Just as being brokenhearted can quite literally disrupt your heart health (aka “broken heart syndrome”), lovesickness, too, has physical effects. According to the aforementioned research, there is a general agreement on symptoms of lovesickness across different cultures, including fever, agitation, loss of appetite, headache, rapid breathing, and palpitations. Nuñez adds that it’s important to note being lovesick is not the same as genuinely being in love. “There’s a clear distinction because when you genuinely love somebody, you’re not obsessing about them,” she says, noting that when someone is lovesick, they’re often seeing the object of their affection with rose-colored glasses. In this way, lovesickness is similar to limerence, or an intense infatuation. As couples’ therapist Silva Depanian, LMFT, previously explained to mbg, “Many people don’t really recognize the existence of limerence and simply consider someone experiencing it to be a ‘hopeless romantic’ or ‘passionately in love.’ But limerence and love are not the same thing. If anything, limerence can be considered the fool’s gold of love.” And as licensed marriage and family therapist Linda Carroll, M.S., LMFT, previously told mbg, “The intensity of your desire to strike back, call your lover, etc., is not related to the wisdom of doing it.”
