Three Signs Of Neurotic Love

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Video: Three Signs Of Neurotic Love

Video: Three Signs Of Neurotic Love
Video: What Does It Mean To Be Neurotic? 2024, April
Three Signs Of Neurotic Love
Three Signs Of Neurotic Love
Anonim

It is very important for most of us to be loved. For a child, the knowledge that he is desired is the key to his harmonious development. But often our desire for love turns into a pathological form, which Karen Horney calls the neurotic need for love.

Signs of neurotic love:

1. Obsession - it stems from intense anxiety. Anxiety kills spontaneity and flexibility in relationships. For a neurotic, love is not an additional pleasure in life, but a vital necessity. For example, a gourmet who enjoys food and can choose what to eat. And a hungry person who, having no choice, eats everything indiscriminately just to satisfy his hunger.

This leads to an overestimation of the importance of being loved. It is important for a neurotic to be loved by everyone he meets. Although, in fact, the love of people with whom we constantly touch, live, work or whom it is desirable to make a good impression on is important. Neurotics may want to please all people, or all women, or all men.

Such people are not capable of being alone. Left alone, they experience unbearable anxiety. Often there are people who can only work in a team. They experience the horror of loneliness, a feeling of abandonment. Any human contact relieves them. The inability to be alone is accompanied by an increase in anxiety.

There is a paradox in such people: they may really need another person, be afraid of losing him, want to please him. But when this important person for them is near, they do not experience happiness. Because the desire to be near is often caused not by a feeling of love, but by the desire to receive peace and confidence.

2. Emotional dependence and submission - a neurotic is afraid to express any disagreement with a person who is significant to him. Any aggression will be squeezed out. He will not only be afraid to speak his mind, but also allow himself to be mocked, he will sacrifice himself: his interests, his tendencies towards self-assertion, even if this leads to self-destruction. If he nevertheless decides to express some kind of dissatisfaction or to act in his own way, this will be accompanied by great anxiety. Therefore, with all his might, he will try to please his object of "love", to express humility and admiration.

Emotional addiction - arises from a person's desire to cling to someone else who will give hope and protection. The person will depend on the other and become helpless. It is with great anxiety to wait for a phone call, to feel abandoned if they could not meet with him today. He will feel that this is destroying him, the relationship humiliates him, but he is not able to break this addiction.

Resentment is always present in emotional dependence. The addict is attached to the other because of his anxiety. But without realizing this, he will endlessly complain about his lack of freedom and blame another person for this. It is he who prevents him from living, developing, being himself and being free. The neurotic falls into a vicious circle. He is angry with another for his lack of freedom, but out of fear of being abandoned, he drives out his aggressive resentment. By displacing aggression, he increases his inner fear. Anxiety increases and the addict has to cling even more to the other person in order to regain his peace of mind. Fear increases so much that a real breakup seems to him the collapse of his whole life. In an attempt to avoid such fear and anxiety, a person goes into counterdependence, i.e. tries to avoid any attachment. Example, having gone through one or more unsuccessful attempts at a relationship, the neurotic tries to avoid any hint of attachment so as not to fall into painful addiction.

3. Gluttony - neurotic insatiability can manifest itself in jealousy and the desire for absolute love. A healthy child who has grown up in an atmosphere of warmth and safety feels welcome and does not require constant confirmation of his need and importance.

Gluttony is caused by anxiety. If a person receives satisfaction, success, feels that he is loved, doing his favorite creative work, gluttony decreases. For example, a girl stopped feeling a constant feeling of hunger after receiving a robot that brings her pleasure and pleasure. Conversely, a person may start eating, making a lot of purchases because they have been rejected, or they suppress their anger and anxiety. Greed for food, shopping, sex, hoarding money. Gluttony can also be repressed, and then, in a state of anxiety, the humble person begins to buy five pairs of shoes or suits.

Neurotic jealousy differs from the jealousy of a healthy person in that it is disproportionate to the danger. She is caused by the constant fear of losing love from this person. Therefore, any other interest in the object of "love" is regarded as a potential danger.

The gluttony of the neurotic gives rise to desire for absolute love … It sounds like this: "I want to be loved for who I am, and not for what I do." Of course, anyone has such a desire. But with the neurotic, this turns into a demand. And this requirement presupposes: love me no matter what I do; I want to be loved without giving anything in return; to be loved by others and not to benefit from me in doing so. If these conditions are not met, the neurotic suspects that he is loved only in order to receive and satisfy something.

Also, the neurotic wants to constantly receive sacrifices for the sake of love, only then he gets the feeling that he is really loved. It can be money, time, beliefs, plans, and even the personal integrity of another person. The search for absolute love hides a strong hostility that lurks behind neurotic love.

Unlike "vampire people" who can deliberately use others. The neurotic does not realize how demanding he is of others in relationships. Realizing this is difficult. After all, he is sure that he cannot live life using his potentials and capabilities, he constantly needs another. And it is this other or others who are responsible for his life. Awareness will require the neurotic to change his ideas and way of life. This is a difficult but important stage on the path to recovery.

(based on the theory of neuroses by Karen Horney)

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