Symptoms

A 2005 article by Frank Tallis suggested love sickness be taken more seriously by professionals.

Love sickness only occurs when a person has fallen in love, not when a crush emerges. However it may develop into love.

Some of the symptom clusters shared with love sickness include:

• mania or hypomania – abnormally elevated mood, inflated self esteem, extravagant gift giving

• depression – tearfulness, insomnia, loss of concentration

• anorexia - lack of appetite

• stress - high blood pressure, pain in chest and heart, acute insomnia; sometimes brought on by a "crush"

• obsessive-compulsive disorder – preoccupation and hoarding valueless but superstitiously resonant items

• psychologically created physical symptoms, such as upset stomach, change in appetite, insomnia, dizziness, and confusion.

More substantively, the estimated serotonin levels of people falling in love were observed to drop to levels found in patients with OCD. Brain scan investigations of individuals who professed to be "truly, madly, deeply" in love showed activity in several structures in common with in the neuroanatomy of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), for example the anterior cingulate cortex and caudate nucleus.