Codependency and Love Addiction
by Lisa A. Romano
Are You a Love Addict?
Signs of Love Addiction
- Have you ever driven past a love interests house dozens of times, hoping they might just ‘happen’ to catch a glimpse of you ‘coincidentally’ passing their home?
- Have you texted and then texted again, and then texted some more, when your love interest did not immediately text you back?
- Have you stalked their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts?
- Have you stayed up all night fantasizing about who they are with, what they are doing and about why they haven’t called you since breakfast?
- Does your mind ruminate and worry about what they think about you, your hair, your lips, your car, your dog, your house and so on?
If you are the kind of person that obsesses over love interests, then you know what it feels like to feel totally OUT OF CONTROL! When our minds lose the ability to think about anything else but our crush, partner, or love interest, it is time to check ourselves.
When We Obsess and Ruminate
Those of us who have suffered from love addiction must understand that anything that causes us to feel OUT OF CONTROL is NOT good for us—and NO—not even that really, really hot guy that buys his coffee down at Starbucks every morning , the one we also stalk on his early morning runs because we just so happened to follow him one day after his stop for coffee and noticed he liked to jog at the park a mile from our home.
Of course, this was all happenstance, right?
NOT!
Lack of Self Love
Love addiction is intoxicating and it is related to our inability to take care of the self. Thinking about another person and fantasizing about them helps us avoid our internal pain. We do not love the self and it feels better to OBSESS about fantasy-type love than it does to deal with our own insecurities, and underdeveloped ability to love and care for the self.
Telling ourselves stories about the person we have developed an infatuation with effectively acts to numb our own pain. When we are thinking about another person, and or eventually catering to them inside a relationship dynamic, we get to run away from what is really at the core of our relationship woes.
Heal the Love Addict in You With Self Love
Until we love the self, we cannot love another person in a healthy way. Learning to love the self includes identifying WHY it was so difficult for us to love ourselves in the first place.
- Are we suffering from a lack of self-esteem?
- Are you codependent and suffering from codependency?
- Are we avoiding deeper emotional conflicts?
- Were we raised by people who abandoned us or wounded us in some way?
- Were our parents' alcoholics, narcissists, aloof, distant, workaholics, or emotionally avoidant or abusive?
- Was our childhood home chaotic, unpredictable and did we feel unsafe?
- Are we addicted to the chase and to fantasy-like thinking?
- Do we secretly struggle with believing 'we are not enough'?
Asking Tough Questions
It is not easy to ask yourself questions like these, but it is absolutely necessary if we are going to break the spell of love addiction and codependency. We may have been conditioned to worry more about what other people think about us than what we think about the self, but the great news is, the POWER to change our subconscious self-image is possible.
Without asking tough questions, we never know what is really wrong, and if we never know what is really wrong, it is like driving around with steam coming out from under the hood of our car but never stopping to open the hood.
What You Can Do
Thankfully, these days there is a ton of information you can read about Love Addiction and Codependency. My two favorite authors on these subjects are Pia Mellody and Melody Beattie. If you are serious about addressing love addiction and codependency, these two ladies can definitely help you gain the insight you need to better understand the love addict in you.
SLAA
12 Step Meetings can be a great way to unpack our love addiction issues. My only caution with these meetings is making sure you go in with the CLEAR intention of NOT walking out with anyone. I mean, 😐 seriously. Sitting in a room full of other sex and love addicts is like a sugar fiend being left alone in a candy store. Just be careful out there Dear Ones. Be smart and be clear about why you might feel the need for support as you learn to confront love addiction issues.
Here is a link to find a Sex and Love Addiction Meeting near you
CODA
Codependents Anonymous is for those wishing to achieve and maintain healthy relationships. If you wish to find support in your area, you can do so by following the link below.
Like anytime you are in a room full of people with similar wounds to your own, it can be quite tempting to couple with someone you believe understands your pain. These meetings create space for us to open up and become vulnerable. When our core wound is abandonment trauma, it can be intoxicating to feel accepted by the people we are sharing our stories with.
As someone who attended many CODA meetings, I am just telling it like it is. 12 Step meetings can offer awesome support. We can meet amazing friends and learn how to exercise boundaries and implement some of the tools we learn while attending these meetings, however, being mindful of our intention for attending these meetings in the first place goes a long way when it comes to emotionally recovering from love addiction and codependency.
Lisa A. Romano is a Life Coach, bestselling author, and YouTube Vlogger specializing in codependency and narcissistic abuse recovery. She creates real-life tools to help people evolve past their traumas so they can become the magnificent creators they were born to be.
Lisa's work helps awaken people to the idea that what is wrong is not them, it is only their programming. Her 12 Week Breakthrough Healing Coaching Program takes members through three months of reprogramming. Lisa creates supportive, nurturing communities and then offers members access to healing resources like training videos and self-hypnosis meditations, along with weekly group calls and access to her and her team. Her programs are the blueprints she used to help heal her own life.
Members who have taken part in her 12 Week Breakthrough Program include neuroscientists, psychologists, and physicians as well. If you are interested in learning more, you can visit https://www.lisaaromano.com/12wbcp
