Have you ever been in a conversation with someone with whom, no matter how hard you try, you simply cannot get out of the conversation? They keep going and going, and looping and looping, and hooking and hooking the dialogue and topics until you’re forced to take either drastic measures or use clever tactics to exit that interaction? How do you know the difference between people who just like to talk too much, are lonely, or are nice people just having a bad moment – and someone who really does feed off of your energy and the attention you give them in a way that can be problematic?
There really are people who do not have much intuition or don’t know how to take social cues, read body language, or have a general sense of how much time and energy they are taking from the other person in conversation. Perfectly innocent people who, while frustrating for some, are not energy vampires.
Well what IS an energy vampire? I like to think of energy vampires on a sliding scale or spectrum – grey being not so bad and black being “want to eat your soul” type of status. (And yes, they are out there.). They are people who get THEIR energy – from you. The less intelligent or ones without much of a current “source” latch on to people overtly – more desperately seeking your attention, conversation, money, affection, social status, status of any kind, etc. The more highly intelligent ones, or ones who are much less desperate for a source of “supply” (as in, they have several sources they are feeding off of already), will be much more subtle about it. Their tactics will make you come to them, want to be with them, or seek to please them. Both, once they have you standing on the X – will begin their game.
Sometimes it is just conversation – and again, you have to be careful not to confuse someone who just doesn’t know when to end a conversation with someone who is using you for their own gain. Often, with more vampiric-like people, the conversation will be accompanied by an intense, piercing stare from them. At times, almost a stare-down. Often they will “lean in” and lock eyes with you as they speak in a way that feels uncomfortable…
A side topic to this stare is, communication practices where you are taught to stare deeply into the eyes of another person or use “intentional eye contact” (long staring contests) for the purpose of improving communication or furthering a “spiritual connection”. These practices can borderline on or accidentally facilitate a form of energy vampirism, in my opinion – however, this type of stuff sits in a different room than the general red flag of plain old intense eyes when someone is trying to pull at you in a conversation or interaction.
Another major red flag is, when you are talking to someone and you can literally feel in your stomach or your heart, an almost anxious pull. It feels like the more you talk to them, the more something is pulling from your body to them at your heart or your stomach. It does not feel good. Sometimes you walk away from the conversation feeling exhausted, or confused. Or sometimes will feel almost a dull, subtle, sick feeling in your gut when you’re talking to them or in a situation with them.
When we’re tired – EVERYONE feels like an energy vampire. Whoever we are interacting with will give us some of these feelings because we are already operating from the reserves of our gas tank. If you are in this state, please don’t walk around thinking that every person around you is an energy vampire – they’re not. In those moments, it is much more likely that its you. Most people also have desperate moments where they might be extra needy temporarily, and exhibit tendencies that drain you – this IS a vampiric quality, but that also does not necessarily mean that someone “is” an energy vampire.
But, when you’re operating at normal levels or even high levels of energy and you find yourself in a situation where you feel like you’re being syphoned – you probably are. Or if a person constantly drains you – it truly may be that they have a problem.
Where it becomes problematic is when a person is like this most of the time. Of course, it can take time to figure that one out – but once you’ve dealt with some really major cases, you can often tell pretty quickly after meeting someone initially whether they have that edge to them or not. If you’re not sure, then give it time.
The reason why this is all important is because the term “energy vampire” simply describes what is at the gate of a person who may have a problematic personality that can often (not always, but often) lead to much higher levels of manipulation later on down the road with them. Identifying the action of energy vampirism is identifying what lies at the gate of someone who uses others. They may use others for sex, for money, for social status, to climb the ladder, for basic needs, for time, for attention, for anything really. They’ve lost their own connection, so they use others to feed themselves or to prop up and heighten themselves.
Of course there are exceptions to everything spoken of here – but these are just some basic things to help you know that you’re not crazy when you feel them.
It can be hard to know where a person is coming from, sometimes – but if you pay attention to the subtle feelings in your body and repeated patterns that you see…it may help you to avoid becoming too intertwined with an individual who, in the end, only seeks to take and no matter how much they get fed, will usually remain hungry for the power to do so.
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