What is Limerence and Why Does it Happen?

Limerence is also called trauma eroticization or eroticized attachment to avoidance. It is not a formal DSM diagnosis, but it is well recognized in trauma and attachment theory.

Here’s what happens and why:

1. The brain links arousal with danger or deprivation.
If early attachment figures were inconsistent, rejecting, or emotionally unavailable, the nervous system learned to associate longing, uncertainty, and pursuit with love and excitement. The brain’s dopamine system fires not from safety, but from anticipation and intermittent reward. This is the same mechanism that drives gambling addiction; unpredictable outcomes heighten arousal.

2. The avoidant partner recreates a familiar emotional pattern.
The avoidant person’s distance activates the old attachment wound. The nervous system reads their withdrawal as a cue to “try harder,” triggering pursuit, fantasy, and heightened desire. What feels erotic or intoxicating is often the body’s attempt to complete an old attachment loop.

3. Safety feels dull to a dysregulated system.
For someone conditioned to equate love with emotional intensity or unavailability, calm and consistent love can initially feel boring or foreign. The body misreads peace as disinterest because it’s wired for hypervigilance and emotional chase.

4. Common labels or related concepts:

• Trauma bonding

• Eroticized trauma repetition

• Attachment reenactment

• Intermittent reinforcement addiction

• Limerence (if the obsessional infatuation is prominent)

5. How to break the pattern:

• Identify how your body responds to distance or rejection.

• Reframe arousal cues: excitement ≠ love, tension ≠ chemistry.

• Practice co-regulation with safe people.

• Rebuild tolerance for emotional stability and slowness.

• Explore this pattern in therapy (especially attachment-focused or somatic work).
  
  About Andrea Jensen, LMHCA

  Andrea is a licensed psychotherapist who focuses on providing depth-oriented trauma therapy to women dealing with depression, anxiety, CPTSD, and interpersonal challenges. She provides telehealth trauma therapy to women in Seattle, Bellevue, Kirkland, and other surrounding areas, leveraging evidence-based methodologies to foster emotional regulation and resilience.