The roots of platonic love, which has become an obsession, date back to childhood and even infancy.
Stating that secure attachment problems are an important factor in the development of platonic obsession, experts say, "Secure attachment means perceiving oneself as a person worth loving. Obsessive love is more common in people with secure attachment problems."
Specialist Clinical Psychologist, Psychotherapist Gülçin Şenyuva from Üsküdar University NPISTANBUL Hospital made evaluations about platonic love that has become an obsession. Şenyuva said the following:
"LOVE is a concept as old as the history of humanity: Leyla and Majnun, Ferhat and Şirin, Hades and Persephone. Love legends, love stories, love poems, love songs, love deaths. We have read, seen and perhaps experienced many more...
Is LOVE a madness, a feeling, a flight? If love is a flight, love cannot fly with one wing, it takes two people. Even if there are loves where only the one who loves knows that they love and the loved one is not aware of it...
It is important for people to establish trustworthy and sincere relationships with others. The desire to maintain this is also seen as a human behavior. Therefore, healthy human relationships affect life satisfaction, physical and mental health.
Obsessions are thoughts that come to the mind of the person in a continuous, repetitive, unwanted way, causing distress and disturbing the person. Due to the intensity and distress caused by these thoughts, daily life is negatively affected.
Platonic means not existing in reality, remaining in dreams, and always desired to remain so. The concept of platonic obsession is considered as obsessive love, love addiction or relationship addiction. Obsessive love is when a person becomes obsessed with a real or unattainable love, directs his/her whole life according to that person, and experiences intense emotions. However, this concept, which has been considered beautiful throughout history, may start to harm the person and his/her environment after a while and cause a decrease in the functionality of the person.
The platonic obsessed person is constantly preoccupied with concerns about trusting the other person and separation. In order to get rid of these concerns, he/she engages in behaviors that will relieve himself/herself, such as constantly looking for him/her, following him/her, asking questions such as "do you love me". These behaviors help to reduce the anxiety of the person for a while. Afterwards, the thoughts that occupy his/her mind continue to come.
The platonic obsessed person believes that only the person they are in love with will make them happy and when they are unhappy, they do not want the person they are in love with to be happy. In other words, he/she has fallen in love with the being-meaning that the person he/she has created in his/her mind creates in himself/herself.
The person thinks that he/she has been rejected and constantly tries to make himself/herself accepted physically and emotionally. The feeling of meaninglessness arising from the lack of goals, unsatisfied work and social life can be counted among the causes of platonic obsession. In addition, low self-confidence, feelings of failure, inadequacy and weakness cause anxiety in the person. Thus, the platonic lover that the person creates in his/her mind can cause the person to think that he/she exists with the existence of the person and fill the emptiness he/she experiences.
Secure attachment problems are an important factor in the development of platonic obsession. Secure attachment means perceiving oneself as a person worthy of being loved. These people are happy to be attached to the other person in their relationships, they have no worries about being abandoned or unwanted. They can establish long-term relationships. In order for secure attachment to occur, the primary caregiver's interests and needs are met during infancy and childhood, and the baby-child knows that the caregiver is there. Obsessive love is more common in people with secure attachment problems.
Obsessive love is more common in people with addictive and obsessive personality traits. People with addictive personality traits live with the fear of abandonment, do their best to keep the relationship intact, believe that they are obliged to enjoy life and that they do not deserve to be happy, and their self-confidence is generally low. In people with obsessive personality traits, uncertainty disturbs them a lot, they are afraid of making mistakes, they have perfectionist structures.
IS THERE HEALTHY LOVE?
Trust and respect are the most important elements in a relationship. The fact that people can talk about their wishes and needs and are sensitive to each other's wishes and needs constitutes the basis of healthy relationships and healthy love.
Our emotional experiences are not determined by the events we experience, but by our thoughts about the events. So if we want change in our lives, we need to allow alternative thoughts to form.