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Post by Susan Peabody on Sept 21, 2012 10:32:26 GMT -8
This is the key to understanding love addiction. It is projection. We take our imagination and create an Imago. We take are childhood dreams. We take all the fantasies that got us through a difficult childhood and we PROJECT them on a real-life person and imagine living after ever after with them.
With normal people the illusion fades and they see the real person and if all is well they stay together. Love addicts project far longer and it is so much more intense because everything is on the line. We believe life is not worth living without being in love and walking hand in hand on a beach.
Projection hides the truth and makes us believe things are real when they are not, i.e. limerence will last forever.
As Pascal says, ""Poets have no right to picture love as blind; its blindfold must be removed so that it can have the use of eyes." (Pascal, as quoted by Jose Ortega y Gasset in On Love) found in Addiction to Love by SP
When you cannot tell the fantasy from the truth and everything is out of control you have become a love addict not just a person in love.Another one of my favorite metaphors is love addicts are drunk on love.
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Post by Jacarandagirl on Sept 21, 2012 11:07:55 GMT -8
Mmmm, yeah. So true. So that's why I feel somewhat ho-hum about my love interest now, the limerence is gone, with all the uncertainty I had about what was happening, and I am used to it lasting A LOT longer. With my PoA it lasted well over a year. Probably close to two years. Amazing that we can project for such a long time.
And so good it's gone so quickly this time. I can see him clearly and how important is that! He is a real person with a real life that does NOT revolve around me, and I keep thinking there is something wrong with the picture. With my PoA it was so intense, we were on fire for each other for a long time. In that fire burned my self-protection, my rational thinking and my self-control. And I had two teenagers to protect, and to some extent I failed them there. Particularly my daughter, who subsequently struggled very much with core issues in her life.
...
Feeling drunk on life...on love, I mean. Sometimes I feel drunk on life too! But that's different. Drunk on love is very true of me. I get so high on it, life feels amazing from that place. No wonder I would want it to last. It feels like a solution to all my problems.
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Post by Loving My Life on Sept 21, 2012 11:35:40 GMT -8
Susan, all of that makes perfect sense to me now..all I knew when I first found this lovely forum, was what I was feeling with my poa, I had never felt before, and I was so gullible and naive, i believed everything this guy told me, and by the time I realized something just was not right, I was so deep in love, or what I thought was love, I did not know how to get out.
I had all of that, when i first read what limerence was, it was such a relief to know I was not crazy, and my projection as well, b/c my poa told me he loved me and wanting me and wanting to spend his life with me, I was the love of his life, yuck....all the classic symptoms of a charming, abuser, he set the hook, and the grooming process began, looking back i just let him do whatever, and i became his little submissive person, so he could abuse me, emotionally.
I had never let a man treat me like this, I thought I was so smart since I have been sober 6 months, getting tangled up with him, caused me alot of stress and pain, but I also learned alot about myself too, so that part is a blessing.
He is gone now, and I just am not so gullible and naive now to keep believing this person loved me, love never had anything to do with this, it was just very unhealthy, I see that now.
I just wish I had of listened to those people who tried to tell me, dont get involved with anyone romantically until you have been sober for a year, but I did not...I was the perfect victim, for this abuser.
He will never abuse me again.
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