Have you ever talked to someone and then felt a sense of exhaustion? I'm talking about a sudden change in mood and a feeling of exhaustion once you separate from that person. If you felt it, you probably met an emotional vampire. These kinds of subjects leave you without energy and, step by step, using subtle emotional manipulation strategies, they make you feel worse and worse.
Emotional vampires cannot be distinguished with the naked eye, they are individuals that you can find in the office, in shopping malls, in the gym, even at home; assuming roles of friends and family. For this reason, in this Psychology-Online article we will discover together whatWhat is an emotional vampire and how to recognize it.
Index
- What is an emotional vampire
- the top
- the catastrophic
- the envious
- The gossiper
- the irascible
- The controller
- the freeloader
- the moralist
- the talker
- the hypochondriac
- The victim
- the narcissist
- The king or queen of dramas
What is an emotional vampire.
Clinical vampirism is rarely described and when this happens is related to mental illness, popularly known as emotional vampirism. This category of people has "different disguises", however, these are some of key traits that identify them:
- They make you feel overwhelmed, exhausted, or even depressed.
- have strong tendencies narcissists and needs admiration and attention.
- They tend to blame others in order to feel superior.
- They display rapid and disconcerting mood swings.
- They are not able to face the challenges of life in a constructive way, but try to pass themselves off in the eyes of others as victims of a supposed adverse fate.
The top.
As we have mentioned before, we cannot identify an emotional vampire by simple vita. But these people do act in a characteristic way that calls them out. Little by little, after gaining your trust and sympathy, he will begin to manipulate you and exert psychological violence on you.
This will cause your energy to go to the detriment and, therefore, the emotional vampire feels superior to everyone and enjoys this game in which your self-esteem is going down because of their mistreatment, making you feel inferior and, in turn, fail to see it as a threat to your mental health.
To help you unmask these types of people and to know how to protect yourself, we advise you to read our post about Emotional manipulator: what it is, traits and how to recognize it.
The catastrophic.
As you might imagine, emotional vampires don't like limits being placed on them and believe that everyone should have their needs met. To do this, the catastrophic emotional vampire uses an attitude of negativity, making others believe that he is surrounded by misfortune. Your goal is attract the attention and energy of others to fill their own faults.
The envious.
Emotional vampires, female or male, are so named because they have a tendency to drain the emotional energies of everyone they come into contact with. In his case, the envious emotional vampireputs others down and, at the same time, he needs to attract people around him in order to manipulate them and create devotion.
The gossiper.
These types of subjects do not respect the privacy of others and interfere in other people's lives. In this way, they capture the attention of others with gossip that insinuates lies with the aim of defaming a person's social image or creating uncertainties in their environment.
The gossipy emotional vampire will take care of spread false rumors to negatively affect the environment or even to manipulate the group in favor of their individual objectives.
The irascible.
The irascible is another type of personality common in individuals with behaviors linked to the emotional vampire. In this case, the subject has an angry behavior, which tries to infect other people in their environment. In this way, based on complaints and anger, he encourages others to share his bad mood, creating an atmosphere of anger and dissatisfaction.
How to recognize an emotional vampire irascible? You should pay attention to his general mood: see if the individual is always angry. This is the key to identify them since these subjects are addicted to anger and they love to let off steam with others.
The controller.
The controlling emotional vampire trusts no one. That's why these people they try to control everyone obsessively and tell them how they should be and what they should feel. To do this, they appear socially secure, with an opinion about everything.
Regarding his way of controlling others, he acts by invalidating the emotions of the people around him when they do not fit with his way of seeing the world. If you want to identify this type of person, you should know that they often begin their sentences with "Do you know what you would need?". And then, after explaining everything you "have" to do, they make you feel dominated, devalued and inferior.
If you have a controlling emotional vampire in your environment, we recommend you consult our post Characteristics of controlling people and how to deal with them.
The exploited.
The next type of emotional vampire is the freeloader. These people usually act in a completely condescending way. His best weapon is passivity because they act by subtly appropriating the ideas and merits of others.
The moralist.
If you want to know how to recognize a moralistic emotional vampire, you should know that this type of individual uses blackmail and moral judgment. Through these strategies, create a group of followers that they can always offer you attention and validation.
In the event that you doubt if they are exercising this type of manipulation on you, it will help you to read our article on How to get out of emotional blackmail.
the talker
This subject long captures the attention of people, who hardly find space in the conversation. The talkative emotional vampire vent your frustration with others, stealing their time and sapping their energy during their encounter. In addition, they totally lack empathy and are only interested in themselves.
The hypochondriac.
What does it mean to be a hypochondriac emotional vampire? Pay attention to their victim attitude. These types of people want to cause concern to the people around them in order to ensure the care and attention of others. Thus, preys on human beings with empathy and compassionn to be the protagonist at all times.
The victim.
These emotional vampires are similar to the previous categorization. Share the victim attitude, however, they will make others believe that you are unhappy with a series of invented or dramatized arguments about supposed problems. Therefore, if you offer them a solution, they will want to change the subject or they will make excuses to continue with their role as a victim. All this means that when you have contact with these people you feel overwhelmed and powerless.
the narcissist
The personality of the narcissistic emotional vampire can be summed up in one motto: "me first." These types of subjects have a great sense of their importance and value. Therefore, they constantly try to grab attention and seek to feel admired.
It should be said that these individuals are dangerous because they have no empathy. If events do not unfold according to your needs they become punitive, cold and indifferent. If you want to know more about this type of emotional vampire, read our post what is it to be narcissistic.
The king or queen of dramas.
These people turn the most banal incident into a tragedy in order to attract attention. A simple cold becomes a risk of sudden pneumonia, or they are late because there has been a fatal accident that the news will talk about.
Their arguments are catastrophic and every day there is a supposed disaster that affects them. With this, they try to monopolize your time to tell you their stories with a devastating emotional charge, which will cause you emotional exhaustion.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to What is an emotional vampire and how to recognize it, we recommend that you enter our category of Personality.
Bibliography
- Bernstein, A. J. (2001). emotional vampires. Publisher Edaf. Recovered from https://books.google.es/books? id=xNPgmKEVLuQC&pg=PA124&dq=vampire+emotional&hl=es&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiM85q_hcj3AhWfgs4BHXvDCmAQ6AF6BAgEEAI#v=onepage&q=vampire%20emotional&f=false
- Molina, F. (2012). psychopaths Chronicle of an emotional vampire. Createspace Independent Pub.
