Emotional Vampires

Tis the season...

for the emotional vampires to start clinging to our throats.

Seems like every holiday, they come out of the woodwork like palmetto bugs. You know who I mean - those creatures whose lives center solely around their needs, their wants, their desires; the people who cannot live without Sturm und Drang, violent highs, achingly miserable lows, and all of everyone's attention solely on them. No, they are not bipolars - that's a medical condition. This vampirism is a purposeful, conscious choice by people who will never get enough love, enough attention, from anyone at any time.

They will take on any affliction you can name to get attention. They will even harm themselves to get it. They accept no responsibility for the things they've done in their lives - it's always someone else's fault. And Thanksgiving and Christmas brings them out like maggots to the feast - because people are kinder, try to be more caring and better caretakers, better people, this time of year.

You can tell them by how they treat people who have helped them, over and over again, in the past and who are wise to them. They are supercilious, rude, snide, critical behind their backs - but have that swelteringly sweet smile of phony concern and affection on their faces when their knowledgeable enemy comes close. They talk down to the very people who boosted them up when they said that they needed help - and insult them in such winning ways in public!

They especially love to fawn over their current victim in public, humiliating her/him by their artificial and simpering attention, showing everyone and all concerned that they 'own' this victim, making a fool out of him or her. Other people are two-dimensional to them - past lovers, current victims, even their own children. They are not real people, only subjects to be manipulated, and the vampires (although they proclaim their passions loudly) feel nothing for them nor the damage that they cause them. All people to them are merely past or future victims, nothing more.

Meanwhile, their latest victim gives them everything they require (at the moment) - attention, money, prestige, whatever - until they are used up, drained bloodless and emotionless by the vampire that will not release them. Then the vampire kicks them to the curb, laughs in their faces, and goes in search of another victim - whom they have usually already lined up long before draining their latest. And the cycle begins again.

You can't tell a victim s/he IS a victim when her/his blood is being drained; oh, no! S/he will deny it vehemently and hate you for it. All you can do is wait until the vampire finishes with them and moves on - then a rapid transfusion of affection and concern, and even finances, will stabilize them. Unfortunately, unless they learn to break the cycle, they will become victimized again and again. Their own insecurities lead them to need to be victims just as the vampires need to suck them dry. And the cycle repeats... until individuals make choices to not be victims, doormats, ever again.

Do not feed the vampires.