Anna Karenina: The illness of love

In the book, the weirdest thing has happened! Kitty has suddenly fallen ill. It started right after the ball, when Vronsky seemed to like Anna rather than Kitty, who had refused Levin for Vronsky. Kitty's family consults many doctors, none able to find anything wrong with her except for the visible symptoms, none of which leading to a diagnosis. However, Dolly doesn't seem to think that the problem is medical, and insists on talking to Kitty. It takes a while, but finally Kitty breakdown crying, and Dolly learns that she was right--the problem wasn't medical but emotional. Other things happen after this, such as rumors going around about Anna's relationship with Vronsky and her husband confronting her, but these events aren't of all that much importance to me. You see, when Kitty's illness came up, I started wondering, is it really possible for someone to get sick because of love?

I know that it's possible to become sick because of stress, but not because of love... I always thought that being "love sick" wasn't a real thing. I actually spent a couple of hours researching this to see what was right: the book or my instincts. However, all I could find on the subject was sexual addiction and songs. This made me believe that my first instincts on the subject were right. After all, if it was an actual sickness, then there would be some webpage about it somewhere, like there is for stress! Now I am lead to believe that Kitty isn't sick because of love rather than stress. She feels that she must make a good match, and choosing between making a good match and her feelings was hard, but she choose making a match when instead of accepting Levin, whom it's obvious she has real feelings for, she denied him for Vronsky, whom her mother believed would make a better match. But when Vronsky developed feelings for Anna rather than her, Kitty got sick. It makes sense that this is stress, since Kitty feels stress to find a good match but now both of her matches are gone.