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Being lovestruck is a non-medical term used to describe mental and physical symptoms associated with falling in love: 'love-struck. It means to be hit by love...you are hit in your heart by the emotion of love'.[1]
Historically, being lovestruck has been viewed as a short-lived mental illness brought on by the intense changes associated with love. Avicenna, a Persian polymath, viewed obsession as the principal symptom and cause of love sickness. This diagnosis has been out of favor since the humoral model was abandoned, and since the advent of modern scientific psychiatry.
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Metaphors [link]
The term is associated with a set of metaphors attempting to convey the speed and intensity of the (mainly visual) process of 'falling in love instantly; placing great importance on the moment of being love-struck'.[2] Thus for example it has been described as 'like struck with a lightning bolt. The second that you see and meet the person, you are instantly in love'.[3]
Alternately, there is Cupid's arrow; whilst Uncle Toby uses an image from musketry: 'I am in love with Mrs Wadman, quoth my uncle Toby - She has left a ball here - added my uncle Toby - pointing to his breast'.[4]
Psychoanalysis [link]
The twentieth-century saw the concept of love-sickness reconceptualised by psychoanalysis. As early as 1915, Freud asked rhetorically, 'Isn't what we mean by "falling in love" a kind of sickness and craziness, an illusion, a blindness to what the loved person is really like'?[5] Half a century later, in 1971, Hans Loewald took up the theme, comparing being in analysis 'to the passions and conflicts stirred up anew in the state of being in love which, from the point of view of the ordinary order and emotional tenor and discipline of life, feels like an illness, with all its deliciousness and pain'.[6]
Symptoms [link]
A 2005 article by Frank Tallis suggested that being lovestruck be taken more seriously by professionals.[7]
Being lovestruck only occurs when a person has fallen in love, not when a crush emerges. However it may develop into love. 'For love-struck victims, the world appears altered. Replacing the flatness of ordinary experience is a fullness'.[8]
According to Tallis, some of the symptom clusters shared with being lovestruck include:
- mania or hypomania – abnormally elevated mood, inflated self esteem, extravagant gift giving
- depression – tearfulness
- Insomnia - loss of concentration and difficulty sleeping
- Anorexia - lack of appetite
- stress - high blood pressure, pain in chest and heart, acute insomnia; sometimes brought on by a "crush"
- obsessive-compulsive disorder – preoccupation and hoarding valueless but superstitiously resonant items
- psychologically created physical symptoms, such as upset stomach, change in appetite, insomnia, dizziness, and confusion.
More substantively, the estimated serotonin levels of people falling in love were observed to drop to levels found in patients with OCD.[9] Brain scan investigations of individuals who professed to be "truly, madly, deeply" in love showed activity in several structures in common with in the neuroanatomy of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), for example the anterior cingulate cortex and caudate nucleus.[10]
Criticism [link]
Some who would 'disagree with Frank Tallis's fundamental thesis that love should be seen as a mental illness...concur that at the extreme and under certain circumstances love sickness can drive a person to despair'.[11]
They would suggest however that '"disordered love"...can be understood more clearly in terms of attachment theory'.[12]
Literary examples [link]
- 'Romeo so fits the archetype of love-struck youth that he has become the very model of Cupid himself'.[13]
- In Possession, the hero's ex quotes Robert Graves to her new lover - '"Oh Love, be fed by apples while you may"'[14] - echoing the Song of Solomon, 'comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love'.[15]
See also [link]
References [link]
- ^ Jennifer Overton, Snapshots of Autism (2003) p. 58
- ^ Richard Feldstein et al, Reading Seminar XI (19950 p. 28
- ^ Urban dictionary
- ^ Lawrence Sterne, Tristram Shandy (Penguin 1976) p. 554
- ^ Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession (1988) p. 9
- ^ Quoted in Malcolm, p. 127
- ^ Tallis, F (2005). "Truly, madly deeply in love" (pdf). The Psychologist 18 (2): 72–4. https://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm/volumeID_18-editionID_115-ArticleID_809-getfile_getPDF/thepsychologist/0205tall.pdf.
- ^ Kathryn Allen Rabuzzi, Mother with Child (1994) p. 117
- ^ Marazziti D, Akiskal HS, Rossi A, Cassano GB (May 1999). "Alteration of the platelet serotonin transporter in romantic love". Psychol Med 29 (3): 741–5. DOI:10.1017/S0033291798007946. PMID 10405096.
- ^ Bartels A, Zeki S (November 2000). "The neural basis of romantic love". Neuroreport 11 (17): 3829–34. DOI:10.1097/00001756-200011270-00046. PMID 11117499.
- ^ M. J. Power/T. Dalgleish, Cognition and Emotion (2008) p. 342
- ^ Power/Dalgleish, p. 351
- ^ Clayton G. MacKenzie, Emblems of Mortality (2000) p. 75
- ^ A. S. Byatt, Possession (1990) p. 417
- ^ J. M. & M. J. Cohen eds., The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations (1964) p. 42
Further Reading [link]
- Frank Tallis, Love Sick: Love as a Mental Illness (2005)
https://wn.com/Lovestruck
Love Sick
Love Sick or Lovesick may refer to:
Films and television
Literature
Music
See also
Love Sick (film)
Love Sick (Romanian: Legături bolnăvicioase, "Sickly relationships") is a 2006 Romanian drama film directed by Tudor Giurgiu. It is a lesbian-themed love story that has been compared to My Summer of Love.
Plot
Alex and Cristina (Kiki) are university students who end up living in the same building. Their friendship develops quickly, overcoming several phases, from fellowship to care and tenderness. While the two are very different, the two girls get along fine, except for the moments when a third character shows up — Sandu. Kiki’s brother is permanently tormented by an unnatural jealousy which implies an incestuous liaison between the two siblings.
Unlike other recent Romanian films, it is not a reflection on Romania's communist or post-communist history; the country is merely a background for the different relationships.
Cast
Podcasts:
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by Bob Dylan
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by N-dubz
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by Taetiseo
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by White Stripes
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by Kill Hannah
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by Loveable Rogues
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by Crown Of Thornz
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by Meadowland
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by Aubrey Wood
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by A Fine Frenzy
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by Mariachi El Bronx
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by Luke Moses
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by Seven System
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by Richgirl
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by Cherish
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by Sara Haze
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by Jonas Brothers
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by Halo Friendlies
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by TLC
Love Sick
by: Bob DylanI'm walkin' through streets that are dead
Walkin', walkin' with you in my head
My feet are so tired
My brain is so wired
And the clouds are weepin'.
Did I hear someone tell a lie?
Did I hear someone's distant cry?
I spoke like a child
You destroyed me with a smile
While I was sleepin'.
I'm sick of love that I'm in the thick of it
This kind of love, I'm so sick of it.
I see, I see lovers in the meadow
I see, I see silhouettes in the window
I'll watch them 'til they're gone
And they leave me hangin' on
To a shadow.
I'm sick of love, I hear the clock tick
This kind of love, ah, I'm love sick.
Sometimes the silence can be like thunder
Sometimes I wanna take to the road and plunder
Could you ever be true
I think of you
And I wonder.
I'm sick of love, I wish I'd never met you
I'm sick of love, I'm tryin' to forget you.
Just don't know what to do
I'd give anything to