1. After reading the book, what knowledge did you gain about love addiction?
There is much to be learned from Moore’s Confusing Love with Obsession about how to recognize and handle obsessive relational behaviors. I was particularly surprised at how many of these behaviors I have exhibited at different times in life. Most of my obsessive behaviors occurred in my first serious relationship when I was 20 years old. I remember desperately pleading with my partner to stay, and falling into a severe depression for months after our breakup. At the time, I did not recognize many of my obsessive behaviors helped drive my partner to end the relationship. Though I managed to keep my job, it was almost lost because I would cry every day. I couldn’t …show more content…
Basically, I exhibited textbook symptoms of obsessive relational progression. It was incredibly helpful to learn personal stories of those who have suffered from different forms of confusing love with obsession. It makes sense that I was much more severe in my obsessiveness as a young adult because I was only beginning to recover from my tumultuous childhood. Though my childhood would appear normal on paper (two middle-class working parents, one younger sister), the reality was anything but. My father worked 50-60 hours each week and often diverted to my mother for important decisions. My mother was incredibly and inexplicably strict, forbidding my sister and me from participating in social activities outside of the occasional extra-curricular activity. Both of my parents discouraged open discussion about feelings, and I remember being frequently dissatisfied with them, but it was not until I saw an ad on a grocery shopping cart that was aimed at victims of child abuse that I realized my sister and I may be victims of emotional neglect. By reading Confusing Love with Obsession, I have gained a better understanding of my obsessive behaviors, and though I do not display these behaviors frequently now that I’m older, I am by no means