Weve all heard the term emotional vampire, but what does it really mean?
It can affect our productivity, our ability to focus and our overall mental, physical and emotional well-being.
This term is commonly used to describenarcissists and sociopathswho psychologically bleed us dry.
Aaron Anderson
It can also be applied to garden-variety toxic people who are self-centered and self-absorbed.
Emotional vampires feast on these qualities to satiate themselves while leaving you feeling sick and drained.
They deplete you physically and emotionally so youre unable to care for yourself or be productive.
Being around a toxic person is like being weighed down by heavy black tar.
It can affect you on both a psychological and physiological level.
You might experience pain or physical ailments that come out of nowhere.
Psychologically, you feel a diminished sense of agency and an increased sense of hopelessness.
When youre no longer in their presence, you might still feel affected by them.
You find yourself ruminating over strange things they said or cruel things they did to you.
You find yourself questioning your own reality and being plagued with a persistent sense of self-doubt.
Severe anxiety is common for empaths whove been touched by the impact of an emotional vampire.
Depression is often inevitable side effect of being surrounded by emotional vampires for long periods of time.
Even a simple conversation with them over something thatshouldhave a simple solution leaves you feeling disoriented and confused.
You find yourself explaining basic human decency, fairness, and integrity to them over and over.
Emotional vampires feed off of your positive energy while leaving you malnourished.
Emotional vampires are one-sided.
Their conversations will usually center them and feature them as the one and only person who is important.
They make decisions that affect you without ever considering how you would feel about them.
They micromanage and control you to make themselves feel superior and powerful.
They are the end-all, be-all of everything.
They put you down and take pleasure in sabotaging you.
Emotional vampires on the higher end of the narcissistic spectrum tend to bepathologically enviousof their victims.
When they see that youre thriving and successful, it sparks jealousy in them.
They want your resources for themselves and they covet whatever you have.
Dont take a stab at reason with emotional vampires more than you already have; it wont work.
Exercise your agency and reclaim your power by pursuing goals, dreams and friendships independent of this person.
