Obsessive love



Obsessive love  or Obsessive love disorder (OLD) is a condition in which one person feels an overwhelming obsessive desire to possess and protect another person, with an inability to accept failure or rejection. Symptoms include an inability to tolerate any time spent without that person, obsessive fantasies surrounding the person, and spending inordinate amounts of time seeking out, making, or looking at images of that person. Although it is not categorized under any specific mental diagnosis by the DSM-5, some people argue that obsessive love is a mental illness similar to attachment disorder, borderline personality disorder, and erotomania. Depending on the intensity of their attraction, obsessive lovers may feel entirely unable to restrain themselves from extreme behaviors such as acts of violence toward themselves or others. Obsessive love can have its roots in childhood trauma and may begin at first sight; it may persist indefinitely, sometimes requiring psychotherapy. In November 2019 marriage.com reported that although it could be “a slight exaggeration” Netflix show You had got people talking about obsessive love disorder.

Author Liz Hodgkinson, herself a sufferer from Obsessive Love Disorder, in one instance lasting for fifty years and only being relieved by psychotherapy states "I believe that with obsessive love, time is no healer at all. The experience of obsessive love can be likened to dropping a stitch in knitting, and never picking it up. The knitting never quite looks right from then on, unless we unpick it and start again from the mistake."

In books
You, a 2014 thriller novel by Caroline Kepnes portrays obsessive love disorder. The novel was translated into 19 languages and has been adapted into a television serial of the same name.

In television
In 2018 the psychological thriller novel written by Caroline Kepnes was developed into the September 2018 Lifetime television series You. It attracted a limited audience before becoming more popular and a critical success on Netflix from December 2018. Over 43 million viewers streamed the first season after its debut on the streaming service. Based on Kepnes' follow-up novel Hidden Bodies, the second season was released exclusively on Netflix on December 26, 2019. On January 14, 2020, the series was renewed by Netflix for a third season, set to be released sometime in 2021.