Gammas and limerence

[FreelancePoliceman]

Hmm...I don't mean this maliciously by any means, but do you have ADHD by chance? You have a pattern of replying to me in ways that graze beside the point while missing it. I have it myself, and I have been diagnosed/taking medications for it since I was 7 years old, plus have seen it in several others with it, so that pattern is familiar to me. I realize it's not necessary to have it in order for this to happen sometimes, I'm just trying to understand what's happening here.

The point I was making was not that something is wrong with the chemical aspect, but that the chemical aspect indicates it is not a mystical/spiritual phenomenon to be interpreted as though it means you ought to go for the person. Rather than a spiritual phenomenon, it's something unhealthy that tends to be experienced by those who have experienced abuse/trauma.

It also tends to be experienced by the anxious attachment style.

I've never been diagnosed with it, and I've never really suspected I had something like that. Unless being Ne ego counts, lol. And I do remember that Ne is your vulnerable function, so maybe that's why it's throwing you.

The point I was making was not that something is wrong with the chemical aspect, but that the chemical aspect indicates it is not a mystical/spiritual phenomenon to be interpreted as though it means you ought to go for the person. Rather than a spiritual phenomenon, it's something unhealthy that tends to be experienced by those who have experienced abuse/trauma.

Well, we're physical beings, and our entire understanding of the world is physical ("chemical," if you prefer). Spirituality and a sense of mysticism is itself rooted in chemical reactions -- wouldn't you agree? So is love, of course. If we don't listen to the chemical reactions in our minds, what should we listen to? How could we listen at all?

I don't see why "limerence" is necessarily unhealthy, either. Having a clear sense of purpose feels good, and inspires great actions. Of course your purpose can be misguided, but a purpose motivated by love doesn't sound so bad -- probably better than most alternatives, I'd say.

[Fluffy Princess Unicorn]

I've never been diagnosed with it, and I've never really suspected I had something like that. Unless being Ne ego counts, lol. And I do remember that Ne is your vulnerable function, so maybe that's why it's throwing you.

Interesting. Are you seeing a connection there that I'm not seeing in this? Or just purposely veering off a bit?

I'm a bit weird in Socionics. The cognitive processes that are represented by Ne do make me REEEEE sometimes, lmaoo, but I'm odd in the sense that I tend to consider more alternatives than most people — at least when it's about people. Well, at least if they're on neutral/positive terms with me. I think I can probably become too hasty when someone gets on my bad side, which I probably should work on. I get what it's like to be misjudged all too well, so I try not to treat others like that. I've noticed from a few of my more recent interactions, however, that I've been too quick to judge if someone crosses the line with me or someone else that I feel compelled to defend. I'm always a work in progress, we're all human.

Well, we're physical beings, and our entire understanding of the world is physical ("chemical," if you prefer). Spirituality and a sense of mysticism is itself rooted in chemical reactions -- wouldn't you agree? So is love, of course. If we don't listen to the chemical reactions in our minds, what should we listen to? How could we listen at all?

Not sure we're on the same page, need to clarify. How are you defining spiritual here?

I don't see why "limerence" is necessarily unhealthy, either. Having a clear sense of purpose feels good, and inspires great actions. Of course your purpose can be misguided, but a purpose motivated by love doesn't sound so bad -- probably better than most alternatives, I'd say.

One resource explains that the neurochemical cocktail can create addiction. It's an extreme obsession. About 85% of a person's day can revolve around the object of their affection. It can result in stalking, depression, suicidality, all sorts of things. How you experience interactions with the person has the capacity to make or break your day…or life. Most people would feel bad if the object of our affections rejected us, but it wouldn't normally evoke suicidal ideation. It may resemble certainty about what they want, but actually, once the limerence is over, the relationship almost always ends. The limerence causes you to ignore red flags because you project your own fantasy onto them. You can think you're compatible when you really aren't in reality, because of that fantasy. Once someone wakes up from it, they realize it wasn't all they thought it was. It also takes them away from reality, so that they're caught up in trying to revolve their life around someone who might not even reciprocate their desires, instead of building their life up in realistic ways. Even if there is reciprocation, it's something you build your life around only for it to eventually die off.

I want to be clear, my intention is not to rail against the contents of the original post, nor the user behind them. My intention is to caution people that limerence is not something that can safely be normalized, and this thread runs the risk of normalizing it. That can be damaging to peoples' real, actual lives. I can't sit back silently and say nothing when I see that. In my mind's eye, that would be like seeing a crowd standing in front of an oncoming train, knowing they don't see it, and then saying nothing to them. Never warning that they should move out of the way. I'm trying to protect others from a risk that I see — including OP, if they will receive it.

[FreelancePoliceman]

Interesting. Are you seeing a connection there that I'm not seeing in this? Or just purposely veering off a bit?

A connection to Ne? Sure. It's interesting you see what I'm saying as veering off. I've been trying to respond to nearly everything you've said. Could you point out where I seem to be steering off track?

Not sure we're on the same page, need to clarify. How are you defining spiritual here?

Wouldn't you agree the spiritual is ultimately physical? But I don't believe that invalidates the concept of spirituality; only the late Christian idea of it as something separate from physical existence. I think I'd define spirituality as a sense of obligation to something greater than yourself. Someone else can likely come up with a better one, but I hope that'll suffice for now.

One resource explains that the neurochemical cocktail can create addiction. It's an extreme obsession. About 85% of a person's day can revolve around the object of their affection. It can result in stalking, depression, suicidality, all sorts of things. How you experience interactions with the person has the capacity to make or break your day…or life.

When people try to reduce life to "nothing but" certain patterns of interaction of chemicals and electricity, it's important to understand that they are technically right, but this doesn't really tell us much that's ultimately important. As humans, when we interact with the world and with each other, we don't generally deal directly with the basic chemicals and electrical impulses in the brain. We aren't naturally capable of this. As conscious people we deal with abstractions designed for our use, but abstractions which bear an actual relationship with reality. An example of this is using a desktop environment on a computer. When you click an icon, or drag a representation of a folder around, what you appear to do is heavily abstracted from the actual interaction of EM fields in your computer -- and what happens in a modern computer on this level is much too complicated for any single human to understand -- but at the same time you are interacting with the computer, and changing it to your will.

Taking this analogy further, when someone says a certain mental condition or emotion is the product of something like a "chemical imbalance," this is analogous to saying any problem you might experience with a computer is due to an "electrical imbalance." It's not wrong, in the sense that electricity isn't flowing in the way you wish it would go, but 90% of the time, you're facing a software issue, or even user inexperience. In these cases you're capable of changing the issue via the abstractions provided to you to do so -- say by changing a setting or configuration file. In the same way, most mental issues are "software issues," in the sense that consciousness possesses the means to engage them on its own terms. But this is the default way of understanding the world -- virtually any child will develop a conscious approach to life more or less naturally, but no one has an intuitive knowledge of chemistry or electromagnetism; these have to be studied. So when people talk about how our thoughts, and emotions, and whatnot, are "nothing but" chemical reactions, the intent is usually to make you doubt your intuitive understanding of life, and this is usually unjustified.

Not to say that there aren't cases where the "hardware" is damaged, for instance in cases of physical trauma to the brain. In these cases the conscious mind usually isn't capable of addressing issues with its own understanding (perhaps because its ability to understand has been damaged). But this is relatively rare, to begin with, and, more importantly, even in these kinds of cases, we don't yet possess the scientific knowledge needed to repair damage of this kind. We have drugs developed more or less by trial and error, that sometimes seem to alleviate symptoms, but usually it's only barely understood why those drugs have the effects they do or why the brain responds as it does. Understanding of the physical brain is still in very early stages. So even in cases of actual demonstrable physical damage, framing someone's psychological problems in terms of chemical reactions still isn't likely to do you much good most of the time.

Certain drugs we know have chemical effects on the brain that are known to compromise the ability of the conscious mind to break the addiction without external help. These are called chemical addictions. The idea of a "psychological addiction" doesn't stand on such firm footing. When you start talking about normal human interactions with the world or others in terms of chemical addictions, you're more or less denying the existence of the mind, seeing only the brain. So I think it's better to avoid that kind of talk as much as possible, and prefer to talk about why certain behaviors are good or bad in human, not in chemical, terms.

people would feel bad if the object of our affections rejected us, but it wouldn't normally evoke suicidal ideation.

Perhaps that's because most people don't feel their affection strongly enough?

It may resemble certainty about what they want, but actually, once the limerence is over, the relationship almost always ends. The limerence causes you to ignore red flags because you project your own fantasy onto them. You can think you're compatible when you really aren't in reality, because of that fantasy. Once someone wakes up from it, they realize it wasn't all they thought it was. It also takes them away from reality, so that they're caught up in trying to revolve their life around someone who might not even reciprocate their desires, instead of building their life up in realistic ways. Even if there is reciprocation, it's something you build your life around only for it to eventually die off.

Even if limerence is a fantasy, why not try to make that fantasy a reality? If you only let yourself be caught up in what actually exists, never allowing yourself to imagine what might, you won't ever really live.

Unfortunately, love tends to die (or perhaps what people believe to be love?). Easily 9/10 couples don't seem truly happy and loving with each other. In my book 'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

I want to be clear, my intention is not to rail against the contents of the original post, nor the user behind them. My intention is to caution people that limerence is not something that can safely be normalized, and this thread runs the risk of normalizing it. That can be damaging to peoples' real, actual lives. I can't sit back silently and say nothing when I see that. In my mind's eye, that would be like seeing a crowd standing in front of an oncoming train, knowing they don't see it, and then saying nothing to them. Never warning that they should move out of the way. I'm trying to protect others from a risk that I see — including OP, if they will receive it.

Normal life is pretty boring, and most upcoming changes seem to be making it more so. If the choice is between sitting paralyzed in a padded room at an asylum, never experiencing anything meaningful, never choosing else for yourself, and between throwing yourself in front of a train, I would support the effort of anyone to throw themselves in front of that train, and join them myself. I don't see the physical extension of a spiritually crippled life as a worthwhile goal.

[roger557]

actually, once the limerence is over, the relationship almost always ends.

It ends if the limerence "start up" effect is not followed. It doesn't have to end, unless one of the parties wishes it.

The limerence causes you to ignore red flags because you project your own fantasy onto them. You can think you're compatible when you really aren't in reality, because of that fantasy.

This is true in my experience, unfortunately. But as I've said before, each time I learned something or progressed my self-development in some way that I think God intended me to.

Once someone wakes up from it, they realize it wasn't all they thought it was. It also takes them away from reality, so that they're caught up in trying to revolve their life around someone who might not even reciprocate their desires,

Not in my case. In my cases, the feelings were reciprocated. Not reciprocated with limerence though; with limerence only one of the cases.

instead of building their life up in realistic ways. Even if there is reciprocation, it's something you build your life around only for it to eventually die off.

I believe strong in-love feelings can be rekindled with someone, but I'm not sure. It is an only one-time thing? Being in love surely insn't, but limerence might be. To be honest, it isn't that good being limerent. It's cool and all that to experience it once in your life, but being limerent in a long-term manner doesn't sound too good.

My intention is to caution people that limerence is not something that can safely be normalized, and this thread runs the risk of normalizing it. That can be damaging to peoples' real, actual lives. I can't sit back silently and say nothing when I see that.

You sound very SP. Limerence and being in love are the spice of life (at least, I bet, for sx types, and what I'm trying to deduce here, gammas too?).

In my mind's eye, that would be like seeing a crowd standing in front of an oncoming train, knowing they don't see it, and then saying nothing to them. Never warning that they should move out of the way. I'm trying to protect others from a risk that I see — including OP, if they will receive it.

Not sure I buy into this supposed "altruism" you purport to be motivating you. Are you sure this is why you are portraying limerence in such a bad light?