Oct 12, 2026 · 25 min · 21 segments
When a crush turns into a harmful obsession, you might experience limerence, romantic infatuation characterized by extreme emotional highs and lows, intrusive thoughts and idealization. In this…
Marielle SegarraHost
Tom BellamyGuest
Having a crush on somebody or being in those early stages of a relationship with them, that is a very strong natural high.
It's just that sometimes, especially if you can't be with them or if they're not a good fit for you, these feelings get all twisted up, and they turn into a behavioral addiction.
You give a few strategies in the book on how to get over limerence, and one of them is to limit contact.
Sometimes you can't necessarily control if you're gonna have, uh, contact with this other person.
Um, but as far as you can, limit contact so that you're not reinforcing the, the addiction.
And limiting contact isn't just about, like, I don't date this person anymore or I don't get into long conversations with them or whatever, but it's also I don't look at their social media, and I don't-
So any of those sorts of things will reinforce the desire, reinforce the connection.
So you want to try and, you know, first look at the things that are within your control, uh, like blocking them on social media or, or, uh, you know, using software to, to mean you c- literally can't, uh, connect with them.
Having a crush on somebody or being in those early stages of a relationship with them, that is a very strong natural high.
It's just that sometimes, especially if you can't be with them or if they're not a good fit for you, these feelings get all twisted up, and they turn into a behavioral addiction.
You give a few strategies in the book on how to get over limerence, and one of them is to limit contact.
Sometimes you can't necessarily control if you're gonna have, uh, contact with this other person.
Um, but as far as you can, limit contact so that you're not reinforcing the, the addiction.
And limiting contact isn't just about, like, I don't date this person anymore or I don't get into long conversations with them or whatever, but it's also I don't look at their social media, and I don't-
So any of those sorts of things will reinforce the desire, reinforce the connection.
So you want to try and, you know, first look at the things that are within your control, uh, like blocking them on social media or, or, uh, you know, using software to, to mean you c- literally can't, uh, connect with them.
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