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Understanding the Love Addicted Cycle
Me? An Addict? How?!
Love Vs. Sex Addiction
Love...On The Brain?
For many, the following childhood experiences may have contributed to a predisposition to "love" addiction:
* Separation or divorce of parents
* Alcoholic parent(s) in the household
* Child abuse
* Neglect
* Repeated abandonment
* Losing a sibling or parent at a young age
* Being adopted
* Having parents who were immature, shut down, or emotionally unavailable
* Lack of positive validation or support from parents
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Love addiction and sex addiction are both intimacy disorders, usually developed to cope with trauma, abuse, or neglect experienced while very young.
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The sex addict uses sex to replace intimacy, creating a barrier between themselves and their partners by limiting the interaction to just sex.
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The love addict chooses unavailable partners as well, to limit the threat of rejection or abandonment.
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Addiction is repeating behaviors despite suffering negative consequences.
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It happens when we encounter an external stimulus that we categorize as “rewarding,” Our brain then raises the "happy" hormone dopamine in our system. We then repeat it.
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The solution is - as you learn more about what makes you tick, you can learn new ways to be happy by adopting new, healthy, rewarding stimuli!
Am I Addicted To Love?
Love addiction is about getting high — with another person, through infatuation and romance.
Persons become love addicted because they want to numb their uncomfortable feelings and escape from reality. A love addict uses the romance neuro-pathways in the brain to feel better inside, to self-medicate, mediate or numb intense feelings of loneliness and emptiness. Love addiction often results in an overall increase in pain, loneliness and emptiness, and, just like other behavioral addictions, more and more is needed each time to feel “better”.
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This Love Addiction Screening Test should provide you with more information about your likelihood of being addicted to love.