Understanding Obsessive Love Disorder

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Obsessive love disorder makes you obsessed with someone you think you might love. Being obsessed with that person makes you affect your surrounding relationships or take negative actions to possess the other person's love.

1. What is obsessive love disorder?

Obsessive love disorder (OLD) is a condition in which you are obsessed with someone you think you might be in love with, making you feel the need to obsessively protect the person or even have behaviors that control them as if they were their own.
Although there is no separate medical or psychological classification for obsessive-love disorder, it can often be accompanied by other types of mental health illness and occurs more often in women than in men. This obsession affects your life, you can't focus on anything else. Treatment can help relieve symptoms and prevent complications.

2. Symptoms of Obsessive Love Disorder

Symptoms of obsessive-love disorder may include:
Always feeling an overwhelming attraction to someone. Having obsessive thoughts about that person. Feeling the need to protect the person you love, even obsessing about being protective. There are possessive thoughts and actions. Extreme jealousy of the person's interactions with other individuals. In some cases, symptoms may get worse at the end of the relationship or if the other person rejects you, then manifest other signs such as:
Constant texting, calling, everything way to make repeated contact with someone they care about. It is difficult to have a good relationship with friends or maintain contact with family members because there is always an obsession with one person Watching, monitoring the actions of the other. Find out and control where the other person goes and the activities they participate in. Such actions can be to show fear to the other party and make the person with phobias turn their life upside down, unable to care about anything else.

3. Causes of Obsessive Love Disorder

There is no one specific cause of obsessive-love disorder. It can be associated with other mental disorders such as:
Attachment Disorder This group of disorders refers to people who have problems with emotional attachment, such as lack of empathy or obsession with others.
Types of attachment disorders include socially forbidden interaction disorder (DSED) and reactive attachment disorder (RAD). Both types develop during childhood from negative experiences with parents or caregivers.
In DSED, children can be too friendly and not wary of strangers. With RAD, children may feel stressed and have trouble getting along with others.
Borderline Personality Disorder This disorder is characterized by short-term changes in mood, thoughts and actions. Borderline personality disorder can make you extremely angry or extremely happy within minutes or hours.
Episodes of anxiety and depression also occur for people with this disorder. When learning about obsessive love disorder, borderline personality disorder can cause a transition between extreme love for a person to extreme contempt.
Delusional jealousy People with this disease will rely on their delusions to always consider it right even though it has been proven to be false. When it comes to obsessive love, delusional jealousy can lead you to believe that the other person has reciprocated their feelings for you, even if they've made it clear this isn't really true.
Erotomania This disorder causes the sufferer to have the illusion that he is loved by that person. When faced with this situation you believe that someone famous or of higher social status is in love with you. This can lead to behaviors that harass the other person, such as coming to their home or work, sabotaging their relationship, or feeling very angry when the other person is romantically involved with the other person. others.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a combination of obsessive thoughts and compulsive rituals. They have serious effects to interfere with your daily life. OCD can also cause the sufferer to need constant reassurance, which can affect your relationships.
Obsessive jealousy Unlike delusional jealousy, obsessive jealousy is when you are always on purpose, suspecting your partner's infidelity. This obsession can lead to repetitive and compulsive behaviors in response to concerns about infidelity. This can be distressing for the person experiencing the phobia and affect daily life.

4. How to diagnose obsessive love disorder

Obsessive love disorder (OLD) is diagnosed by thorough evaluation from a psychiatrist or mental health professional.
Usually the doctor will rely on exploring the signs, relationships with people around and family history of other known mental problems or not.
In addition, other physical causes should be excluded or follow-up examination for other psychiatric disorders associated with this disorder should be considered.

5. Treatment of Obsessive Love Disorder

The exact goal of treatment for this disorder depends on the underlying cause of the condition. However, the main treatment is usually a combination of medication and psychotherapy.
5.1 Medication Treatment Selected medications to relieve your symptoms. Some medications to choose from are:
Anti-anxiety medications: Like Valium and Xanax Antidepressants: Like Prozac, Paxil or Zoloft Antipsychotics It can take several weeks for your medication to work. You may also need to try different types until you find the one that works best for you. While using the drug can occur some side effects of the drug, should notify the treating doctor when you experience side effects such as:
Change in appetite, weight gain. Fatigue, headache, insomnia, nausea, dry mouth. Decrease or loss of sex drive. nausea Symptoms get worse 5.2 Psychotherapy Psychotherapy can be helpful for other forms of obsessive-love disorder. Family involvement in therapy sessions can be helpful, especially if the obsessive love disorder stems from problems in childhood. Depending on the severity of your disorder and your personal preferences, you may be able to participate in individual or group therapy, or both.
Psychotherapies used in treatment include:
Cognitive-behavioral therapy. Dialectical behavior therapy Play therapy (for children) Talk therapy.

6. Prognosis of people with obsessive love disorder

When properly diagnosed and treated, OLD can have a positive outcome. However, it's important not to leave therapy or treatment if you think you're feeling better, just follow your doctor's schedule. Stopping treatment suddenly may worsen symptoms or cause them to return.
If left undiagnosed and untreated, this condition can have a negative impact on life and make it impossible to do other important things. Not only that, this also makes you have erroneous and excessive actions that affect the people around you.
If you or a loved one has symptoms of obsessive-love disorder, you should see a medical facility for early detection and treatment. It can also help determine if you have another mental health condition.
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Reference source: healthline.com