Spotlight on Symptoms: Love Sickness.

I remember my darling friend Melissa giving me a red and white, pill-shaped soap that said Lovesick.

I might feel lovesick over an experience, an object, a memory, a person. A song may grab me by the neck, and I'm lost in those words and sounds for hours or days. The words line my throat. I want to watch the same movie on repeat, search the faces and memorize the dialog.

Sometimes, I have to stop myself from squeezing and kissing Oliver as much as I may suddenly want to. He's little, but his boundaries still matter. I ask for hugs, ask if he wants me to pick him up if he's scared or hurt.

I check out my husband and seek his touch. I wrote all about it.

None of this is bad, but I can feel the cross over when I suddenly can barely breathe, and what ever I love expands in my mind.

It's different from obsession because obsession is for something I seek out. Love sickness happens to me. Electricity down my arms. Pliers at my heart. A gaping, exhausting need for connection.

Love sickness usually comes or at least begins when I'm manic. It's a symptom. But I've experienced it in the dark too. Maybe it's worse then.

Love sickness burns. I try to reshape it, make it something that warms me.

Love and Fear.

"There are only two emotions, love and fear." John Green

I think these are probably the two basic emotions, the base on which other emotional experiences build. I probably wouldn't agree were it not for a therapist I saw years ago. I was talking about someone's anger; she said, "Anger comes from hurt. Hurt comes from fear." I've thought about her words often since then. When I feel angry, I ask myself--how am I hurt? How can I address that hurt, and will that change my anger? Then I ask--am I hurt because I'm afraid? What raw fear did this touch? How can I address this fear directly?

Unless I figure out the fear, the anger or hurt can hold me too tightly. I think my main, basic fears are

• self-contamination (substances, toxic relationships...)
• self-haram (that I may get too sick to know that it won't help)
• rejection, especially from my parents
• not being able to find my family (apocalyptic movies are too scary for me because of this)
• people's  not believing me over something vital
• actually plunging into madness

Do other emotional experiences sprout from love? I can't dig into it the same way. I can see how admiration, need, desire, and hope spring from love. I guess the mission is to fight fear and its offspring and to recognize and nurture the love. That makes life seem simpler than it is. Or maybe life is simple--just not easy. I look at a situation and say, "Okay. Am I going to address this with fear or love?"