Why You're Feeling This Way
This state is part of love addiction, where your self-worth depends on others' approval. Love addiction is characterized by intense anxiety and loneliness when not receiving contact or attention from your partner. Recent studies show that love addiction is linked to insecure attachment styles (Mangialavori & Cacioppo, 2020).
What Is an Insecure Attachment Style?
Attachment styles are formed based on relationships with parents or caregivers in early childhood and influence relationships in adulthood, including romantic ones. Insecure attachment styles include the following types.
Anxious Attachment
Characteristics: Strong need for approval and affection from others, with high levels of anxiety. Easily becomes anxious when there is no contact or attention from a partner.
Behavior: Excessive dependence on the partner, feeling anxious and worried when there is no contact. Feels like "I can't breathe without their messages."
Avoidant Attachment
Characteristics: Avoids intimate relationships, values independence, and tries to maintain distance from others.
Behavior: Feels anxious in intimate relationships and takes self-defensive actions. Does not fear lack of contact but becomes unstable when relationships deepen.
Fearful-Avoidant Attachment
Characteristics: Desires intimacy with others but fears it due to past trauma or rejection experiences. Holds conflicting emotions.
Behavior: Seeks intimate relationships but simultaneously pushes them away. Becomes anxious when contact is lost but feels fearful when getting too close.
Specific Impacts and Behaviors
Dependence on Self-Evaluation
Impact: People with an anxious attachment style greatly depend on others' approval and affection for their self-evaluation. Contact or attention from the partner becomes a means of confirming their self-worth, and its absence leads to self-doubt.
Behavior: Feels intense anxiety and loneliness when there is no contact from the partner, experiencing mental distress so severe that it is described as "I can't breathe."
Strong Anxiety
Impact: People with an anxious attachment style are overly sensitive to others' actions and emotions. Even a slight delay in a partner's contact can trigger feelings of abandonment.
Behavior: Frequently sends messages or makes calls to get the partner's attention. Cannot focus and may panic when there is no contact.
What Can Be Done
Instead of depending on others for self-evaluation, recognize your own value and fulfill your needs. This can be achieved through psychological counseling or therapy.
Specific Solutions
1. Keep a Journal
Psychological Effects: Keeping a journal helps with self-reflection and organizing emotions. Writing down your feelings and thoughts can relieve internal confusion and stress, deepening self-understanding.
Neuroscientific Effects: The act of writing itself changes brain structure (enhances neuroplasticity)※1. It particularly activates the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for thinking and decision-making), improving stress management abilities (Pennebaker & Chung, 2011).
※1 Benefits of Changing Brain Structure
Stress Reduction: Changing brain structure alters the activity of regions that regulate stress responses (such as the amygdala), making responses to stress calmer.
Emotional Stability: Strengthening the prefrontal cortex (responsible for thinking and decision-making) makes emotional control more effective, enhancing emotional stability.
2. Find a Hobby (sports, reading, drawing, volunteering, etc.)
Psychological Effects: Finding a hobby brings a sense of self-satisfaction and fulfillment. It enhances intrinsic motivation, reduces stress, and improves overall happiness (Deci & Ryan, 2000).
Neuroscientific Effects: Engaging in new activities or learning new skills promotes neuroplasticity (the formation of new neural pathways), improving cognitive function and stress resilience※2 ※3 (Kempermann, 2019).
※2 Benefits of Promoting Neuroplasticity
Improved Learning and Memory: Enhanced neuroplasticity makes it easier to learn and retain new information, generally improving cognitive abilities.
Flexible Thinking: Improved neuroplasticity promotes problem-solving and creative thinking, enabling flexible adaptation to changes.
※3 Benefits of Forming New Neural Pathways
Increased Stress Resilience: Forming new neural pathways helps the brain respond more adaptively to stress, increasing stress resilience.
Improved Mental Health: Forming new neural pathways can potentially improve mental health issues like depression and anxiety.
3. Practice Self-Affirmation
Psychological Effects: Incorporating affirmations (positive self-statements) into daily life increases self-esteem. Higher self-esteem stabilizes self-evaluation and reduces dependence on others' approval (Cohen & Sherman, 2014).
Neuroscientific Effects: Repeating positive affirmations strengthens positive neural circuits, reducing the activity of brain regions that regulate stress responses (such as the amygdala) (Falk et al., 2015).
Affirmations for Everyone Struggling with Mistrust Due to Bullying ➤➤
References
- Cohen, G. L., & Sherman, D. K. (2014). The psychology of change: Self-affirmation and social psychological intervention. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 333-371.
- Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The "what" and "why" of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227-268.
- Falk, E. B., O'Donnell, M. B., Cascio, C. N., Tinney, F. J., Kang, Y., Lieberman, M. D., & Taylor, S. E. (2015). Self-affirmation alters the brain's response to health messages and subsequent behavior change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(7), 1977-1982.
- Kempermann, G. (2019). Environmental enrichment, new neurons and the neurobiology of individuality. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 20(4), 235-245.
- Mangialavori, S., & Cacioppo, M. (2020). Love addiction. Attachment Styles.
- Pennebaker, J. W., & Chung, C. K. (2011). Expressive writing: Connections to physical and mental health. Oxford Handbook of Health Psychology.
- Quattropani, M. C., Maglia, M. G., & Lanzafame, I. (2023). Love addiction: Current diagnostic and therapeutic paradigms in clinical psychology. Health Psychology Research.
- Warren, C. S. (2023). Letting Go of Your Ex: CBT Skills to Heal the Pain of a Breakup and Overcome Love Addiction.
