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Depression chat rooms can help if you are feeling depressed and need to talk to someone who understands just what it is that you are going through. You can find a safe place to express yourself and get support from others who are also experiencing depression.

If You Are Suicidal

However, if you are feeling suicidal and in danger of hurting yourself, rather than going to a non-crisis chat room, you should seek assistance from your doctor, therapist, or a suicide hotline.

You can also text to 838255 during these times of crisis. These links are also appropriate for veterans (press 1 and you will be linked to counselors who have been trained in issues that you may be experiencing).

Depression Chat Rooms

These organizations provide moderated chat rooms, which means a volunteer is present in the rooms to help make sure that all users are following site rules and treating each other respectfully. These rooms are not a substitute for professional treatment for depression, but you may find the community to be supportive.

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) offers peer-led online support groups and forums to give people living with depression and bipolar disorder a place to share experiences and coping skills and gain hope.

Depression Chat Rooms

Depression Chat Rooms from depression-chat-rooms.org aims to connect people who have issues regarding depression and anxiety. They also welcome people with similar or related health issues such as bipolar disorder and eating disorders. The website is independent, nonprofit, and free. Note that chat rooms on the site are moderated, while forums are not.

Depression Forums

Depression Forums has more than 70,000 members and offers forums on topics ranging from depression and anxiety to recovery and coping to medication and therapy that are moderated by volunteers. 

Depression Sanctuary

Depression Sanctuary is a nonprofit organization created to provide a safe, moderated platform for people with depression to seek support from other like-minded people. Membership is required to participate in the Depression Sanctuary chat rooms, but it’s completely free to join.

They offer hosted chats at specific times. Be aware that to keep the support group a safe and comfortable place for all members, certain rules must be followed while in the chat rooms. Depression Sanctuary is staffed by volunteers who also live with depression. Be kind and treat them with the same respect and care that you’d want for yourself.

Depression Understood

Depression Understood offers a depression chat room that is always open. They aim to have a relaxed, supportive, and informal atmosphere.

HealthUnlocked

HealthUnlocked runs in partnership with the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) and offers a safe space for anxiety and depression support. 

Benefits and Risks

Moderated chat rooms offer a safer place to express yourself compared with open social media platforms. However, they are not generally staffed by mental health professionals. The volunteer moderators or hosts will try to maintain order, but they may not always be effective in preventing abusive behavior. You’ll find the design and usability for some of the chat rooms to be better than others.

You may also wish to explore whether there are health organizations in your area that offer a form of online intervention or treatment for depression. If you have a doctor or therapist who is treating you for depression, ask about options you have for online therapy. Chat rooms provide peer-to-peer support, but therapy (either online or in person) is important for the treatment of depression.

The Pros

If you struggle with sharing your emotions, verbal communication via an online chat room might be easier for you. Another perk: anonymity. Some people find comfort in not having to express themselves face to face. This can be especially true if you struggle with depression as well as low self-esteem.

That said, these forums shouldn’t replace your real-life support system. If you find yourself spending a lot of time online, in lieu of meeting up with friends and family, it may be a red flag that you’re using these forums to replace face-to-face interactions.

The Cons

While the majority of people on these online forums are there to help, it’s impossible to know everyone’s motivation, so you’ll need to exercise caution to ensure your online relationships are healthy and genuine.

Unfortunately, online predators who are looking to take advantage of those who are feeling vulnerable do exist. If someone is making you uncomfortable or ashamed of your depression, block or report the person to the moderator.

So you meet someone new and happily date for a little while. The connection is great, there is chemistry, and sex is fun. You start spending more and more time together and start having talks about defining the relationship.

Panic ensues. You stop replying to their texts. You cancel dates. You avoid talking about taking things to the next level. Your partner expresses frustration, disappointment, or even anger about your behavior. Not long after, the partner calls it quits.

Sound familiar? If so, you might be self-sabotaging your relationships.

Self-sabotaging relationships can be a destructive pattern, but there are things you can do to understand the causes, spot the signs, and find ways to cope.

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Wait, What Causes Self-Sabotaging in Relationships?

The specific reasons why someone may sabotage their own relationships are context-specific. Every person has had a different past: How we were parented and our childhood, teenage years, and first serious relationships all have an effect on how we act right now.

Everyone wants and needs intimacy. But, in people with certain experiences, intimacy may be linked to negative rather than positive experiences, leading to a “push-and-pull”-type behavior that culminates in a relationship breakup or avoidance.

Childhood Trauma

Fear of intimacy typically comes from difficult or abusive parental relationships and childhood trauma (physical, sexual, or emotional). The deep, embedded belief in people who fear intimacy is: “People who I am close to cannot be trusted.”

Because early trusting relationships with parents or caregivers were broken by abuse, people who fear intimacy believe that people who love them will inevitably hurt them. As children, they could not extricate themselves from these relationships; however, as adults, they have the power to end or leave them, even when they are not actually abusive.

Fears

This fear appears in two types: fear of abandonment and fear of engulfment. In the first, people are worried that those they love will leave them when they are most vulnerable.

In the second, people are worried that they will lose their identity or ability to make decisions for themselves. These two fears often exist together, leading to the “push-and-pull” behavior so typical of those with deep fears of intimacy.

Signs of Self-Sabotaging in Relationships

There are many signs that you might have a tendency to self-sabotage even the best of relationships. Signs of self-sabotaging behavior include:

• Looking for a way out of the relationships
• Gaslighting
• Serial dating
• Jealousy
• Criticism
• Avoidance
• Grudges
• Promiscuity
• Low self-esteem

Looking for an Out

You avoid anything that leads to bigger commitment: meeting parents, moving in together, etc. You’re always wondering, “If it goes wrong, how can I extricate myself easily from this relationship?”

You might start pulling back from the relationship or start to become distant. In some cases, you might start avoiding spending time with the other person.

Gaslighting

Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse whose aim is to deny the other person’s reality or experiences. For example, if your partner says: “I’m really upset that you canceled our date,” you respond with something like: “You’re not really upset. It’s your fault I canceled and you’re just trying to blame me for it.”

Serial Dating

Your friends often ask you why you break up with potential partners so often or lament the fact that you never seem to settle down with anyone. You break up with partners on the slightest of issues, only to start dating another person right away and repeat the cycle. You don’t want to be seen as a “player,” but you can’t seem to find someone who you can commit to.

Jealousy

You always worry that your partner might be seeing someone else behind your back. You demand control over every aspect of their life and require constant contact. When they spend time with other people without you, you fret, text constantly, experience jealousy, and ask for proof that they’re being faithful. They break up with you because they find you controlling.

Criticism

You constantly look for perfection in a partner, even though you know perfection is impossible. You find fault with every little thing they do, from the way they cook to the clothes they wear. You are impossible to please, and your partner eventually gives up trying and breaks up with you.

Avoidance

You spend a lot of time trying to convince yourself that the relationship is perfect, even when it’s not. When your partner wants to address a problem, you avoid the topic or simply say: “I don’t think we’re having an issue; it’s going to go away.” Your partner grows resentful of your inability to face problems together and leaves.

Grudges

Holding a grudge against your partner means that your anger never really goes away. It takes a lot of energy to stay mad. Regardless of what else your partner does, you will always come back to those grudges. It’s a way of protecting yourself by pushing away the other person. As long as you are mad, no one can really get close to you.

Promiscuity

While having sex with other people is okay when both people agree to non-monogamy, in general, going from affair to affair can be a sign of self-sabotage. You’re doing one of the most hurtful things you can do to a romantic partner in the hopes that they’ll find out and leave you.

Low Self-Esteem

You always talk about yourself in self-deprecating ways: “I’m not as smart as you.” “I’m just an idiot, why are you with me?” “You’re just with me because you pity me,” etc.

This is a sign of low self-esteem, and most people do not enjoy being told that they love someone who is worthless. When, despite their constant reassurance that you are a good person, you keep tearing yourself down, they may give up and break up.

Why Self-Sabotaging Relationships Is a Problem

Even when you recognize signs of self-sabotage in your relationships, you may not initially feel a desire to stop these problematic behaviors. Such patterns allow you to exit relationships when you want to—and that’s exactly the problem. You want out in order to avoid the intimacy you fear in the short term, but such actions can create difficulties that can haunt you in the long term.

Why does it matter that you want to continually end your relationships, even when things are going well? Some of the potential long-term consequences include:

• A lack of intimate relationships: As time goes on, you may find yourself longing for a close, secure, long-term relationship. Self-sabotaging behaviors make any kind of commitment difficult to find and maintain. 
• Loneliness: Lack of close relationships can leave people feeling isolated. You might find yourself longing for connections that you feel unable to forge or keep.
• Lack of children and family: While not everyone has a desire to have children, some people may find themselves wishing that they had a partner with whom to have a family. 
• Trouble tolerating closeness. Repeatedly ending your relationships before you can build true intimacy can make it even harder to get close to future partners. Even as you grow closer to a person, you may find yourself constantly holding back parts of yourself out of a fear of getting too attached and then getting burned.

How to Stop Self-Sabotaging Your Relationships

To end self-sabotage, you first need to take a good, hard look at yourself and your behavior patterns. Unless you are willing to be honest with yourself and face all the ways you may have abused or hurt other people because of your fear of intimacy, you are doomed to repeat this behavior.

Work on Your Attachment Style

Attachment theory is a framework that explains patterns of behavior with intimate others. The ideal type of attachment is “secure”: This is when people feel like they can trust others and remain a distinct individual, even in close relationships.

However, childhood experiences can lead to anxious, avoidant, or disordered attachment styles. These are insecure attachment styles that cause issues in adults trying to develop strong relationships and families.

The good news: You can work with a therapist on developing a more secure style by facing your fears and removing false beliefs about relationships.

Take Responsibility

In order to overcome self-sabotage in relationships, you need to be able to acknowledge your role in damaging your relationships. No relationship is perfect, but you are always going to feel disappointed if you keep setting yourself and your partner up for failure. Tackling these problems means that you need to be willing to be vulnerable and recognize your own issues with abandonment and rejection.

Learn Your Triggers

Fear of intimacy and self-sabotage can remain dormant until a trigger wakes them up. It might be words, actions, or even places. Knowing what triggers your fears will help you either avoid them or work on them so they don’t trigger you anymore.

Let Go

One of the main problems of self-sabotaging is that we behave in the present as if the current situation was the same as one in the past. It can be childhood or past adult relationships. Learning to say, “That was then, this is now,” can help you make decisions that are based on the present, rather than reacting blindly based on what happened to you in the past.

Open Up

One of the hallmarks of self-sabotage and fear of intimacy is the inability to talk about your feelings and your problems. You avoid talking about these things because talking means feeling, and you want to avoid feeling these things at all costs.

Expressing your emotions, your fears, and your needs will not only help you identify the problems but will also help others understand you better.

Keep in Mind

Self-sabotaging in relationships is understandable when you look at the underlying reasons, so it is important to treat yourself with kindness. Remember that it’s okay to get help. Seeking therapy or simply a kind and friendly ear is the first step towards freeing yourself from self-sabotaging behaviors.

It’s also important to work with your partner. Being vulnerable and letting the other person understand this side of you isn’t easy, but letting them in can help break those ingrained patterns of self-sabotage.

Serotonin Syndrome: Signs of Too Much Serotonin

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps stabilize mood, is often associated with feelings of happiness, and plays a role in sleep quality, memory, and sexual desire. However, too much serotonin can lead to harmful effects. These effects are known as serotonin syndrome.

When Do Signs of Serotonin Syndrome Begin?

Symptoms of serotonin syndrome can begin within minutes, a few hours, or up to 24 hours after taking or increasing the dose of a medication.

Most individuals experiencing symptoms of serotonin syndrome will seek emergency treatment within six hours.

What Causes Serotonin Syndrome?

Serotonin syndrome, or serotonin toxicity, is a rare and potentially life-threatening condition caused by dangerously high serotonin levels in the brain. It’s generally caused by taking two or more medications that raise serotonin levels (aka serotonergic drugs) in the central nervous system.

Substances that may contribute to excess serotonin levels include:

• Some types of antidepressants
• Triptan migraine medications
• Illicit drugs such as cocaine, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), amphetamines, and ecstasy
• Herbal supplements such as St. John’s wort, nutmeg, and ginseng
• Certain cold medications
• Some anti-nausea medications

SSRIs, SNRIs, tricyclic antidepressants, and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) are all classes of antidepressant medications that have been known to lead to serotonin syndrome.

These antidepressants are often prescribed to treat depression and anxiety disorders, including panic disorder.

Potential Effects of Serotonin Syndrome

If you’ve had too much serotonin, some effects (although rare) may include:

• Organ damage (permanent)
• Muscle spasms (this can lead to the breakdown of your muscles)
• Kidney damage

Can Too Much Serotonin Cause Anxiety?

It is possible that drugs containing serotonin can lead to anxiety. For instance, anxiety is a potential side effect of Prozac (fluoxetine).

Serotonin Syndrome Treatment

Since serotonin syndrome can be potentially life-threatening, emergency medical treatment is necessary. Treatment often begins with the withdrawal of the medications that lead to your high serotonin levels.

However, some complications, such as delirium, unstable heart rate, high blood pressure, and high temperature may persist longer.

Serotonin Syndrome Prevention

To prevent serotonin syndrome, be sure to tell your doctor about all of the medications you are taking prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, and supplements.

If you’re taking a medication that impacts serotonin levels, talk to your doctor about your risk of developing serotonin syndrome.

If you’re like most people, you’ve had the experience of obsessing over something stressful that happened in your day. It may have been something someone said that hit you in the gut, it may have been a situation where you wish you had the perfect comeback, or it may be a problem that replays itself in your mind over and over with no acceptable solution in sight.

When these thoughts turn more negative and brooding, it’s known as rumination. “Rumination refers to repetitive and intrusive thoughts or worries about past events or problems. It involves dwelling on negative experiences, replaying them in one’s mind, and getting caught in a cycle of overthinking,” says Avigail Lev, PsyD, founder and director of the Bay Area CBT Center.

This article discusses what rumination is and the negative effects it can have. It also covers some of the steps you can take to avoid rumination.

What Is Rumination?

Rumination involves repetitive, excessive thoughts that interfere with other types of thinking. Where anxiety involves unease or apprehension, rumination is focused on revisiting past events or worries, Lev explains.

This type of thinking often occurs with conditions such as generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. It is also common for people without a diagnosable disorder to engage in this thinking from time to time. While common, it isn’t always easy to identify.

Rumination is as stressful as it is common, in that it takes a situation that has already caused stress and magnifies the stress and the importance of the situation in our minds.

Components of Rumination

Rumination is comprised of two separate variables: reflection and brooding.

• Reflection: The reflection part of rumination can actually be somewhat helpful as reflecting on a problem can lead you to a solution. Also, reflecting on certain events can help you process strong emotions associated with the issue.
• Brooding: Rumination in general, and brooding in particular, are associated with less proactive behavior and more of a negative mood.

Rumination also hones in on the feeling of helplessness resulting from the inability to change what has already happened. We may not be able to re-create the situation in the future and respond with the perfect comeback, response, or solution, and this can make us feel powerless and more stressed.

Finally, realizing how much energy we put into ruminating over the situation can lead to even more feelings of frustration as we realize that we’ve let the situation continue to ruin the day. 

In short, if you find yourself constantly replaying something in your mind, dwelling on the injustice of it all, and thinking about what you should have said or done without taking any corresponding action, you’re making yourself feel more stressed. And you are also likely experiencing some of the negative effects of rumination.

Causes of Rumination

So why do people obsess over things? It appears that different people obsess over things for different reasons, and some people are more prone to it than others. Lev explains that a number of factors can contribute to a person’s tendency to ruminate, including:

• Low self-esteem
• External stressors
• Lack of perceived control over a situation
• A history of trauma or adverse experiences
• Perfectionism
• A tendency to overthink or overanalyze

Some people want to make sense of a situation, but can’t seem to understand or accept it, so they keep replaying it. Other people want reassurance that they were right (especially if they feel on an unconscious level that they were wrong).

In other cases, people are trying to solve the problem or prevent similar things from happening in the future but can’t figure out how. And others may want to feel heard and validated or feel justified in absolving themselves of responsibility.

Most people engage in this type of thinking from time to time. Before a stressful event, you might find yourself thinking about it excessively. After a relationship ends, you might go over all the things you wish you had done differently.

In most cases, these ruminating thoughts eventually fade as other concerns rise to the forefront of your thoughts. When these thoughts are persistent and seem uncontrollable, they might be a sign of a mental health condition. 

Rumination and Mental Health Conditions

Rumination can be a symptom of a variety of mental health conditions. Some conditions that are associated with ruminating thoughts include:

The Negative Effects of Rumination

Rumination starts innocently: It’s your mind’s attempt to make sense and move on from a frustrating situation. However, rumination can catch you in a circular, self-perpetuating loop of frustration and stress. When you’re dealing with chronic conflicts in your relationships, you may experience chronic stress from too much rumination.

Rumination can be oddly irresistible and can steal your attention before you even realize that you’re obsessing again. In addition to dividing your attention, rumination has several negative effects.

Stress

Because rumination involves a persistent focus on negative thoughts, it can elevate your stress levels. Such thoughts tend to amplify your problems, heightening your stress response and even triggering a stress response in the body. 

Negative Frame of Mind

Not surprisingly, rumination is said to have a negative effect by producing a more depressed, unhappy mood. Not only is this unpleasant in itself, but from what we know about optimism and pessimism, this negative frame of mind brings a whole new set of consequences.

Less Proactive Behavior

While people may get into a ruminating frame of mind with the intention of working through the problem and finding a solution, research has shown that excessive rumination is associated with less proactive behavior, higher disengagement from problems, and an even more negative state of mind as a result. That means that rumination can contribute to a downward spiral of negativity.

Self-Sabotage

Research has linked rumination with negative coping behaviors, like binge eating. Self-sabotaging types of coping behavior can create more stress, perpetuating a negative and destructive cycle.

Hypertension

Rumination has also been linked to increased hypertension. Rumination may prolong the stress response, which increases the negative impact of stress on the heart. Because of the health risks involved with hypertension, it’s particularly important to combat rumination and find healthy strategies for dealing with stress and staying centered.

Overcoming Rumination

While understanding why you are ruminating can help you find ways to cope, it often matters less why you obsess over things and more how you can stop. Here are a few ideas on how to catch yourself and refocus.

Establish a Time Limit

While it can be challenging to recognize when you are caught up in rumination, Lev suggests that it can be helpful to give yourself a three-minute time limit to allow yourself to think the same thoughts.

Once those three minutes are over, ask yourself:

• Do I feel better or worse?
• Did I resolve a problem?
• Is it something I can control?

“If you realize that you’ve been thinking about something that is out of your control, already in the past, and the thinking hasn’t helped you solve any issues or feel better, then you know you were engaged in rumination, and you can choose to do something else,” Lev explains.

It can be helpful to get support and validation from your friends, but too much discussion of wrongs perpetrated by others can lead to a dynamic in your relationships that’s negative and gossipy and lends more to reinforcing the frustration of the situation than to finding solutions and closure.

Take Action

Lev explains that taking action is essential to shift your focus away from rumination. It might involve doing something specifically to resolve the problem, but it can also be some other type of action that diverts your attention from your repetitive thoughts.

Going for a walk, calling a friend, or completing a task around the house can help redirect your focus, Lev suggests. Or if the issue is something under your direct control, make a list of the steps you need to follow to address the problem.

Utilize Cognitive Behavioral Exercises

It an also be helpful to utilize some cognitive behavioral exercises that can help you reduce repetitive, negative, or unhelpful thoughts.

For example, Lev recommends the following:

• Cognitive defusion: This activity involves visualizing your thoughts as an object, like leaves on a stream or clouds in the sky. Picture your words and thoughts floating or drifting away.
• Mindfulness and meditations: Try listening to guided meditations or other mindfulness activities that can help keep you grounded in the present moment and strengthen your self-compassion.
• Somatic techniques: Exercises such as singing, shaking, humming, and gargling can stimulate the vagus nerve and improve nervous system regulation.

Connect Thoughts to Values

Another cognitive behavioral strategy Lev recommends involves connecting your thoughts to your values. Spend some time writing down your thoughts and think about how these might connect to other areas of your life and things that are important to you. 

How are these thoughts linked to your core beliefs? What type of feelings do these thoughts evoke?

Once you write down these thoughts, Lev recommends asking yourself how these thoughts have affected your behavior. Have they stopped you from being honest, making a choice, or asserting your needs?

Prepare for the Worst Case Scenario

If you ruminate as an attempt to deal with your catastrophic fears, it can be helpful to use these thoughts to help you make a plan to deal with these anxieties. Lev suggests asking yourself: What is the worst thing that could happen?

“Envision what steps you would take if that worst-case scenario were to occur. Continue this process for each catastrophic fear, writing down every action you would take if it were to happen,” she explains.

For example, if your greatest fear is losing your job, you might reduce rumination by planning how to deal with this scenario. You might update your resume, reach out to work contacts, network with other professionals, look for a new position, or even consider looking for a new career path.

Keep an Open Mind

It’s been suggested by more than a few therapists that what really upsets us about others may be a mere reflection of what we don’t accept in ourselves.

When you think about what the other person did to make you angry, can you try and draw on a similar experience in yourself to help better appreciate their perspective and the reasons behind what they did?

Create Boundaries

Setting boundaries can also be an important way to manage rumination if you are struggling with a relationship that is creating stress in your life. It can also help you learn something about yourself and the other person so you can change how things go.

Look at what happened with the eye of change—not to blame the other person for hurting you, but to devise solutions to prevent the same situation from occurring twice. Where might you say no earlier or protect yourself more in the future? Rather than remaining hurt or angry, come from a place of strength and understanding.

How to Get Help

Personal reflection can be a helpful way to process emotions and experiences, but it can be harmful to your mental well-being when it turns into rumination. If you feel like rumination is affecting your state of mind, there are ways to get help.

Talk to a doctor or mental health professional for treatment options. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), which helps people identify and change negative thought patterns, can be helpful for turning rumination into more helpful ways of thinking.

Researchers have proposed different theories to explain the nature of love. Some have attempted to come up with ways to measure feelings of love. The first to develop an instrument to empirically measure love was social psychologist Zick Rubin.

This article discusses Rubin’s scales for measuring liking and loving and his theories of the main components of love. You’ll learn how the scale shows the difference between liking and loving.

Rubin’s Elements of Love

According to Rubin, romantic love is made up of three elements:

1. Attachment: Needing to be cared for and be with the other person. Physical contact and approval are also important components of attachment.
2. Caring: Valuing the other person’s happiness and needs as much as your own.
3. Intimacy: Sharing your private thoughts, feelings, and desires with the other person. 

Based on this view of romantic love, Rubin developed two questionnaires to measure the variables of “like” and “love.” At first, Rubin came up with about 80 questions to assess the attitudes a person holds about others.

The questions were sorted according to whether they reflected feelings of liking or loving. The two sets of questions were administered to 198 undergraduate students.

After analyzing the responses, Rubin identified 13 questions for liking and 13 questions for loving that he believed were reliable measures of these two variables.

Questions in Rubin’s Liking and Loving Scale

These examples are similar to the questions used in Rubin’s Liking and Loving Scale:

For each item, people rate their response on a scale from 1 (not true) to 9 (definitely true). If you are interested in taking the original test designed by Rubin, it is available here.

Rubin’s Research on His Theory of Love

Rubin’s scales of liking and loving provided support for his theory of love.

In a study to determine if the scales could show the difference between liking and loving, Rubin asked participants to fill out his questionnaires based on how they felt about their partner and a good friend. The results revealed that good friends scored highly on the liking scale, but only significant others rated highly for loving.

Rubin identified several characteristics that distinguished degrees of romantic love. For example, he found that participants who rated highly on the love scale also spent more time gazing into each other’s eyes compared to people who rated only weakly in love.

Other Theories of Love

Other researchers introduced other theories related to the concept of love.

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love suggests that romantic love is composed of passion and intimacy. This theory suggests that when romantic love also includes commitment, it becomes consummate love—the ideal type of relationship.

John Lee’s Color Wheel Model of Love suggests that there are three main love styles: eros (passionate), ludus (playful), and storge (family love). Later, Lee introduces Styles of Loving, which combines the elements of his model into three styles: mania (eros and ludus, a kind of obsessive love), pragma (ludus and storge, a realistic and practical love), and agape (eros and storge, a selfless kind of love).

Cindy Hazan and Philip Shaver proposed that love is similar to the attachments we form with our parents when we are very young. These styles come from John Bowlby’s attachment theory and include anxious/ambivalent, avoidant, or secure attachments. The kind of attachment style adults have influences how they love.

Psychologist Harry Harlow also believed that our early attachments to caregivers influenced our later relationships. His experiments with monkeys emphasized the importance of close, safe, and loving contact between caregivers and offspring.

Harlow may have come to believe that science couldn’t fully capture the wonder and complexity of love, saying that “so far as love or affection is concerned, psychologists have failed in their mission. The little we know about love does not transcend simple observation, and the little we write about it has been written better by poets and novelists.”

Have you ever felt uncomfortable with your partner’s dating history? Have you ever been jealous of their previous romantic partners? Have you ever compared yourself to their ex-partners and felt insecure? If so, you may be experiencing retroactive jealousy.

Retroactive jealousy is when you have an unhealthy preoccupation with your partner’s romantic history.

Characteristics of Retroactive Jealousy

We tapped clinical psychologist Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD to help us understand what retroactive jealousy could look like. Below, Dr. Romanoff describes some of the characteristics of retroactive jealousy:

• Ruminating over your partner’s past: You might find yourself repeatedly thinking about your partner’s past and feeling envious of their previous partners.
• Doubting your partner: Jealousy can cause you to engage in unhealthy relationship behaviors such as checking up on your partner, doubting their word, or going through their phone. You may find yourself calling their friends or their workplace to check on their whereabouts, or reading their text messages to their ex.
• Making comparisons: You might narrow in on a specific person your partner dated before you and compare yourself to them. For instance, you might find yourself stalking their former partner on social media platforms and comparing your life and relationship to theirs.
• Imagining missing details: If you are unaware of the details of your partner’s romantic history, it could be more enticing to imagine a more idealized version of their past. You might fear that your partner dated the most perfect, successful, and beautiful people before you.

Causes of Retroactive Jealousy

These are some of the potential causes of retroactive jealousy, according to Dr. Romanoff:

• You’re feeling insecure: Insecurity is the most common trigger for retroactive jealousy. Whether real or imagined, people tend to experience retroactive jealousy when they feel threatened in the relationship and don’t feel fully secure with their partner. This could come internally from one’s own insecurities or externally if their partner is withdrawing from them or being untrustworthy.
• You feel like something’s missing: Retroactive jealousy also tends to be triggered when the fantasy of the relationship your partner had with their ex seems to be better in some way than your current relationship. For example, if you aren’t feeling emotionally connected to your partner, you’re not spending much quality time together, or you feel like something else is missing in your relationship, you might become fixated on how your partner did the things you are currently seeking in the past with someone else.
• You’re sensitive to rejection: A 2018 study with 247 participants found that people who are sensitive to rejection are more prone to feeling jealous in relationships. Rejection sensitivity can cause you to always be on the lookout for signs of rejection and have a disproportionate reaction to benign or mildly negative words or behaviors by your partner.
• Your partner is still in touch with their ex: If your partner is still in contact with their ex, you might find yourself wondering about the status of their current connection and dwelling on all the possible ‘what if’ scenarios.
• You’ve been burnt in the past: You may find yourself feeling jealous if your current or previous partner has been unfaithful or untrustworthy. While it can be hard to prevent trust issues from previous relationships affect your present relationship, it’s important to see your current partner for who they are.

Impact of Retroactive Jealousy

Jealousy can take a toll on you and your partner. Below, Dr. Romanoff outlines the impact of retroactive jealousy on your mental health and your relationship.

Impact on Your Mental Health

Jealousy is a negative emotion that can take you down a debilitating spiral of unproductive thoughts. Fixating on your partner’s past can affect your ability to enjoy the present with them. You might find yourself feeling stressed and anxious, which is a difficult and uncomfortable state to be in.

Impact on Your Relationship

Jealousy can cause you to pick fights with your partner that may be entirely unnecessary if they haven’t done anything wrong.

Your partner could eventually get frustrated with your jealousy and also begin to feel affected by your lack of confidence and self-worth. This can affect the dynamic of your relationship and put you at a disadvantage, making you an unequal partner.

Coping With Retroactive Jealousy

Dr. Romanoff suggests some strategies that can help you cope with retroactive jealousy:

• Avoid giving in to jealousy: If you’re feeling jealous, you may be tempted to give in to it and snoop on your partner. However, it’s important to resist these behaviors and understand that they’re unproductive. Occupy yourself with something else until the urge passes.
• Work on your self-esteem: Jealousy is often rooted in one’s own worries and insecurities. Try to focus on yourself and work on bolstering your sense of confidence and building your self-esteem. Remember, there is a reason your partner is no longer with their ex and chooses to be with you. Use rational thinking to address your insecurities, which will likely turn out to be irrational upon closer examination.
• Focus on your relationship: Rather than fixating on your partner’s previous relationships, focus on your relationship with them. Spend quality time with them, create new memories and positive experiences together, and work on building trust and deepening the connection and intimacy between the two of you.
• Communicate with your partner: If your partner is in fact giving you reasons to feel insecure about the relationship, communicate how you are feeling and consider asking for changes in your relationship to help you feel more confident and secure. 

Keep in Mind

No one is thrilled about their partner’s dating history; however, letting retroactive jealousy escalate can be harmful to your peace of mind and your relationship. 

If your jealousy is motivated by internal insecurities, it’s important to address them and put them to rest, so that you can focus on enjoying your relationship with your partner. On the other hand, if your partner is behaving inappropriately with their ex, discuss your concerns with them and work on finding solutions and building trust together.