It’s embarrassing, confusing, and not often not talked about : being obsessed with someone we barely know, or for someone we don’t know at all. For some of us, it’s a one time occurrence. Some of us go through this pattern our whole lives, going from one infatuation to the next.

I know the problem: it was constant in my adolescence and young adulthood, although it kind of faded later.

When we are in the middle of such an episode, a part of us feels in love, and another part of us thinks we are being weird. Where I stand now, I must admit the romantic side has vanished: for me the whole thing is just weird.

Why is it weird to be obsessed with someone we barely know ?

Well, the answer is in the question, isn’t it ? How can we dream endlessly about someone, if we have no idea who this person actually is ? We have all these little films running in our heads, but the main character is not the real flesh and blood person – that we actually don’t know.

In my case these guys in my head were so fictional, that when the real ones actually reciprocated, my obsession and interest vanished. I left them, sometimes after months of constant obsession and pursuit. I confused the hell out of them, and out of me. It was so bizarre it actually got me into therapy.

And so, the question remains :

Why am I obsessed with someone I barely know, then ?

Over time I came across 4 plausible explanations :

Explanation #1 : we are in the grips of ” the urge to merge”

I came across this idea in Martha Beck’s books, mainly “Finding your own North Star”.

According to her, we all have a real “Me”, with a purpose that will follow us our whole life.

Unfortunately, we get derailed by the expectations of people around us, being our parents, peers, or society in general. So we loose track of both who we really are, and what we really want to do with our lives. But the longing is still in us, deep down, and it is still talking.

An obsession with someone we don’t really know is our real self talking and identifying what it wants to do or be, in another person.

Let’s assume, for example, that you are obsessed with an artist without really knowing him or her. Then according to Martha, the obsession can be about your inner artist, who went into hiding when you became an accountant.

What you really want, deep down, is move closer to arts in general, and if possible create art yourself. Since your parents and peers disapproved greatly of this type of career, your urge to merge is an attempt of your real self to move towards it.

I chose an artistic career as an example, but the attraction can be about something else entirely: emotional maturity, charisma, intelligence, ability to make money, whatever.

Does this explanation ring a bell ? If it does, I encourage you to read Martha Beck’s book to self reflect. It may help you to solve this particular obsessive issue, or more generally to find your purpose if you need to.

As for me, it made some sense. At least a couple of times I chose the guy also to embody something I wanted for myself – ambition, for example. But it wasn’t always the case, and there was definitely more to it.

One thing is absolutely true for me in what Martha Beck wrote: when an obsession like this hits, don’t jump to the conclusion that it is about passionate love; the feeling can disappear as fast as it appeared, and we are left wondering what he heck happened to us.

Explanation #2 : we are using romantic daydreaming to distance ourselves from reality

I have now a huge advantage: hindsight. If I look back, I can see that each episode of obsessive infatuation took place while I was really unhappy or scared.

At the time, I saw no relation between my problems and my obsession. Still now, I can’t really feel the connection between the two, but I know it is there. It was there each time.

I think I used these obsessions as any other addiction: as a way to escape reality when it was too difficult to face.

We use it to cope with a difficult reality and stay hopeful with a rosy dreamed future. It’s less damaging than a chemical addiction, but taken too far, it prevents us from living our real life, and addressing our problems. That’s the stuff maladaptive daydreaming is about. That’s a form of dissociation.

While our mind is captured, almost locked, in our obsession, we almost don’t see our real life. Of course, we understand what is happening to us, but our focus, our energy, our emotions, are elsewhere: in our dreams.

In a way, what happens in our normal life is not so important; what is important is our fantasy.

So  what happened when my fantasy threatened to become real ? Because what I was really trying to do was escaping reality, the relationship never worked out.

The older I got, the further along my recovery journey, the less I resorted to obsessing about people. It is really a symptom.

So look closely: when did your obsession start  ? Were you feeling deeply scared or saddened by something else in your life at the time ? Can you take a bit of your obsessing energy and try to face your emotions or address an issue and see how your obsession goes ?

Explanation #3: a part of us believes a healing fantasy

It’s very easy to spot a healing fantasy: we are feeling bad, but we believe that if a specific thing happens, we will be finally be happy and satisfied.

A healing fantasy can take different flavors: professional success, being thin, having a child or having this special someone we don’t really know loving us.

There is nothing wrong with wanting any of these things. The problem comes when a part of us is convinced it will solve all our problems.

I’m sorry to say this, really, but it won’t. Even if we get these people to take on the daunting task of solving all our problems, they are not able to. You cannot heal someone from the outside.

There is a wise saying that states that if you are unhappy without a relationship, you will be unhappy within one. I agree: I lived that. To heal, we need to rewire our brains: a relationship can help, but it’s not a magic wand: we still need to do the work on ourselves.

Besides, other people are not on earth to heal us: they have their own lives and own healing to attend to.

A part of us knows this, to be honest. Let’s call it the adult self. But another, younger part of us clings to this healing fantasy, particularly if we have been through a trauma as children. 

This very young and distressed part of us is called an exile in the IFS (Internal Family System Therapy). An exile is a part of us who has been traumatized and has not been  emotionally supported at the time of the trauma. This part of us goes into hiding and stays stuck in childhood, while another part of us goes on and becomes an adult.

This exile, or inner child, can scan our environment our whole life and look out for danger. Because this child is immature, it cannot read our current reality accurately. So it can go into a panic while our adult self does not feel threatened or depressed.

In my case, an unconscious panic could trigger an intense longing for someone who a part of me believed could see my distress, protect me from harm, and validate my feelings.

Given my personal history, it all makes sense. And even if at the time I felt extremely confused, the whole emotional situation seemed so familiar. I used to call it “my old heart”: living a new situation, but feeling old painful, confusing, feelings. 

Explanation #4: we are re-enacting a difficult experience

A re-enactment is us unconsciously trying to recreate childhood experiences with new people. As the theory goes, we are trying to find a happy ending – this time.

But since we are targeting people who have similar issues than traumatizing people in our past, well, it usually ends the same way : badly.

This interpretation attempts to explain why people who have been raised in alcoholic or abusive environments tend to find partners who are themselves alcoholic or violent. We swear we will not end up like our parents, and one day we realize our relationships have the same dynamics. Ouch.

This re-enactment theory is old, if I’m not mistaken it was already in the psychoanalysis literature at the beginning of the 20th century.

I don’t like it. I find it both harsh and simplistic.

In my view, we do not enter this re-enactment because a somewhat limited part of us believes naively that this time it will go well and everything will get sorted with a proxy.

We do enter it because a very wise part is using it as a form of memory, so that we can understand and integrate what happened to us.

For example, if I had not been involved with a narcissistic partner as an adult,I would not have understood my father was one. And I needed this piece of knowledge to heal. It was a very, very powerful realization, the kind that reorganized my beliefs about myself and the world.

So did I need a narcissist in my life ? Absolutely not. Nothing was healed directly by this relationship, on the contrary. But I understood and remembered the dynamics, the craziness and the damages it created during my childhood.

In other words, without this re-enactment, I would still be in the dark.

Not that I want to write a thank you note to my favorite narcissist, mind you. Even if he has been the perfect a%*@#le I needed him to be for the job.

How do we stop obsessing about someone we don’t really know then ?

Well it depends on what your situation is, really. Are you in the grips of an urge to merge ? Are you using the obsession to avoid reality ? Mesmerized by a healing fantasy ? In the middle of a re-enactment ? Or is it another situation, because I do not pretend to know the whole truth about yourself ?

I know that a combination of reasons can be at play at the same time. I happened to me at least once and the result was particularly messy.

Amazingly all of this could happen entirely out of my awareness, mainly because I could not access these different parts, or needs. And once again, I was left with this feeling that something was wrong with me.

What we have to do if we are using someone to embody our dreams of avoid reality is simple, in the end :

• Understand what we really want out of our lives and attempt to get it 
• Understand what really scares or depresses us and attempt to solve the problem in our lives

What we have to do if we believe we are in the throws of a healing fantasy or a re-enactment is :

• Really get that what was happening was not about the present, but about our past.
• And understand nobody can save us from our past. But we can.

It took me years. (I said simple, not easy…)

But if there is one thing you should take away from this post, it has to be this one : keep shame away from you. There is nothing to be ashamed about: your obsession is a symptom, or a memory, not a proof that you are not fit for life or crazy. And if you understand and use it that way, it can help your growth tremendously.

Take care of yourself my dear, and keep healing and growing !