Once upon a time, I struggled with love addiction. The people I chose to love weren't very good for me, and even the ones who didn't do specific harm added little value to my life.
The term madly in love fit for me when I was younger—everybody was always mad in my relationships. I found myself in addictive, unhealthy relationships because I confused intensity for intimacy.
I know now that intimacy is about trust and reciprocity, authenticity, and emotional connection. Those words do not describe any of my early relationships.
My preference was to be in relationships that were intense, uncertain, and very dramatic. Some were high risk, and one was extremely violent.
I was comfortable with intensity, and intimacy scared the hell out of me. I only learned what intimacy was, and how to create and participate in it in my life, when I started to establish nonromantic relationships with other people in recovery.