Can You Really Be Addicted to Love?
Experts claim that desperate reactions to a break-up—like the urge to throw the nearest bunny into a saucepan—could be a clue that you’re suffering from yet another addiction.
I had never heard the phrase “Addicted to Love” uttered outside a Robert Palmer video or bad poetry until a few years ago, when a particularly poisonous breakup drove me temporarily insane. After endless hours of listening to me cry and obsess over what went wrong during my seven-month relationship, a few friends gently suggested that I seek professional help.
While Love Addiction didn’t make the cut in the latest D.S.M.-V, the bible of the psychology world, there’s no denying that it’s the season’s hottest new affliction. Many critics blasted Dr. Drew when he put Tiger Woods’ former mistress Rachel Uchitel on Celebrity Rehab alongside a bevy of meth and crack addicts, but Uchitel insisted that her “disease” was related to a “hole” that she was trying to fill in her heart.
The truth is, detoxing from love addiction can be dangerous: People kill in the name of “love” every day. Just ask former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak, who was charged with kidnapping, after she drove cross-country wearing diapers and armed with pepper spray to confront her love rival.
At my first SLAA meeting: “Have you lost count of the number of sexual partners you’ve had?” “Totally,” I responded. “But hasn’t everyone?”
Another question: “Do you find that you have a pattern of repeating bad relationships?” could also be responded to affirmatively by almost every person I know
The problem is, we’re all instructed from a very young age that our main goal in life is to find our perfect soul-mates. From Romeo and Juliet (underage bride, double suicide) to Wuthering Heights (animal torture, violent death) and Jane Eyre (insane hidden wife, arson), every great love story had two things in common: A healthy dose of suffering and a body count.
“We’ve all had to deal with heartbreak and excruciating pain in our lives,” says Alexandra Katehakis, Founder and Clinical Director of the Center for Healthy Sex in West Los Angeles. “The true test of mental health is how you cope with these setbacks. Do you turn to family and friends, or do you start spinning out of control and stalking your ex? When something happens to blow up the fantasy, true love addicts go into physical withdrawal, and then into psychiatric meltdown.”
by, Catherine Townsend has written for New York magazine and The Independent in London. Her book,
Suzanne Rucker, Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Certified in Love Addiction Therapy
LifeCounselingSolutions@gmail.com
(407) 967-9313