How Love Bombing Affects Your Mental Health

Have you heard of love bombing? This term is increasingly being used to describe the intense form of manipulation often employed in unhealthy or coercive relationships. 

Love bombing is manipulation that is disguised as affection. To begin with, you may feel like you are the subject of an overwhelming love, and the relationship may feel intense from the start. Think fireworks, butterflies, and all the other metaphors used to describe the early stages of a relationship. Over time, love bombing can have a detrimental impact on your mental health.

What is Love Bombing?

Love bombing is a tactic often used in relationships where one partner is trying to gain power over the other. 

Recognizing the signs of love bombing can be tricky at first. It’s easy to feel that it’s all part of the excitement of a new relationship. Signs of love bombing include excessive affection from your partner and being showered with gifts and compliments. Your partner may offer grand gestures and grandiose declarations of love to you and be especially charming around other people.

In reality, love bombing is used as a way to gain control of a person or to create an unhealthy dependency.

Love bombing is most commonly found in romantic relationships, but it can also occur in friendships and family dynamics.

Signs You’re Experiencing Love Bombing

Identifying the signs of love bombing can be difficult. You may notice that something about your relationship feels slightly “off " or that things are moving too quickly. However, it's easy to ignore these concerns when you’re swept up in the excitement of a new relationship.

Here are some of the signs you’re experiencing love bombing:

• Your partner delivers over-the-top declarations of love from the very start of your relationship.
• They offer you grand gestures and make big promises that seem almost too good to be true, leaving you feeling uneasy and overwhelmed.
• They want to be around you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and make you feel guilty if you don’t accommodate this.
• They try to contact you constantly throughout the day by calling or sending messages. They seem offended or upset if you don’t respond immediately.
• They only make plans that involve the two of you and say they prefer it that way.
• They may resent you spending time with family and friends and try to isolate you from them.
• They make you feel bad for trying to establish boundaries in the relationship and guilt you into complying with their terms.

The Psychological Impact of Love Bombing

The nature of love bombing can make it an incredibly confusing situation to deal with. Your partner may claim they act this way because they love you and have your best interests at heart, so it’s no surprise that love bombing takes a serious psychological toll.

Here are some of the ways that love bombing can affect your mental health:

You may start to feel emotionally exhausted

All those highs and lows you experience as a result of intense manipulation can send your cortisol levels soaring. You might start to feel overwhelmed and question everything you do, leaving you drained and exhausted.

Your self-esteem may start to suffer

Being continually manipulated under the guise of love can leave you feeling unsure of yourself and your actions. You may begin to doubt your own intuition and second-guess any decisions you try to make independently.

You could start to feel anxious and depressed

The intense nature of being love-bombed can make you feel uneasy and on edge. Over time, you may start to feel perpetually anxious without knowing why. Anxiety in itself can be tiring and escalate quickly if left untreated, causing further mental distress.

The pressure to reciprocate intense declarations of love can be taxing and leave you feeling depressed or even trapped within the relationship. These emotions can be amplified if you have been isolated from your friends and family. 

You may develop attachment issues

Being love-bombed can have lasting consequences. Not receiving treatment to work through the issues caused by this toxic relationship can be damaging to future relationships. You may develop attachment issues that make you wary of entering new relationships, and even if you do, you may find it difficult to trust your partner.

How to Protect Yourself From Love Bombing

Understanding the signs of love bombing and knowing how to protect yourself from its consequences can help you to escape before the relationship starts impacting your mental health.

Here are some of the ways you can protect yourself from potential love bombing:

• Be alert to the early warning signs of love bombing from the start of new relationships. 
• Establish firm boundaries in the relationship from the beginning, and see how the other person reacts when you enforce these clear boundaries.
• Don’t rush into new relationships. Building trust takes time, so approach your new relationship at a steady pace.
• Try your best not to isolate yourself from friends and family at the start of a new relationship, no matter how exciting it may be. Maintain these outside connections and nurture them alongside your relationship.
• If you feel you are becoming trapped in a toxic cycle of love bombing, take action fast. Seek professional support to help you understand what is happening.

Residential Mental Health Treatment Near You

Being love-bombed can feel extremely flattering at the start of a relationship. However, this intense act of manipulation can have serious consequences for your mental health. 

Spotting the signs of love bombing early and taking steps to protect yourself is vital. Residential mental health treatment offers a highly effective solution to those recovering from an abusive relationship. 

Jackson House is here to help. We can provide the support and guidance you need to deal with the emotional challenges caused by being in a toxic, abusive relationship. Contact us today to see which of our residential mental health treatment centers is closest to you.