Could love be classified as a mental illness?

Absolutely. “…if we take the symptoms of falling in love and check them against accepted diagnostic criteria for mental illness, we find that most âloversâ qualify for diagnoses of obsessional illness, depression or manic depression.â

Via Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation:

In the book Love Sick: Love as a Mental Illness, Frank Tallis writes that if we take the symptoms of falling in love and âcheck them against accepted diagnostic criteria for mental illness, we find that most âloversâ qualify for diagnoses of obsessional illness, depression or manic depression.â Other symptoms include insomnia, hyperactivity, and loss of appetite. Ah, ainât love grand? Northwestern University psychologist Eli Finkel describes how falling in love can âmake otherwise normal people do very wild things. Theyâll stalk, hack into e-mail, eavesdrop and do other things theyâd never do in a rational frame of mind.â Helen Fisher, an evolutionary anthropologist, explains that the elevated dopamine levels experienced during the rush of falling in love can drive us to take risks that might otherwise seem unthinkable.* So love really does conquer all, and not always in a good way.

Research has also shown a connection between both delusion and love as well as delusion and happy marriages.