by failing to show up for your most basic needs and treat you with the fundamental dignity you deserved. Also, and this may be hard to hear, but it's almost impossible for that to happen without the other partner or other members in the family/caregiver system abandoning you. Growing up, I always thought my mother was "the good one", but she failed to protect me, because it was easier to ignore what I was expressing (in my behaviors, words, and actions) rather than confront her husband and risk her marriage. Even though my father was the overtly abusive one, I think the failure of my mother to attune to me, hear me, protect me, and validate me was actually more injurious. To this day she still thinks of herself as completely innocent and that she just "didn't know", but she was very much emotionally invested in *not knowing.* And the reasons for that abandonment have nothing to do with you. Other people's trauma, fears, and circumstances are all at play, which includes our current historical moment-- individualism, materialism, patriarchy, legacies of colonization, capitalism-- these are all words describing certain forces that have shaped our collective family dynamic for some time now, and which wend their way right down into the interpersonal experiences we've had growing up, and continue to experience when we go out and face the world. This is hard stuff, u/patriziabateman. I hope you can find some support from a trauma-informed therapist or someone who is developmentally-oriented in their practice. I for one am very glad you're here!
this really resonates. my mom left my father after 20 years of abuse, but during their marriage she was always trying to silence me when i criticized him out of her own fear of him. she ignored my cries for help and let him humiliate me and insult me daily, rarely standing up for me. i do tend to look at my parents in a black and white manner, imagining my mother as the saint and my father as a villian, but as I grow older I realize I still do hold some grudges against my mother as well. thank you for your insightful reply :)
Totally get it, totally empathize. It's a very confusing thing to go through. Part of the function of any defense, including black-and-white thinking, is to defend against grief. We can't grieve because we don't have the validation, perspective, or safety to make sense of it all and to be vulnerable enough to tune in to our affective experience. And what lurks underneath is so confusing-- you have a right to be furious, sad, heartbroken, dismissive, etc etc, and it's a tangle to work through until finally you will arrive at some level of compassion and acceptance that this happened and these were who your parents are/were, but also a clear sense that what happened is also not excusable or tolerable and no one deserves to be treated that way. I know a number of people here have mentioned BPD, and that could end up being an accurate diagnosis, which might help you get some tools and perspectives that are helpful. However, if you do end up receiving that diagnosis, I would very much caution against overidentifying with it as a "personality disorder", which I find inherently pathologizing and which individualizes what is really the expression within one person of a dysfunctional system. I've worked in a BPD clinic and it felt in some ways that there was an attitude of hostility and disrespect towards the people we were working with, which I'm afraid is all too common. Every single patient we worked there had a trauma history, without exception, though many clinicians did not see that because they had a very narrow view of what constituted "trauma". We were doing a lot of DBT directly out of Marsha Linehan's books, but I felt like the spirit of what Marsha Linehan was trying to teach was missing entirely. She is explicit that BPD is always the result of sensitivity (which is a beautiful quality) interacting with a invalidating (to use DBT phraseology) environment. Dr. James Chu is also someone to check out. Best wishes to you and I'm glad you're looking over here for answers. Behavior modification and skill-building have their place, but themselves can be tools of self-abandonment and abuse when you have no context for why you are experiencing what you're experiencing. Your impulse to look deeper is a good one-- don't lose it! Edit: Oh, and also, I just want to say I'm really sorry you went through that. That little girl deserved so much more. I trust and believe you will learn to show up for her in a way your family could not. It's a hard journey, but *you* are worth it, I promise.
I actually didn't finish my sentence, because no one likes projection, you know? But this sounds like a trauma response that indicates childhood sexual trauma. Hashtag MeToo. Your body remembers how it felt when you were being pressured to engage in intimate activities (or something like this). That's how your brain was "trained". Intimacy = terrifying pressure to sleep with someone scary. So *of course* your body shuts down! That shit is scary! Your awake, knowing-knowledge isn't matching with your traumatic experience. The solution is usually therapy where you focus on your inner child and healing them from these experiences that they never should have had to deal with. 💙
i don’t remember being sexually abused in my childhood but all the therapists I visited indicated that it might be possible I was, as I display many signs of it you described this very well and I really relate to what you said. it’s significant to me that whenever I feel this kind of pain and sadness I’m also sexually aroused. whenever I’m happy and content in life generally, I lose my libido completely
So this is something called misplaced arousal. For children that go through this, our bodies redirect our fear response into an arousal response. They're actually very similar. It's a self-defense mechanism. Being aroused makes injury from sexual situations far less likely. Acting aroused and if you enjoy things *keeps you safe from the anger of the adult*. It's not pleasant to think about, but it's all a self-protective instinct that gets "trained" into our heads. It's the essence of grooming. For a long time, when I was very stressed, I *thought* that I used sex to "get out my stress". No. It was a conditioned response. My stress triggered old coping mechanisms. One of those is providing sexual pleasure to another, so *that's what my body tried to get me to do.* I wasn't horny. My body experienced arousal, a chemical process. Kind, loving situations were alien and made me *scared*. When was the violence coming? Where were the threats? Why am I not scared? *This isn't what sex is. Sex is terrifying and awful!* It took a lot of work with inner little me, letting them know I'm not ashamed of them, and I accept them, to start to get over my trauma, but knowing the source of it, and understanding that arousal isn't the same as being horny helped me a lot. Note: **You don't need to have ever been touched to have this burned into you.** I *was*, but it's only one of the ways. Religious trauma, exposure to pornography, even hearing conversations can do it. Anything that makes you afraid, or you can't understand, before you're old enough to know what it is.
Wow! It sounds like you’ve doing a lot of “the work”. Very brave and very inspirational. Thank you for sharing vital perspective on this particularly terrible trauma that impacts so many. I wish you the absolute best in whatever you do! You certainly sound like a great person.
This resonated so much. I wasn’t sexually abused, but I grew up in the Catholic Church, and the way I was taught to relate to my body and to sex I would guess created this response in me.
Thank you for commenting this. I edited my comment above to reflect that *you don't have to have been touched to suffer like this.* A lot of people have religious trauma that causes it. It really sucks, because it influences you to engage in risky behaviors to bring in that fear response tied to your arousal. And *now* you're ashamed of what you did, but you're not any better off. You're just worse, and it spirals. I hope you're doing better these days. There's nothing shameful about wanting to enjoy your body. Even the Bible says God wants you to enjoy what he's made for you. The church doesn't sound very much like the being in the book though.
What an illuminating comment! >that arousal isn't the same as being horny helped me a lot. I might wanna ask you to clarify the difference between these two. How does the latter feel like
Being horny is the desire to have sex. It's psychological. It's a part of your mind. Arousal is something *that happens* to the body. It's triggered by subconscious pattern matching. Your body becoming aroused doesn't mean you want to have sex. It just means your brain has recognized subconscious patterns that caused it to trigger arousal. For those with trauma surrounding sex, that pattern is often the presence of the possibility of intimacy, *plus fear*. But you don't consciously control your sexual arousal response. It's an unconscious thing. Many teenage boys would be THRILLED if it WERE conscious, but it's not. That makes it easier to deal with internalized shame regarding things that "turn me on but shouldn't". The truth is that you're experiencing arousal from a pattern in your memory being matched. It doesn't mean you want to have sex.
From a Jungian perspective, I think you are experiencing an imbalance or overidentification with the anima archetype. The anima represents the feminine, feeling side of a man's psyche. For women, an overactive anima can lead to the kind of emotional flooding, dependence on others, and vulnerability to mood fluctuations that you describe with your intense crushes. Your upbringing, with a narcissistic and aggressive father figure who was emotionally unavailable, along with your very close bond with your mother, likely conditioned you from a young age to seek love, approval, and validation through romantic partners. This fulfills an unconscious desire to repair the wound of not receiving adequate care from your father. Jung would say that through shadow work, exploring this relationship with your parents more deeply could provide insight into how it shaped your psyche and contributed to codependent tendencies or fantasies of being rescued. Practicing individuation by spending solitary time alone would help separate your sense of self from others' opinions and lead to developing independence and self-validation, which is key to regulating intense emotions. Finding creative outlets like art, music, writing to express yourself could help stabilize emotional energy rather than directing it all onto crushes. With time and effort, gaining understanding of unconscious motivations through this inner work may help bring more balance, so future romantic relationships are approached less desperately.
How would Jung deal with this is the funny part. Jung was a victim of CSA. He never truly dealt with his with own interpersonal trauma. His mother was BPD and he probably had schizoid personality. Given he was also autistic he decided to go further than anyone else with his endless ocuttist exploration of the psyche. I'd suggest what you have described is Freudian territory. It sounds like you are experiencing limerence ( idealising a person as a replacement maternal figure), somatic reactions ( guilt & shame when having feelings for this idealised object/betraying the parent) . Emotional dysregulation ( urge to self harm) and anger with friends/family). From my experience with recovering from my own complex trauma. This can be a lifetime of work. Just keep learning about yourself and avoid the easy option of finding a potentially unstable man similar to your father.
Sounds like limerence and maybe you are experience rejection sensitive dysphoria. I experience minor things as rejection when logically I know they aren’t but sometimes it feels physically painful when I feel rejected. Journaling the reality and what my brain has created has helps and sometimes I need to talk it out and that has caused disruptions to relationships
You claim you don’t have a personality disorder, and that may be true, but you absolutely have symptoms of one. Growing up with a narcissistic parent will do that damage to you, and if you haven’t brought it up specifically to your therapist, I’d recommend doing so. Especially if even a crush pushes you to thoughts of self harm. That is an absolute extreme, sister, and far from normal. Like another commenter stated, it could be ADHD. Having ADHD, and a Narc parent will fuck you up in the most fun, subtle ways. 🫠 No one on this planet is normal, anyone who says they are lies to themselves. I was right around your age when I learned that, and REALLY started healing from the damage I’d taken in my youth.
that’s interesting and makes so much sense. it’s comforting to know that “not being normal” is not the end of the world. thank you so much
You’re welcome and I wish you the best. It’s a powerful thing, and you’re on the way there already. You’re strong, you got this.
Are you seeing a therapist?
yes, i am. i mostly deal with my childhood trauma in therapy, hadn’t had the chance to discuss this specific issue yet but i definitely will on my next session
The behavior you are describing is called Limerence
I experienced the same symptoms with my crushes (there were many) and also have the same parental relationship. I suffered with idealization of the masculine and devaluation of the feminine. I also had self love deficit and was the scapegoat of all of the relational systems I was involved in. I have filled my deficit with SELF love and became a self sustaining system and are now only able to attract other people with self sustaining systems. It is painstakingly difficult and slow but it is worth it. I started with self care (baths, alone time and doing my own nails, hair, etc.) and it evolved from there into changing my perspective of the true nature of being and accepting myself. I had a personal pole shift where I now value the feminine over the masculine. That is the only Way. Feelings are strong but you are stronger. Much ❤️ on your journey to self love.
Yeah I've had girls do this so me and it's so sad because I know they are suffering but I don't know how to help. If you find a good dependable loving man, I think this issue will mostly minimize itself. I can say personally that obsessive women are far more attractive than cold or dismissive women. Like I'm talking atleast 2x multiplier on attraction. But that's just my personal feelings as a male. The question is if you were in the presence of that man you are crushing on, would you still have all of those thoughts and feelings or would you be infatuated with him?
it's nice you find it attractive, however i think the ego-based fascination men may feel when i display these feelings fade away once they realize how much reassurance and attention i actually require to feel loved and seen. to answer your question, i have been seeing a man for 2 months now and ever since i've met him I haven't had a normal functioning day. i'm failing my exams, i'm not eating or sleeping right, all i do is lay in bed and cry because i feel like he might leave me. when i'm with him, i feel like i've been lobotomized or drugged... i'm usually quick witted, rational and loud, but with him i become submissive, insecure and slow. i enjoy our time together but i feel like i'm completely controled by my intense emotion and i'm not really being my best self. i also tend to annoy him by constant outbursts of jealousy, fear etc.
Does your self concept change radically when you are with him versus not?
hmmm that’s a good question, yes i think so. i feel much more confident and stable when i’m not with him
Interesting. So what is it that draws you to him? If not security.
idk i just really liked him as a person in the first place because he seemed mature, down to earth, wise, grounded. however now i think the main reason for my obsession is because he often pulls away, becomes cold and distant, he’s sometimes outright mean to me, so i feel the need to try extra hard to impress him/make him love me
Yeah it makes sense. Going from 40 to -50 feels like shit but going back up to 60 from -50 feels amazing. And then you are forever chasing the thrill of that. Well I hope things get better for you. I don't know you or your partner, but I think the world would be a better place if there was more love and kindness. Sounds sappy but I think it is actually true. Do you think if he was more grounded and stable, that you would be less obsessed?
My compassion to you. 🙌🏻 You have described me when I was younger. I’m 53 years old. From 12- 42 I had serial relationships and dating experiences that bordered of deadly.. they lead to self harming, self-destructive behavior, and suicidality. I relate to your description of all consuming despair. I would feel the same… couldn’t function, would obsess when the next meet up with said love interest would occur. But feel detached when it would occur. It’s like life would just completely be put on hold and I would literally be immobile, sloppy, emotional until they next meet up with said person. I’m not sure why the intensity has faded ( I’ve been in an 8 year relationship ). But it has mellowed immensely. I have had tons of therapy. I have not been diagnosed with borderline, but I suspect I have traits. I do have ADHD and C-PTSD, and I suspect childhood trauma and parental abandonment ( my father literally walked out of the house one day when I was 6 and my mother had to work. I was a latch-key kid with no supervision and this created such terror in me) that led into adolescent trauma experiences. I’m now on a mood stabilizer Lithium ( low dose ) and I have found a correlation between starting it (10 years ago ) and it helping tremendously with these intensities. I also suspect menopause occurring has helped. Lastly… it hasn’t completely gone away. When I “feel” any perceived indifference from my partner, I automatically go into a mild panic mode ( he’s going to leave me) or a mild immobile mode. Not to the depths it once was. DBT therapy has help me look at day to day situations with a logical mind-set. You are not alone OP. Seek out the root with a professional. I really found DBT helpful. 💜
Thank you so much for sharing your story! It made me understand my own crush-stories better at least a bit. You are very honest to yourself. It's a good start! I believe you have absolutely everything to work the situation out. Be kind and patient to yourself, it takes time!
Likely has to do with parental wounds as a child/infant. If this were my experience I'd look into it.
I would suggest you to look into attachment theory, there is this book titled "attached" which helped me a lot when I had a huge crush on a girl I barely knew. I wondered why I was going crazy for days waiting for her to text me back even though I havent met up with her at that point and why it hurt so bad when she kind of rejected me after a few dates. I eventually found out that our relationship with our parents greatly influences our attachment and relationship style and that we subconsciously seek the relationship experiences we are familiar with. It's also worth looking at your relationship with your father, especially the pain he caused for you, and healing from what you endured. I know it sounds like a huge stretch and a lot of work, but it's really worth it. After a life long of irrational crushes and failed relationships, doing this kind of healing work led me to a relationship that is more beautiful than I could ever have imagined.
first of all, transform your language. Crush is not the best word to understand your experience, and one that is shaping this intensity. Clearly you have inner child wounds that you need to heal.
oh, english isn’t my first language. in my language, i would have used a different word. how would you call this?
My first language is not english but spanish, but it doesnt matter. You are talking in english in here, and using that word can also mean a car accident, an injury, etc. Learn how to fall in love with sophistication and subtlety.
This Jungian Life has an episode on unrequited love that was helpful to me https://youtu.be/P3wqHWWppi4?si=fUXyyJk_LAa2QdLb
Could be ADHD. I feel like I somewhat relate I know you said you have no personality disorder, but what makes you absolutely certain? Not saying it is ADHD. Just tracks for me on a personal level and what you've said. I also functioned 'normally' until at 29 I realised, what I assumed was normal, was in fact- not.
i do have diagnosed ADHD, it’s very interesting that you pointed that out! i heard that ADHD in women can come off similar to BPD or some other disorder so that’s why I’m experiencing such symptoms. how do you deal with this?
The part that sounded most like ADHD to me was the obsessing over people you like. My entire life I've been unable to get a person out of my head when I start to like them no matter how hard I try. I would ruin every single relationship or potential relationship because I'd come on too strong, then when by miracle they started to succeed I'd become so unsure of myself and so certain I'd end up hurt, I'd push people that did like me AWAY, without realising it.. I can't say how I resolved it, because I didn't. I just got lucky one day and fell for someone who was exactly like me.
Do you have any abandonment issues?
Me too
Look into CODA (codependency). Anxious/avoidant attachment tends to fit into codependency.
Rejection! Might be in your erased memory from your early childhood or so. Well, I am no analyst. But I want to tell you that I, although as a man, felt same towards women! They all drove me crazy. Exactly the same thing for me, too...
U jus gotta tighten up lil homie
this is what all my friends have been saying to me :) maybe it really is that simple
Where do I find women like this?
Probably have had sex with them if they were his clients…