Contents
He just wants to talk. He did not bring bad news, did not say anything unpleasant. Why is even three minutes of conversation with him so painful for us? And how to resist it?
Interview with a Vampire
“My colleague Lyuba loves her violets,” says 39-year-old Marina. — In the mornings we meet at the coffee machine, and every time she engages me in a conversation about gardening. And it goes on for half an hour. Lyuba is polite and affable, it is inconvenient for me to cut her off. I’m furious inside myself, but I don’t understand why. And after these meetings I feel tired … “
The common expression “energy vampire” is a term from the world of mythology. “There is a legend about scary characters who can stick to us and take something important,” explains existential analyst Ksenia Bekenova.
We can see how this happens in the vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows: quiet office worker Colin Robinson pesters colleagues with tiring stories about his own health and feeds on their energy – literally. Each of his interlocutors soon falls face down on the keyboard from fatigue.
Similarly, “eat” others and those whom we call energy vampires. There is no such term in psychology, but it is convenient for us to call those who, by imposing unwanted communication of any kind, receive from others the resources they need.
Unrecognized pain
It is unlikely that “emotional vampires” act purposefully. “Perhaps it is difficult for them to endure loneliness or they are incredibly bored, bad with themselves, but they do not understand that others are not always ready to contact them,” says Ksenia Bekenova.
By imposing unwanted communication on others, they satisfy their needs for care, attention, socialization, and power. And it seems to be an understandable desire, but energy vampires violate our boundaries, ignore our desires.
“They perceive others as a potential source of what they need at the moment, and not as independent human beings with their own feelings and needs,” writes psychologist Albert Bernstein.
After talking with an energy vampire, we sometimes feel that we feel bad not only morally, but also physically. Why?
“Unwanted invasion forces the limbic system to work – the brain structure responsible for the relationship between emotions and the body,” says Ksenia Bekenova. “We are not attacked by a lion, our bag is not taken away, but the brain evaluates what is happening as an attack. We freeze, our breath stops. The muscles in the body that are responsible for running are tensed.
So the mind tries to choose one of the proven options for responding to aggression: freeze, run away or attack. You can’t run away, there’s nothing to attack. And we are shrinking, losing the ability to mobilize.
Just like children
Those we call emotional vampires are not evil per se, but “their distorted perception is the door through which it can enter,” recalls clinical psychologist Albert Bernstein, author of Emotional Vampires. How to behave with people who feed on our energy. Calling the main feature of energy vampires infantilism, he recommends communicating with them in the same way as with young children. If you cannot avoid contact with such a relative, acquaintance or colleague, the psychologist recommends:
set the boundaries of communication and strictly ensure that it does not go beyond them;
read notations as little as possible;
reward “good” behavior and ignore “bad” behavior;
use a timeout as a “punishment” from time to time.
invite me in
In legends about night creatures, their mysterious feature is often mentioned: the bloodsucker cannot attack the victim until she invites him into the house. Emotional vampires are far less tactful than their fairy tale cousins. They do not wait for an invitation, but perceive our politeness as a tacit agreement with their plans.
Why do we continue to listen for hours to a friend whose problems never end, enter into a conversation with an employee who daily distracts us from work tasks with stories about TV shows, do not run away from a neighbor who is ready to lecture about the success of her grandchildren? Why don’t we resist?
We are not physically attacked, and therefore we do not immediately realize that something unpleasant is being done to us.
At this moment, we are influenced by cultural norms adopted in society.
“We must be tolerant and friendly, follow the rules of interaction with others, and therefore most often we choose to be polite and endure discomfort both on the bodily and mental levels,” Ksenia Bekenova notes.
What do we get from such communication? Perhaps we feel proud that we didn’t lash out at an “innocent” employee and endured an unpleasant episode, but along the way we always feel irritation or anger. We implicitly understand that we treated ourselves wrong, failed to protect ourselves. And therefore, we cannot feel unclouded joy, the analyst explains.
For love
We can stop unwanted communication if we are attentive to our boundaries and feelings, Ksenia Bekenova is sure: “When we allow an energy vampire into our lives, this means that we have not yet learned to be critical of what is happening and ask ourselves questions:“ What is wrong with me is happening now? Is this normal?
Taking a break, asking ourselves such questions, we will get the opportunity to exit the unwanted dialogue and protect ourselves from such a vampire.
What to do if we have identified the energy vampire in ourselves?
Learn to meet your needs in environmentally friendly ways, to support yourself on your own. And also – to understand whether we feel the measure when we are in contact with others. A measure is when it is good for both us and the other. If we know how to take care of ourselves, if we have enough of ourselves, we know how to see, hear, feel ourselves, then we can understand if we are overstepping boundaries in communication with another.
What contact will fill energy, and not take it away?
“This happens if, in the process of communication, we exchange with the interlocutor what we ourselves have in excess. When I have attention, empathy, joy for myself, I can share resources with others without depriving myself, ”explains the expert.
When communication occurs to mutual pleasure, we feel a surge of strength, vivacity, inspiration. It enriches all participants, not just one. After this conversation, we are left with a pleasant aftertaste. Neither Colin Robinson nor his victims dreamed of such a thing.