Emotional Vampires: 7 personalities that steal your emotional well-being
In this life you will have met with people who transmit good values and positive attitudes and that they infect you with their positivity and joy. Normally, we tend to want to be friends and be close to these types of people, for more than obvious reasons.
However, there is another type of individuals that tend to weaken our emotional state . The reasons why the emotional vampires make bad feelings bloom in other people are very varied: pessimism, self-centeredness, narcissism, immaturity, lack of empathy ...
Emotional Vampires: people who create discomfort where they pass
Today we delve into the personality of these emotional vampires; individuals who, unconsciously or not, they have the ability to subtract energy and good cheer from the people around them, creating a halo of negativity .
The main problem that emotional vampires cause is that they are not only able to cloud the environment for the duration of their presence, but, as we relate to them on a daily basis, we end up generating high levels of stress and emotional fatigue.
We must bear in mind that the emotional state of the people around us ends up affecting us: emotions are contagious, for better or for worse. And when the circumstance occurs that we are holding negative emotions for a certain time, the psychological problems (and even some disorders) may begin to appear.
It is for this reason that, if we have no choice but to live with an emotional vampire, we must learn to detect their distinctive features and know how to cope with their bad vibrations.
The 7 personalities typical of emotional vampires
Individuals who are nourished by the emotional energy of others are prone to emotionally manipulate their 'victims' in order to achieve their goals or purposes. They usually approach the people around them to show their negativity and take advantage of the energy of your interlocutor .
In addition, once they have emptied their negative thoughts and emotions, they leave the place of the facts and prepare to approach another person who can serve them to discharge their discomfort.
One characteristic in common: lack of empathy
The emotional vampires they are characterized by having very little empathy . They are clearly selfish because they use the presence of another person to empty all the accumulated negativity, without noticing that this will generate discomfort and distress to their interlocutor. They do not put themselves in the place of the latter.
Although they have certain aspects in common, emotional vampires can take various forms. That is why we have compiled a total of seven typical personalities in the people who steal your optimism.
1. Critical personality
Not only is responsible for putting up and showing contrary to everything you do or say, but his ultimate purpose is to make you feel inferior to him. You are always wrong and he knows the truth of everything. In addition, if you question their attitude, the most normal thing is to justify yourself saying that "only wants the best for you."
If you stay close to this person for a few hours, you will realize that much of what he says are reviews, critics and more critics . Nothing seems right to you, and I do not mean only banal things like the last movie you've seen or the television series that is fashionable, but it does not stop in your effort to criticize your ideas, your tastes or your behavior.
This type of emotional vampire is so unprincipled which ends up being irritating and can lead to a terrible emotional state. Be careful not to get infected and start criticizing yourself too!
2. Pessimistic personality
The emotional vampire can also take the form of pessimistic inveterate . He always sees life with the glass half empty, he looks sad, everything seems negative and it will cost horrors to convince him that he is being too pessimistic ... because he always has prepared a counterargument that "proves" that existence is not worth it.
If you surround yourself with this type of person, It may happen to you that you end up convincing yourself that your vision of things is true and you end up being a pessimistic person , leading you to a negative attitude, without hope to improve and without wanting to improve the reality or to undertake your projects.
We address the negative effects of having a pessimistic friend (among other types of toxic friends) in the following article:
"Toxic Friendships: 7 Signs to Spot a Bad Friend"3. Catastrophic personality
Emotional vampires can also be tremendistas . This personality leads to an extreme pessimism, for them, any fact or situation acquires an apocalyptic magnitude.
His favorite topics of conversation are about catastrophes and hecatombs They have heard in the news or even in disasters that have not happened but that, in their opinion, could happen.
These types of vampires firmly believe that life is facing a long list of dangers and impending misfortunes. If you have the bad luck to match someone like that, you will notice how soon you feel exhausted and, in the worst case scenario, you could start incorporating some of your paranoias into your mental schemes .
4. Whining personality and victim
It's that typical guy who he does not stop complaining about everything that happens to him . Whether things go badly or if they are doing well, you will always have reasons to complain and become the victim before you.
In a victimized person it is very difficult to find emotional support , since they will always consider that their problems are much more important than yours. You are likely to notice that the whiner discharges all of his problems when you speak, but he is rarely open to listening and offering his arm when you need him.
In a previous article we also addressed the profile of victim personality. I invite you to read it:
"The 6 most difficult personality profiles and how to deal with them"5. Aggressive personality
They are people who react violently without coming to mind. If you say or do something that does not seem right, you can unleash their fury, for example with a gesture that can be misinterpreted or a comment that takes context.
Their reactions are disproportionate, so much so that You may have a serious problem if you are not careful with what you do . Of course being surrounded by a person who forces you to measure to the millimeter everything you do or say is not positive at all for your mental and emotional health. And, needless to say, you're going to feel exhausted ten minutes into a conversation with the aggressive emotional vampire.
6. Sarcastic personality
This is a vampiric personality especially annoying. To sarcastic person he loves to cast ironies on you, poisoned darts, while protecting himself behind the lightness of a "simple joke". In this way, nobody can reproach him for his rudeness, since "it was just a joke ..:".
Although sometimes your comments may be funny and witty, The truth is that they often exceed the limits of respect and are cruel to other people . If you expose yourself a lot to a person who uses sarcastic and hurtful comments, you can end up with your self-esteem on the floor. In addition, it is exhausting: it is like being a soldier isolated in enemy territory: you only have to pray so that the bombs do not fall on you.
7. Faint-hearted personality
They are people with characteristics different from the six other personalities that we have described. It's the emotional vampire that better knows how to go unnoticed , since his behavior is not histrionic or aggressive, but rather they are shown as helpless beings and unable to function on their own .
They usually cause pity to those around them and get others to focus their attention on them. This leads to a vicious circle : he becomes the pusillanimous to attract attention, he gets his purpose since people attend them and in this way they feel reinforced in his attitude.
The fainthearted is an emotional vampire since it demands your attention and your care for vice. It ends up stealing your valuable time, your space, and it is not uncommon for it to not appear anywhere when you are the one who needs it.
How do emotional vampires behave?
The emotional vampires they are nourished by two elements in order to start stealing the emotional energy to those around you: time and proximity. It is necessary that they get to establish certain emotional and friendship bonds with the other person. From there, they usually take advantage of their weak points and take charge of taking advantage of them.
For this reason it is difficult to have a good emotional state if the emotional vampire is a person that is part of our closest circle: family, friends or your romantic partner. The closer the relationship is, the more it will cost you to avoid its harmful effects.
The emotional vampire knows how to get away
It is usual for the emotional vampire to try to humiliate or ignore other people, but they hide very often in justifications and pretexts to show their point of view and to show themselves to people as good people.
Matizando: some vampires may not be aware that they are stealing your emotional energy
However, it should be made clear that there may be cases in which the personality of the emotional vampire is not lived consciously. Some emotional vampires are not able to realize that they behave like this, and they do not realize the negative effects their actions have on the people around them .
The causes of vampiric behavior
Sometimes, they do not notice that their behavior may be caused by situations or traumatic episodes who lived years ago (or perhaps also for having mimicked behaviors and dysfunctional attitudes they saw in their parents), and the product of this is that their way of relating to other people is influenced by these defense mechanisms that has been acquiring and consolidating as part of his personality .
It depends on you to assess whether the emotional vampire deserves a second chance
Of course, the fact that some emotional vampires are not fully aware that they are squandering your emotional well-being It is not an excuse for you not to seriously consider how to resolve, in one way or another, the discomfort who believe in you
It is a matter of detecting the problem in time and take the appropriate and fair measures : in some cases a sincere and one-to-one talk can have an effect and redirect the situation. In other cases, perhaps the best solution for both is to put distance in between.
