Sounds familiar? We all have probably dealt with one or two people like that throughout our lives, whether it was a boss or coworker, a romantic partner, a relative, a friend, or a mere acquaintance. Here’s what you can do about it.
Two kinds of energy vampires
Just think of energy vampires as those pesky individuals who make everything about themselves, can’t talk about anything else but their own problems and/or successes, their needs and wants, or their particular projects. These are individuals who don’t seem to genuinely care about you, but only care about what you can give them or how you can support them. They’re the ones on whom you cannot really rely to provide an understanding ear or on whose shoulder you simply cannot cry.
If you’re still unsure about whether you have an energy vampire in your life, ask yourself this: have you ever experienced feeling extremely tired, for seemingly no reason, after interacting with one specific person? Does that happen time and time again when you meet them. If so, that relationship is draining you—and that’s obviously bad. It’s not always easy to identify the specific actions that are sucking your energy, but the more you’re aware that it’s going on, and the more you analyze it every time it happens, the clearer it will get.
There are a lot of types of energy vampires, but perhaps they can be separated into two broad categories for starters: the neurotic ones and the narcissistic ones. Neurotic energy vampires tend to have low self-esteem and to feel or be truly hurt beyond their ability to realize they’re sucking the energy of those around them.
Narcissistic energy vampires, on the other hand, are the worst kind. They are manipulative, and they know perfectly well that they are draining you for their sake. They are unable to generate their own satisfaction or “life force” themselves, and thus rely on others to provide it for them. They lack empathy, and never genuinely care for anything other than themselves. While neurotic vampires can actually change their ways and stop sucking energy once they heal, narcissistic ones are likely to remain as they are.
It’s very difficult to tell which kind a particular energy vampire belongs to, especially if you aren’t familiar with the neurotic-narcissistic distinction in the first place. In practice, it doesn’t matter too much (beyond the fact that one is more likely to improve than the other over time). Both can be toxic to you at any given moment in your life, and the way you deal with either can be relatively similar.
How to keep them at bay
If you’re anything like me, you might feel guilty about putting a stop to others—even when they’re clearly not good for you. I always feel like a terrible person if I’m not there for anyone who needs it.
But here’s the thing you need to remember at this point: it’s okay to stop an energy vampire from draining you. You don’t owe it to anyone to keep being there for them if that relationship is outright harming you: you must come first always, because you can only give energy to others if you actually have enough energy for yourself. A person that just takes from you and offers nothing back is dangerous to tolerate.
Overall, there are two general ways you can keep an energy vampire at bay. Which one you employ will depend largely on the kind of relationship you have with this person, and whether or not you need to keep dealing with them on a regular basis—for whatever reason.
The first way is the most obvious one: simply end the relationship. Keep the person out of your life, ignore their messages, and reject all of their attempts to continue their toxic behavior with you.
If you indeed have this option, it’s certainly the preferable one. It’s clean and clear, and you don’t have to spend any more energy dealing with them at all. But not everyone can easily take this path. Sometimes, the energy vampire is a relative whom you must keep frequenting for some reason (perhaps he’s the father of your children, for example). Or maybe you have other reasons that motivate you to keep that person in your life—perhaps we’re talking about, say, a boss whose approval you need to move ahead.
Whatever the case, here’s the second way: you create emotional or “energetic” boundaries to keep them from draining you. That means giving yourself a limit beyond which you cannot go without harming yourself: a limit to how much you’re willing to give to a person at any given time.
This is not the same as creating a wall to keep yourself from creating attachments, mind you. It’s just a way to put a limit to how much energy you should spend on someone, and sticking to that limit. That means making it very clear to yourself that you shouldn’t feel bad for cutting someone off temporarily: this is about preserving your energy. It also means having control over your own life, rather than giving it to someone else who might just be trying to manipulate you.
This obviously sounds easier said than done. So here are more concrete steps you can take in order to successfully create these boundaries:
And, above everything else, remind yourself that you deserve people who love and appreciate you, people who are willing to give back what you’re willing to give them—people who positively enrich your life. You don’t deserve to suffer, and you certainly don’t owe a vampire your time and energy by any standard.
Here are other articles for you:
The Reason Why You Should Always Stay True To Yourself
8 Signs You’ve Found The Love Of Your Life
10 Bad Habits Only Intelligent People Have