I find I'm growing detached from other people. I no longer relate at all to common concerns. Things like health or finances, or even mortality, no longer produce any emotional reaction in me.

I figure that present concerns are predicated on having expectations and hope for the future. You care about your health because it will affect your future. You care about money because you want to have enough to afford the things you'll want and need in the future. There is an implicit causality in the things we concern ourselves with in the present.

But I have no hopes or expectations for the future. My life is completely void of meaning or purpose. I am simply waiting to die. So why should my health matter? If I ran out of money I'd simply kill myself. I would lose nothing and avoid unnecessary pain. That makes sense, doesn't it? I guess I do have a concern: pain amelioration. But that's it.

This complete lack of comprehension for normal considerations extends to others as well. I can no longer comprehend why someone would care about the grades their children are making or how they're doing in sports or guitar lessons or whatever. I no longer understand adults' concerns about their jobs or relationships or their favorite sports teams. I no longer understand the difference between things going great and things going poorly. It's all the same to me. Life is completely hollow. Whether someone's children, or themselves, become CEOs or homeless bums, my mind honestly no longer discerns a difference. Life is completely meaningless. It is completely devoid of anything positive. Everything is the same. I no longer understand the difference between any two sets of conditions. I'm probably depressed.

Earlier in the week I posted a comment where I stated that limerence was related to OCD. I made this statement based on an article and separate statements from one of the leading researchers into obsessive love. However, I've just seen a video from a leading OCD researcher who makes a key distinction between the two disorders. (He didn't actually mention limerence explicitly, but I feel his general point is applicable.)

OCD, whether it exists as Pure-O or with the compulsions which contribute to its name, is an anxiety disorder. This is not news to anyone, but it's important to remember when contrasting it with limerence, which behaves more like a psychological addiction such as gambling. In OCD, the sufferer experiences an anxiety-producing thought and then engages in compulsions or ruminative thinking to assuage that anxiety. In other words, the symptoms of OCD are attempts by the sufferer to go from a state of anxiety to one of homeostasis.

This is not the case for limerence or psychological addictions. These disorders involve the reward center of the brain. In limerence, the symptoms (ruminations focused on the limerent object, proximity-seeking behavior, etc.) are attempts to recreate a dopamine-fueled euphoria. Instead of going from anxiety to stability, the mind is trying to go from non-euphoria to euphoria. There are different chemicals involved here as well as different parts of the brain. These are not the same disorder.

I intentionally chose not to say that limerence involved going from "stability" to euphoria because, first of all, there's no guarantee that one starts from a neutral state in limerence. In fact, it's believed that low serotonin levels are a key contributor, so it's more likely that the starting point is dysthymia or depression. Second of all, and perhaps even more pertinent to this discussion, the emotional cycle which develops in limerence means that it *isn't* neutrality which precedes the euphoria -- it's doubt.

Limerence has two necessary components: hope and doubt. There is no limerence without uncertainty. The cycle which the limerent subject then experiences is the clichéd "she loves me; she loves me not" rumination. Thoughts of romantic reciprocation produce a dopamine-fueled euphoria, which further depresses already-low serotonin levels. This ultimately engenders a hopeless phase marked by serious doubts about the possibility of reciprocation, which in turn encourage the mind to seek another dopamine high. And thus the cycle is born.

One can maybe see how this "disorder" (it's actually not considered a disorder by anyone, including the psychologist who coined the term) would seem like OCD. Despair centered around an object leads to obsessive ruminations about that object to quell the despair, with those machinations repeating over and over again. But again, these are different processes. Limerence is really an obsession stemming from mental responses to an exhilarating feeling, often aided by an unresolvable external situation, whereas OCD is an obsession resulting from faulty mental responses to anxiety.

There is one important caveat to this, and that is the fact that after considerable time, a limerent subjects' thinking usually makes an important shift. Eventually, ruminations *do* become about quelling anxiety -- the anxiety stemming from being unable to stop the limerence. At this point, does limerence transform into true OCD (specifically, Pure-O)? In the beginning of limerence the negative thoughts are *doubt* about the romantic feelings of the object -- they are not the same type of fear as OCD anxieties. Eventually, however, the thoughts do turn to true anxiety, as the focus of the limerent subject shifts subtly from the limerent object to not being able to stop the intrusive thoughts about the object. To put it glibly: the obsession becomes the obsession.

I actually think this is what's happened to me. The mental torment ...

[ Continued ]

I'm feeling suicidal again, or at least having suicidal ideation. For 2 or 3 years I was kept alive by suicidal ideation. Every day I'd wake up and tell myself, "Just make it to the spring and then you can kill yourself. Then it'll all be over. Just be patient until spring." And then spring would come around and I'd push things back to fall. There was no justification for the reprieve and I didn't question it. The refrain just changed from spring to fall.

It's strange to me that I felt more depressed and more suicidal when I was closer to her. Those suicidal thoughts occurred during the peak of the fantasy. Perhaps the depression and hopelessness was the product of the discrepancy between the fantasy and reality -- the crux of this entire pathology. The closer I was to her, the more real the fantasy felt. However, my analytical mind couldn't deny the reality: that it was no more than a fantasy and never would be.

Three years later and the reality is really unchanged, while the fantasy has lessened in intensity and believability as I've stayed away from her and not been given any fuel to stoke the flames. Fantasy has inched back towards reality, and so their disparity isn't as large, even if reality is just as ugly.

But then how does one explain my recent upswing in suicidal ideation? Am I slipping back into old fantasies unknowingly? It's so hard to tell what's going on in my subconscious. Until something contradicts it and sends me reeling, it's almost impossible to tell how my fantastical mind is conceiving things.

Or maybe this has to do with XX. The stuff with the object has always hurt, but now I don't have any support from him. The whole group is tainted by my current feud with XX.

I hurt myself today. Intentionally. Both physically and emotionally. First I enveloped myself in the object's goings-on. I started feeling that way I get and I dove in head-first. It wasn't completely irrational. There's typically an upshot to this. After a day of reeling I have a period of euphoria. I'm not completely sure why it works this way but it does.

Actually, it works the same as the physical harm, which I did to myself after the emotional damage. I got in the shower and cut my arms up pretty good. Feel some pain now for some relief later. That's the tradeoff.

I once talked with a shrink about whether this made sense -- whether subjecting myself to the emotional pain was actually a good thing, like exposure therapy. He disagreed and said I should continue to avoid connection with the object. Years later I still don't know if he's right or wrong. Forcing myself to see the object and hurt myself that way leads to relief. But why? Is it like an addict feeling better because he gets a hit? Or am I feeling better because I'm forcing myself out of a very pathological mindset? I truly can't tell. All I know is that when I start feeling that way I get -- just like with the physical self-harm -- I have to hurt myself to make me feel better.

This is all so ######6 stupid. Why will this not just end. I don't know these people. I don't care about these people. They don't know me and they don't care about me. I never wanted their attention and I didn't want to be the things they thought I wanted. Why is that ######6 knowledge so goddamn hard for my brain to comprehend.

Don't really understand what's happening today. I woke up feeling decent, ruminating on how the object had become a drunken, tattooed whore. That's fine, I thought, don't need that type of trash around. All was fine. Not great, but fine.

But then in the early afternoon I'm overcome by this crazy anxiety -- a feeling of intense panic. What if the XXXX XXXXXXX wasn't a rift between them? What if she was cool with that? What if she even participated in it? We already know of the other illegal stuff she went along with. Why stop there?

I have no idea where this came from. I haven't ever felt it before. In fact, I thought that today I was feeling particularly grounded in reality, and then all of a sudden, boom, this $#%^ comes out of nowhere. Is it just the mood leading around the cognition? Or is there something more going on? I honestly don't know.

When it happened I went back to something I wrote last night about bad news being good news, about how all the things which I instinctively lament -- leaving and then driving her away and all that stuff -- is really good and necessary. And seeing the ugly side of her is definitely one of these "bad news is good news" things too, as it denies my mind the ability to idealize her again and slip into the fantastical mindset.

But I'm still concerned about what today means. I was so certain that I was *more* grounded in reality -- I felt so detached from them all -- and yet two hours later I'm panicking about her morality as if it was 2010. What the hell happened?

Today is hard. Today is one of those days where the absence is felt. I started panicking yesterday, thinking about her being with him and I caved. Pathetic, I know, but that's what I did. Apparently she really is trying to move on. Well, sort of. It's obvious that what she's doing is trying to make him jealous, so she hasn't emotionally moved on even if she's not actively with him or actively trying to get back together with him. But how long can they stay apart if they both still want to be together?

Regardless, the point is that today is one of those days where my mind recognizes that she doesn't care about me, that she moved on a long time ago, and that I'm no consideration of hers. None.

And that huuuuuuurts. There's just a gaping hole inside me, forcing me to realize how much this fictitious concept of our love has defined me for the past 4.5 years. She's all that matters and I don't mean one thing to her.

J is pissed at me. I left, like I needed to do, for both our sakes, but of course she still clings to hope. What do you want me to do, darlin'? What do you want me to do? You got in way over your head. You dug your own hole and now expect me to dig you out. But I can't do that. And I don't want to do that. But even if I wanted to do that I couldn't. So the choice is either absolutely obliterate you with the truth, or disappoint you and let you think I'm a complete scum-sucking pig. Those are the only two things I can do. That's it. And so I choose to disappoint you and take on as much of the burden of this situation as I can.

Soon, I think, the void will be filled by the fantasy as it reconstitutes itself. Once again I'll think, "Maybe she cares. Maybe she still remembers." But it's getting harder and harder to believe that. And as much as I feel like I don't want to believe it anymore (it's too painful to believe it) the emptiness I'm left with if I don't believe it is worse.

But it's not a loneliness. It's not missing the connection or companionship of a real person. It's not that at all. It's always been about nothing more than the validation of a self-image, a self-concept, that makes me whole and unbroken, that makes me perfect.

I sat in the bathtub last night for 2 hours talking through this whole situation and I came to a deeper and more complete understanding than I ever have. But understanding it doesn't improve it. To know a giant asteroid is going to strike earth and destroy you does nothing to prevent it. In fact, the knowledge might be worse than ignorance. Same here. Just because I understand the parts and the mechanics doesn't mean I can change the process. The problem is inaccessible, at least directly, and I've yet to figure out how to do anything but ride out the waves.

She doesn't care. She doesn't care. But I chose this. This is what I chose, what I *wanted* -- what had to be. Right, but it served a purpose. And if it isn't serving that purpose, something else must. And right now there is no alternative. Why do you think my mind keeps going back to the same thing? Because it needs what it gets from it, and there's currently no alternative.

If she weren't so vile I might be able to trick myself into loving her again, if only briefly. But now I recognize how ugly a person she is and so I'm stuck. So why, if she's so awful, do I care if she cares about me? Because she validates the grandiose self-concept. Right, around and around we go.

I'm scared. I can't beat her. I can't devalue her. She's going to be too successful. She needs it too desperately. She's not talented and she's kind of a joke but it doesn't matter. Her popularity, her mainstream recognition, her amiable nature, and her incomparable ambition and desperation will ensure she continues to succeed on the highest level. (How can someone with so little talent already claim so many accolades?) And so I have absolutely nothing to hold against her. Maybe integrity or morality,...

[ Continued ]