"Distraction": The Extraordinary Terror of Loving, Limerence, and Monotropism
Understand the biology of obsessive "wanting" (VTA/Dopamine) vs. peace (Oxytocin) within the neurodivergent brain.
Distraction
I felt the gray day so strange and deep
though dawn had not yet even woken.
Everything is always forgotten
before the beauty, absurd and sudden,
of my intriguing madness.
I was, then, immersed in a daze
of pleasure and pain in a tangled maze
where you were the star of my sadness.
I sought from you more of a trace
in my soul, now faded and worn,
I sought, uninhibited, newly reborn,
for my passion, a saving embrace.
And I found you in every part
of my being that I could feel;
I found you as a squatter, to steal
every spark of my mind and my heart.
From Survival to Intellect: Understanding Limerence
I confess that selecting a poem for this new venture through the romantic poetic productions of Retrato das Sombras (1994-1999) was costly for me. I felt, for a moment, that I was not ready to speak of love. My mind is oriented toward survival, like the drifting being I am at this moment. But, fortunately, I was hooked by intellectual delight.
And that is why I bring to you, dear readers, the concept of Limerence. From now on, when we speak of this love that idealizes and is realized only in the recesses of the imagination, we will refer to Limerence—a concept created in the late 70s by Dorothy Tennov. And no, Limerence is not platonic love, which is presented as an elevation of the soul.
Limerence is an altered biological state, for which neuroscience now provides the neurological basis, aware that dopamine is not about the pleasure of having, but about the desire to seek. It is the fuel for the search, not for peace. The fuel for peace is oxytocin. Without oxytocin—that is, without the pleasure of having—dopamine is accompanied by norepinephrine; hence the mental and physical state described in the poem.
The relevance of this to a context of neurodivergent writing goes beyond mere academic curiosity about autistic communication. Tennov insists that limerence is not a choice, but a biological response triggered by specific cues that operates in primitive brain structures, below the rational cognitive level. Therefore, Limerence is also the result of distinct brain connectivity or structures.
This makes the experience of love for the neurodivergent something truly extraordinary. Read “extraordinary” by instilling in it a neutral or slightly negative definition. Attribute to this extraordinary the terror with which the unknown is imbued, and prepare yourself.
The Biology of the Search: Helen Fisher and the VTA
To validate what Dorothy Tennov only intuited in the 70s, biological anthropologist Helen Fisher brought, decades later, definitive proof through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Fisher demonstrated that the brain in love—or the limerent brain—does not primarily activate areas of emotion, but rather the Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA).
This is a primitive dopamine factory, part of the reptilian reward system, responsible for “wanting,” motivation, and obsessive focus. The VTA does not “feel”; it “drives.”
The Neurodivergent “Extraordinary”: Monotropism and Hyperfocus
It is here that neurodivergence meets its terrifying “extraordinary” through the concept of Monotropism. If the neurotypical mind already finds itself hostage to this biology, the autistic mind—which operates through “attention tunnels” (monotropism)—experiences limerence not just as a feeling, but as a systemic hyperfocus.
When the object of limerence enters the monotropic attention tunnel, it consumes all cognitive resources, becoming the only signal in a world of noise. The biology of the VTA meets the architecture of monotropism, transforming love into an inescapable gravitational force, where survival depends, literally and neurologically, on that single point of focus.
Bibliographic References
For those who wish to delve deeper into the scientific foundations of this experience, I recommend reading three essential works that ground this text:
The origin of the concept: Love and Limerence (1979), where Dorothy Tennov first mapped this condition.
The biological proof: Helen Fisher’s study (2005) on VTA activation in romantic love, which confirms the instinctive nature of the feeling.
The neurodivergent perspective: The theory of Monotropism by Murray, Lawson, and Lesser (2005), which explains the intensity of autistic focus.