9/16/22

EROTOMANIA, also known as “de clérambault's syndrome”, is a rare mental health condition where one believes someone is in love with them. first identified by french psychiatrist gaetan gatian de clerambault in his 1912 paper les psychoses passionelles. many case histories have been reported in psychiatric literature for decades, but erotomania is no longer considered a separate diagnosis, as it is not included in the DSM-V, and is classified as part of a broader delusional disorder. people with erotomania may be fixated on someone of a high social position, a celebrity, or just anyone. erotomania is usually linked to mental disorders like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. it can also be associated with eating disorders like bulimia or anorexia, and ADHD.
other symptoms include:
-obsessively consuming media related to the other person.
-sending letters, emails, or gifts to the other person.
-being convinced the other person is trying to communicate through gestures or coded messages in music, tv shows, or social media.
-feeling jealous of the other person being in contact with other people or lovers.
-may be obsessed with trying to meet or communicate with the other person.
erotomania can happen over long periods of time, like weeks or years, or short episodes known as psychotic breaks. psychotic breaks involve an abrupt worsening of delusions and other psychotic features. while many people with erotomania gradually give up when their love is not returned, the more dangerous cases involve love turning into hatred over perceived jealousy or betrayal. erotomania can cause someone to show risky or aggressive behavior, and in some cases, this behavior can cause someone to stalk or harass the other person. in rare cases, erotomania can result in the death of either person. getting treated for erotomania before showing these behaviors towards another person is crucial in preventing this condition from disrupting both their life and yours.
treatments for erotomania include:
-therapy, including cognitive behavioral therapy, and other types.
-prescription medication, including antipsychotics, antidepressants, and mood stabilizers. these may also help underlying mental illnesses.

before we get into this - here's a quote:
"we built this mansion in our fantasy , how can we now depart to reality , just to be homeless & without each other? rowing against this wall of shame , how well did my mind concocted to disgrace my sanity when my heart alone had already betrayed me?"
d c de oliveira from erotomania “trois”
september 06 2021, 8am . monday

if you didn’t read the introduction to this blog, today i'm talking about erotomania and my personal experience with it. buckle up! i’m going to give the other person a fake name because god forbid he finds this (i know he most likely will not but alas, i AM delusional for god’s sake! and extremely paranoid...) i'll call him john, like john doe. my personal experience is definitely not exactly like what all the articles and papers on erotomania say, but of course, i know every experience with an illness is different. my experience is not going to be exactly like someone else's, and my experience isn't going to be a perfect textbook example.

my case begins in july of this year, with a joke of all things. i'm sure if you’re reading this you're aware of the "i can fix him joke," and that's all it is. a joke. but i took it a step further, and one second i was just joking, and the next i was being completely serious, thinking i genuinely could change him for the better. i began obsessively stalking his social media, and even looking at apartments in his area. i was extremely jealous of his girlfriend, and i kept trying to find reasons to hate her, or reasons why she wasn’t “good enough” to be with john. i felt horrible for thinking this way because it seemed like his girlfriend was a genuinely good person. i thought the fact that i thought about him was god himself getting into my head to focus on my goal of being with him, i believed it was what i called my “divine right” or “divine purpose” to be with him. i would see hate comments under his posts and i would think “these people don't deserve him.” i would see him posting tiktok’s with his girlfriend, and i would cry real tears not understanding why god isn't letting that be me. i began going through john and his girlfriend's tiktok accounts as a form of self-harm, knowing it would hurt me and make me feel awful, but doing it anyways because i was addicted to the feeling of seeing myself in that situation with him, with the idea of him kissing me like he kisses her, or holding me like he held her. i would go through his close friends' accounts, their personal accounts, in search of photos and videos of him. i even made a playlist of songs that reminded me of him or us. once i was watching a youtube video of him, and he used the same chapstick that i used, and i was so overjoyed, i felt like we had a genuine connection. i would go through his tagged posts and look at photos he took with fans, upset that i wasn't able to meet him in person. I would beat myself up if i missed a live stream, or if i wasn't able to look at a new post until a few hours after it was posted. I compared our birth charts, and i pushed aside all of his flaws and felt i really accepted him for who he was, despite not really knowing him. one of my friends, without knowing about my obsession with john, sent me a video of him, and i took it as a sign from god to “focus” on him more, because i hadn't been checking his social media as obsessively. whenever he said something bad, i thought “if i was with him i would be able to talk him out of saying that” and “i would be able to explain to him why he shouldn't say that.” i began saying that his girlfriend was too pretty for him, and that she shouldn’t be dating him.

i began to get even more delusional, thinking about how much easier this would be if he didn't exist, if he was dead, and how it would be better if he wasn't in my life. his girlfriend would post long captions about how john was her “forever home” and it made me feel angry, about how he didn't deserve that kind of love from anyone else, he only deserved it from me, i would know how to treat him right. one time he posted a caption with the word “divine” in it and despite knowing there was no way he could possibly know what i was posting (i posted these things on a private instagram account, on close friends, and only three people at the time had access to it,) i believed god was contacting me again. I felt a sense of loathing towards john after a while, i started to become annoyed at his posts, and i felt a sort of hate/love towards him. I would see him and his girlfriend posting together in paris, or italy, and id think “why am i not in paris/italy with him. why is she so much better than me? why is she so perfect?” i started blaming everything on john, like my declined mental state, and my isolation from others. and at the same time, i thanked him for giving me a purpose, for giving me something to look forward to (eg. me moving to his city and being able to meet him.) i related him to songs like “IFHY” by tyler the creator, a song about the difficulty of love, and obsession. every time i thought about him, it made me angry and depressed. thinking about him would totally ruin my mood, but at the same time, i felt that without him, i would be worse off. without him in my life i was nothing, and god wanted us to be together, it was written in the stars, and we would be the perfect match. i loathe every moment we aren't together. i loathe every minute i'm forced to think about him. I feel incomplete without him.

in the beginning stages, this was absolutely erotomania, but now i'm second guessing. I believe it's just devolved into an obsession. I now have no desire to move to his city, but i still see videos of him and his girlfriend and get inexplicably jealous, and i'm not sure if its because i want to be with him, or if i just want to be in a relationship. obsession comes from a negative state, and obsession and repression often go hand in hand.

in conclusion - people with erotomania often have unresolved trauma, they're typically shy, codependent, and isolated. receiving love isn't something they believe will ever be for them, or even safe for them, and it’s painful. too much pain for their brains to handle. so the person locks themselves away in their fantasy world, the only place where they feel they'll ever truly be loved, truly safe, and truly happy.

maybe i had erotomania for a while there, but now i'm ‘just’ obsessed with john. i don't believe a lot of the things i used to, but i do still believe some of them. i feel like the people who know about my obsession don’t know about how serious it was, except for my friend skye, because she has dealt with this same issue. she's the one i usually go to for help because she really understands.

i really do just feel anger towards john now, a hate/love kind of situation. i hate seeing him happy with his girlfriend, but all i want to do is defend him from others, i want to help him, and i think maybe i'd be capable of doing it. i think we would be perfect together for many reasons, but now i know it's impossible. it does break my heart a little bit, and i know this is not how normal people have “celebrity crushes.” i always think that maybe if he wasn't famous we would be able to be together, and i also know that probably isn't true, because i wouldn't even know who he was. it's a sorta complicated situation. i'll just blame it on my bipolar. DUCES!

heres another quote to send you off: