Limerence

Foreword: My Personal Experience with Limerence

If you had asked me a decade ago what limerence meant, I'd have no clue. I'd assume you were talking about something involving limes, or something trivial amongst those lines. I wish I could say the same today. I wish I could revert back to my childlike innocence, never having to have faced what limerence does to your mind and soul.
For starters, I'll explain what limerence is, from my understanding. It is an involuntary obsession with an individual, that is usually unreciprocated. It involves codependency and attachment. It can stem from previous traumas, and even OCD can be a factor for the symptoms of Limerence.
Kiera Manning isn't real, but limerence is, and it's a monster.
The people that limerence sufferers infatuate upon are called "Limerent Objects" which is a name I hate because people are anything but objects, and this is abbreviated into LO.

I've tried to wrap my mind around what caused this obsession of mine, and this is what I've come up with.
When I was 15 years old, someone who I thought was my best friend back in high school outed me for being gay to the entire school over a petty fight. I was ostracized, and I became more of a pariah than I already was, being gay in a small southern town.
I remember in particular, a group of boys that hated my guts. They threatened to physically assault me if I came near them, and they treated me like I had a disease or that I was undeserving of common human decency or respect. That's when he came into the picture.
Now, mind you, he was friends with these boys that had made my life a living hell. But he was different. He actually treated me like a human being. I think the moment that sparked my limerence began in my Algebra I class.
The teacher was calling on people to answer questions, and he volunteered me. He said my name for me to answer the question and then looked back at me with a smile. He knew I was a shy kid, so maybe he found it amusing in some way?
Another thing I noticed was that he seemed so ambitious. It was radiant, and it made me feel alive in ways I had never felt before. I began to develop a false reality in my head that he would never let me feel the hurt I was feeling at that moment. He had close friends, and I longed and craved to be one of them. I attributed him to happiness, and when he deprived me of his social interactions, it felt like I was being deprived of that serotonin boost he gave me.
The obsession only grew when he didn't interact with me for the rest of that school year. I know it wasn't personal, as he didn't really know me, but it felt personal. I felt like he hated me, because he was depriving me of serotonin, even though he was unaware of it. This made me yearn for his attention even more, which began the festering, gnawing mental disease that was my Limerence.
My sophomore year, he interacted with me a few times, and the high I got from him even acknowledging my existence was intoxicating. It felt like every euphoric drug known to man combined to give me this eccentric high. Suddenly, I didn't hurt anymore, because he had acknowledged me. However, these highs didn't last long, and once they disappeared, the lows hit like a truck.
He even sat in front of me in one of my classes, and he always seemed to acknowledge his friends around me, but he'd never talk to me. I began to develop a little bit of animosity, because he was giving everyone but me the attention I yearned for. I was hurting, and he couldn't see it, and maybe he didn't care.
I've struggled with Limerence now for 5 years, and my senior year of high school, I tried to reach out to my LO, though my obsessive tendencies showed themselves quickly. I've talked to him off and on, and he's aware of my feelings towards him. But, I've decided it's best to never speak to him again, out of respect for him and myself. It's not fair to him for me to push my obsessive tendencies onto him, and it's not fair to me that I put myself through the endless cycle of highs and lows that Limerence brings.
I'm not sure if the Limerence will ever go away, but I pray that someday it does. It's a never ending battle that is hard to explain to someone who doesn't suffer with it. For me, it started as a sort of crush, and due to my surroundings and my emotional predicament, it turned into a obsession that took over every part of my life, and I'm still trying to regain control over it. Limerence does not define me, and I'm putting this book out there as further proof of that. I used to feel so ashamed, and I felt like people would think I was crazy if I talked about it. When you read Kiera Manning's story, and you see her experience with Limerence, I hope you have a better understanding of what it's like to live with.

Much love,

Trent Wes