When Love Gets Pathologised

I once said “I love you” to a colleague and felt the room flinch.

Not because I crossed a line — but because I hadn’t.

Because it was clean.

Because it was real.

And that’s what scares the system most.

In mental health services, we claim to be healing disconnection — but when actual love shows up, it’s flagged as risk.

Too much warmth? “Blurring boundaries.”

Too much joy? “Possible hypomania.”

Too much presence? “Attachment issue.”

The system has a well-oiled machine for managing pain, but it has no language for love.

And when something can’t be labelled, it gets pathologised.

This is how we’ve ended up in the wild paradox of treating the symptoms of healing as clinical concerns.

Love — true, clean, grounded love — regulates the nervous system.

It rebuilds the sense of self.

It restores dignity.

It melts shame.

It rewires the field.

It is the medicine.

But it doesn’t come in a box.

It doesn’t fit a risk assessment.

And it can’t be delivered on a timetable.

So the system misses it.

Over and over again.

The professionals most capable of transmitting this medicine are often lived experience practitioners — those who’ve sat in the fire, and come out radiant.

But too often, they’re forced to sanitise the very thing that made them powerful.

Because their love is “too much.”

Because their truth is “too raw.”

Because their presence breaks the spell.

But let’s be honest: the system was never broken because of a lack of policies.

It was broken because love left the room.

What if we stopped treating love like a side effect?

What if we recognised it as the result?