Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Lucy Bain
Read between
April 2 - April 8, 2022
Even if you successfully employ ‘no contact’ and do forget about this LO, you will still radiate the same energy that screams “I need recognition and my needs met at all costs”, which will invariably align you with similarly unhealthy romantic attachments (and, potentially, toxic people) over and over again.
The anticipation and assurance that you will see this person, that they will talk to you soon and bathe you in their sacred, golden attention, is precisely what slingshots you towards those alarming heights of limerent euphoria that make this pathology so difficult to escape.
Limerence is, by definition, a scarcity mentality, so it distances you from so many things that make you the person that you are: your discrepancy, your natural desire to judge what’s right for you/not commit to things too quickly, your self-respect…it makes you think “what can I give/do/become/sell, so I don’t lose my LO?”
We would not be functional, let alone thrive, if we were not wired to feel the best ‘hits’ during the mere anticipation of a great reward. There is no escaping this, nor the fact that euphoria cannot be our baseline state. We all have to deal with some duller, quieter, sadder moments.
People who take drugs to feel better and ‘raise their baseline state’, however, try and circumvent this reality. Whilst transiently working, this ironically and tragically results in them experiencing a). far more marked peaks and troughs and b). a more intense version of the aforementioned phenomenon: ‘you get to feel good/okay when you find your reward, but I will only let you feel amazing when you know that more is coming’.
By not needing their suboptimal attention, they would no longer get their ego bowed down to by you and would be repulsed by the situation; narcissists do not get anything from people with healthy, functional boundaries and a sense of purpose. The result would be both of your paths bifurcating cleanly and effortlessly and them sailing out of your life, as you can only experience what you are not a vibrational match for.
As if by magic, you will no longer find the same LOs appealing, because they will not resonate with you by meeting your unmet needs or confirming one of your existing beliefs. People of their nature will dissolve away in the periphery, and real partners who make you excited, thrilled and contented, rather than manic, overwhelmed and depressed, will take centre stage.
It is extremely important to elucidate your own points of resistance by imaging yourself in a plethora of different situations and considering which feel normal, and which feel ridiculously out of reach.
you will most likely indignantly ponder how/why you can be composed, stoic and logical when it comes to different platonic and family matters, yet find yourself craving ‘scraps’ from a character in your life who is bizarrely able to determine your mood for the entirety of the day.
You are in no way limited to LOs who orbit you, occasionally reaching out but ultimately lacking sincere interest in living out a real, requited chapter with you… unless you allow yourself to harbour beliefs that limit you to this expression of human connection.
Only people who are, themselves, dealing with unmet needs and/or are unusually narcissistic are going to keep you on their radar when you are notably suffering and in a compromised psychological state triggered by them.
However, it is just as likely that they shy away from addressing the obvious because something about your unusual connection makes them feel good. When you exude unconstrained admiration and awe, you are helping them deal with their own shortcomings and pain by affirming to them that they are loved/attractive/powerful/special/relevant (whatever it is that they want to feel).
However, the fact that your brain’s able to subject you to such horrible emotional lows in response to the realisation that you two are not, in actual fact, together, does reveal that you have very severe unmet needs.
You see, being limerence-prone allows you to generally experience non-tangible things in an intense way; if you are genetically-prone, you have an impressive imagination that can contemplate abstract things and weave up convincing narratives very quickly. And, influenced by these narratives, your subconscious mind will automatically send you down a path towards whatever actions it believes will make these things externalise in your reality.
I told her that something at the back of my head was going off… telling me that all the pieces of the puzzle were somehow laid out on the table. That it was just a feeling, but one that I had learnt to listen to. That tingling that precedes clarity… that tranquil void where things eventually start to make sense.
The real problem is that, subconsciously, I've never been able to put you in the 'friend' category. And that probably will never change. I just can't be your friend. I'm sorry. I did try to be just-a-friend, but there's too much chemistry. And it gets me every time. I say stupid, heart-felt things. You then end up being the responsible one, which makes me feel bad.
