🥰 Love Addiction - Step 1

30 May, 2025

Step 1 - Powerlessness Over Love Addiction

• I am powerless over love addiction because I lose myself when I have a partner.
• It feels like a current that drags me, making me forget my boundaries, values, and self-care.
• I have spent much of my life love-starved and fantasizing about the perfect partner who would save me from pain.
• My relationships have often involved dysfunctional partners who were emotionally unavailable, abusive, or neglectful—mirroring the neglect and emotional abuse I experienced with my mother.
• Even when partners clearly communicated boundaries, I ignored them, hoping they’d change, leading to repeated hurt and disappointment.
• I have also obsessed over co-workers or fantasized about idealized relationships.
• Sometimes, even when trying to stay away, I find myself reaching out or holding onto hope in unhealthy ways.

Step 1B: Unmanageability in Love Addiction

• Love addiction has made everything unmanageable in my life:

  • I’ve lost my peace, health, self-esteem, savings, and jobs.
  • I’ve lost relationships with friends and family.
  • My ability to care for myself or others has diminished.
  • I’ve experienced intense emotional pain and despair, even thoughts of not wanting to exist anymore (which thankfully has passed).

• Despite knowing the harm, I was unable to let go because the pain of loss felt unbearable.

Step 1C: Underlying Needs Behind the Addiction

• I realize now that my addiction to love was an attempt to meet unmet childhood needs:

  1. Safety: I never learned how to protect or defend myself and felt I had to “fawn” or appease others to survive.
  2. Love & Affection: A deep hunger for genuine affection and to be the most important person in someone’s life.
  3. Being Seen & Valued: Longing to be accepted and cherished for who I truly am, not just what I can do for others.
  4. Control & Predictability: Clinging to fantasies to feel some sense of control in unpredictable emotional situations.

• The core unmet need was to have a patient, kind, and nurturing parent who loved me unconditionally and taught me how to self-soothe.

• Instead, I was met with shame, rejection, neglect, harsh judgment, and emotional abuse from my mother who misunderstood my neurodivergence (ADHD and autism) as willful misbehavior.

Step 1D: Specific Behaviors Used to Meet Unmet Needs

I’ve recognized many behaviors I used to try to meet these needs, including:

• Obsessive thinking about partners or fantasies.
• Repeatedly contacting partners or ex-partners even when it hurts or is unwanted.
• Prioritizing others’ needs above my own boundaries and self-care.
• Trying to rescue or fix people who didn’t want help.
• Sacrificing my values and self-respect to keep relationships.
• Hiding my true feelings to avoid rejection or conflict.
• Spending much energy fantasizing about “the perfect relationship.”
• Avoiding being alone due to loneliness or fear.
• Using sex or intimacy for temporary safety or self-worth.
• Staying connected to people who hurt me because of fear of abandonment or loneliness.

Moving Forward

I am committed to continuing this process of understanding and healing through the 12 Steps. I am learning to show up for myself as the patient, kind, and nurturing parent I never had — step by step, day by day. This work is hard, but I know I am not alone, and I am worth the effort.