Today was supposed to be simple.
A birthday party. A room full of familiar faces.
But underneath it all was one quiet, pulsing question:
Will he be there?
All morning my body carried the anticipation.
Not just nerves—something deeper.
A tightness in my stomach.
A sense of danger.
As if seeing one person could undo me completely.
This is what limerence does.
It turns an ordinary day into an emotional cliff edge.
And then… he wasn’t there.
For a moment, everything softened.
Relief moved through me like warm air after a storm.
My shoulders dropped.
My breath returned.
I could exist in the room without scanning every doorway.
I thought the worst had passed.
But limerence rarely leaves quietly.
Because the next thought came almost instantly:
If he’s not here… where is he?
Who is he with?
And then the sharper one:
He’s not with me.
Is he in her arms?
That was the moment the relief collapsed.
The familiar stomach-dropping pain returned—
sudden, physical, undeniable.
Grief disguised as jealousy.
Loss disguised as imagination.
Nothing had actually happened.
No new information.
No real event.
And yet my body reacted
as if my heart had just been broken all over again.
This is the quiet cruelty of limerence.
It doesn’t only live in reality.
It lives in anticipation,
in absence,
in possibility,
in the spaces our minds try to fill.
It steals time.
Time that could have been spent
laughing at the table,
tasting the cake,
being present in a room full of life.
Instead, the moment was hijacked
by someone who wasn’t even there.
That is the hardest truth to face:
Limerence doesn’t just take the person.
It takes you—
your attention,
your peace,
your ability to live inside your own day.
But maybe noticing this
is the first small crack where freedom begins.
Because today showed me something important:
The pain is real.
The grief is real.
But the story my mind tells in the silence
is not always the truth.
And if limerence can be learned,
perhaps—slowly, gently—
it can also be unlearned.
One ordinary day at a time.
If any part of this felt familiar, you are not alone.
I share more reflections, tools, and gentle guidance for healing from limerence on my website, where you can also find supportive resources created from lived experience.
You can explore my work on Payhip, including free and low-cost materials designed to help you understand limerence, calm the emotional spiral, and begin reconnecting with yourself.
I’ve also created a free limerence support app—a quiet space for grounding, reflection, and daily reminders that recovery is possible, even when it feels impossibly far away.
Because freedom from limerence doesn’t happen all at once.
It begins with small moments of awareness…
small acts of self-kindness…
and the courage to keep going, one ordinary day at a time.