Dr. Helen Fisher is an anthropologist. She has been studying the chemical basis that is underlying or causing love between individuals.
She has discovered that love is not about matters of the heart, but actually about brain chemistry; a
chemistry that's so intense, so strong, so focused on bringing people
together for the sake of prolonging the species, that it's actually a
madness to be in love.
Love is, for the sake of argument, a form of mental
illness and probably the only one that society accepts without a stigma
attached to it.
You are judged for being mad, as in the insane form of madness, but you are not judged for being "madly" in love even when close friends question your sanity.
According to Fisher, romantic love has been found in 170 societies. Each love and how these societies express it are different in their own
way, but it's still a love of a romantic nature, and one that starts
with infatuation and ends with attachment.
Throughout the entire process there are neurological
chemicals hard at work. In the beginning, the serotonin levels act in
such a way that resembles OCD and when it comes to the actual "falling in love" stage of a relationship, it is similar to being high on cocaine.
Brain scans of people in love have found that it is
the dopamine branching out from the center of the brain, creating
feelings of euphoria, walking on air, floating on cloud nine, and all
the rest of it.
It is also not really a choice; we are at the mercy of the chemicals in our brain.
You can fight it, of course, as one might with any mental
illness, but unlike things like depression or anxiety, you can't take a
pill to "cure" it, or even make it an easier situation in which to be.
Why do people sign up for the insanity that love is?
Because the depression, anxieties and low self esteem from loneliness seems to be a greater burden on people's minds that the possible uplifting, happy feelings associated with the risk and rewards of being in love with another person.
If love is all about chemicals, how can one realize it and resist the effect?
Because it is a species trick to keep the species on track for procreation. Just like some wild animals go into involuntary heat or rut for the attention of mates, human beings are coded in a similar fashion. However, our brains are more complex and advanced to the point where we can go beyond instinct or natural selection to "convince" ourselves that our love is something more - - - deeper than emotional connection; finding a soulmate. The latter may be just an layer of cultural impressions over the instinctive chemical reaction of human attraction and love.
