Do you know any of the 5 types of emotional vampire? A person who hurts so much it’s hurtful just to be around them?
Some of us are paranoid (the Splitter type), grandiose (the Narcissist), even sadistic (the Critic). Some (my own type, the Victim) are just unable to control our own pain. (Unfortunately, my type is the most in need of interaction and the least responsive to it. No win-win strategies exist for dealing with the Victim in your life; about all that can be done is to leave him in misery.)
Any questions about what it’s like to suck people dry without a clue you’re doing it? I’ll do my best to answer. (Just don’t expect it to be short and sweet!)
Did it at any point occur to you that creating an “Ask the emotional vampire” thread is itself an act of wallowing in your own victimhood? Or stop and ask yourself what possible good could come of it?
Yes, I know and love and hate the narcissistic-est person in the world, and yes, he’s fucking exhausting.
I don’t know if this is the case with other types of “emotional vampires” or not, but be around him enough and you invariably get sucked into the world of crazy. Things start to make you just roll your eyes and sigh when they should make you say WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
There’s a strong feeling of duality - “either you reach out and let off the pressure, or you bottle it up and let it explode.” I don’t know what happens to people who let it explode. It can’t be healthy for them, although it spares others.
As I said, there’s really no win-win strategy for interacting with a Victim. As it’s an addictive behavior, I suspect some of us need to self-destruct emotionally, to fall to a point where nothing has any meaning, before we can appreciate what does have meaning. I’ve tried this with substance abuse, public misbehavior, going off my scripts into rages of self-pity, but I’ve always chickened out before anyone really brought the hurt down. I don’t know if I’d come out in one piece, or just get more fatally damaged. Maybe that’s the price we have to pay, in our peculiar condition: an “operation” that might “kill” the “patient.”
Well, it’s not the first time I’ve taken that step. I was in group therapy years ago and beginning to get some insights, although there was no concept of an EV or awareness of the various types. AFAIK, I was unique - no one in our group of 8 had ever encountered anyone like me, anyway.
What stopped me was pressure from my family (who provide much of my resources) to leave the group. No matter that they couldn’t, and didn’t want to, understand my mental state; these other people were strangers and the psychologist just in it for the money. I was told either leave or get cut off, and because I hadn’t worked full time in years and knew I wasn’t strong enough emotionally to live alone, I had to leave group.
Dude, seriously, get help. And I’m not saying that in a dismissive or snarky way. I’d be more than happy to help you find some resources, offer my own perspective, or whatever.
For “victims”, there are scads of win-win strategies.
ETA: That was a simulpost, but my point still stands.
You are probably addiced to whatever chemical it is that your body sends the brain durring one of these negative interactions. Set your self up for some positive interactions and allow the chemical response to its job. Share something withsomeone that you have accompished and are proud of, go where the love is, might be the bar, or coffee shop, gym whatever seek out positive interactions. Keep in mind that people love us or like us because they feel a little better about themselves when they are in your precense. The positive feeling will bounce back and forth along with some good natural chemicals to reinforce the good behavior.
Absolutely. Myself is all I have. I’ve already cut myself off from friendships, dating, career in drastic ways (usually keeping them going just enough to rationalize that I haven’t become a complete nothing).
I often think I need to offer myself up as a sacrifice, just go out and get stomped, to cleanse my sinful wasted life. I’m just too chickenshit on one hand, and too rational on the other, to follow through.
I don’t know. I really really dislike those mainstream Today Show-esqe ‘cut anyone out of your life who is weird or in any way a drain or a problem’ mentalities. People are fucked up by nature, including the people who do that. But personally I find the people who react with terror to any kind of emotional problem because it brings their fragile, orderly world crashing down scarier and more annoying than the fucked up people. At least the fucked up people are more resilient and authentic. Fucked up people can be very interesting, empathetic and loyal if you approach some of them right and the most meaningful human relationships I’ve ever had have been with fucked up people or people who were fucked up and more or less fixed themselves over the years. I know Plato said ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle’ which is really wise.
If it makes you feel better I do enjoy your posts. They are pretty well informed.
I have also wallowed in victimhood. What worked for me was years of self acceptance because I had a core pain of shame and abandonment that I didn’t know how to deal with. I’m not fixed or cured, but the gaping hole in my heart is more manageable now. I no longer need to overcompensate to deal with my pain. I don’t chase women neurotically, I don’t need to ‘know everything’ and I’m not neurotic about money anymore. It took years, but I did pretty well.
Check out a book called reinventing your life. It is about Schema therapy, and how it can be used to break negative cycles. Or if you can’t break them, at least weaken them. That is what you should shoot for. Not perfection, just looking at your life day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, etc and saying you are making progress in general.
I thought you were living on an inheritance, why would you have a career?
I’m sure this sounds trite (and I can barely follow it myself) but have you considered some kind of charity work to give your life more meaning?
When I was in college I got a lot of grants and scholarships, so I took a portion of them and donated them to groups like UNICEF, USAID, etc. I figured people were helping me out to make my life better so I would help other people out with some of the proceeds. On some level, I do get some satisfaction from knowing that no matter how embarrassing, pathetic, confused, lost or hated I have been in some points of my life the kid who was able to get a malaria bed net or pay her school fees couldn’t care less about that. I have value to him/her no matter how little value I sometimes feel I have in my social life.
I’ve tried finding charities in person, but the ones I got to weren’t anything special to me (they just felt like unpaid jobs).
Any charitable work that really made a difference would create more guilt in me than it took away. Guilt is what I feel when I can’t quite manage gratitude.
There are plenty of willing and good hearted folks who can help without making it all about themselves and not even meaning to. I’ll leave it to them for now.
I’m guilty as hell about not needing to support myself, not least of which because it’s unfair to anyone I’d want to be my friend. It draws the line at friendship for most anybody.
Still, work is hell on earth for me. All I can manage are music gigs, which are very few and don’t ask anything I’m not willing to give. As far as the 9 to 5, sorry all you 9-5ers, but your resentment and shame is actually easier for me to take than being one of you.
I’ll check out those links you gave. Thinking - working with ideas that matter - beats working on crap that doesn’t matter any day.
Well there’s your problem right there. The gazes you receive from 9-5ers (who know you are not one of us) are simply envy most of the time, and (rarely) pity. It’s only resentment from the immature, and there’s nothing anyone can do for them anyway.
Here’s some useless advice: Let us 9-5ers live vicariously through you. Travel and tell us stories, get a hobby and regale us with your pursuits (except if you take up shovel-collecting. That’s truly boring and we will hate you for that), learn to build stuff (chicken coops, rabbit hutches, home-sized hydroponic gardening systems…)and give it away anonymously to those who would need/want them, commit random acts of anonymus kindness and talk about it here where you’re still anonymous. You can be an inspiration, do some good AND get some approval even you would have to accept. But the charity stuff only works if you keep the real world parts anonymous, otherwise those who are being helped will think you’re up to something and you will start to question your own motives.
Depends on what you mean by that-sometimes it can be totally liberating.
Doug, the power to change your life lies within you (and/or outside you). Stop making fucking excuses for all your bullshit and GO AND CHANGE YOUR LIFE. Strip mine it to the core, discard each and every single useless and counterproductive element of your self, let go of it all (going Buddhist here) and like a caterpillar inside of a chrysalis completely remake yourself. You have nothing to fucking lose. I myself let go of something that has been with me for 35 years last night, something which probably was one of my most cherished (and insidious) attachments at one time, but which had long outlived its usefulness. If a fool like me can do it, so the fuck can you.
I could tell you about things I did years ago…obscure grubby music based obsessions not one person in 100 could share…vaguely creepy stuff like my closetful of flight jackets. The stuff that keeps me going isn’t anything I’m proud of…which might say something right there.
Example: I dropped everything (which was pretty much nothing) and gave myself to The Army. The only thing I took with me was my sense of humor, a change of clothes, and a strong desire to not be the guy I left behind. 2 months of basic-training, normally a fairly traumatizing experience from what I’ve seen, was easy for me because there was no “me” to resist the training. It was as close to a suicide & rebirth as I could get without actually doing myself in, and remains one rash decision I have never regretted.
There is an interesting book called combatting cult mind control that discusses how cults also do this. Break down the old identity, build a new identity, then refreeze the new identity. I came across the book at a time in my life when I was trying to make changes and the info in it helped me do so.