How to Ward Off Emotional Vampires

And how to take care of yourself after an encounter.

Emotional vampires aren’t always easy to spot. Many of them have people-pleasing tendencies that help them blend into the environment. Even when we usually get a good read on people, we might miss the signs of emotional vampirism at first. It’s only later that we can look back and put all the pieces together.

What Is an Emotional Vampire?

Emotional vampires are the people in our lives who leave us feeling drained, defeated, and depleted. They don’t drink our blood, but they do suck out our time, energy, and emotional resources. Being around one is exhausting, and the relationships tend to be one-sided.

Emotional vampires can have different techniques. I’ve encountered many of them in the wild. Some are the constant victims. Not only is everything about them, but nothing is their fault. They come with a sob story, and they never make time to listen to anyone else or to invest an equal amount of time and energy into their relationships.

Other emotional vampires come at us with constant criticism. Covert or overt, we don’t feel happy after we’ve spent time with them. We’re left with a sense of not ever being good enough no matter how hard we try.

There are so many kinds that I couldn’t possibly list them all, but I can share a little bit about why this happens — and how we can ward off emotional vampires in our lives.

The Why of Emotional Vampirism

As a former therapist, I understand that people always have reasons for the ways that they behave. We have backstories, and if other people knew those stories, they might understand us better. But we don’t usually get the story behind the behavior. We’re left, instead, dealing with the behavior alone.

First, let me be clear: emotional vampires are responsible for their own actions. Understanding the why of emotional vampirism simply helps us better understand relational dynamics, and it can increase our compassion and empathy for others. It doesn’t let those people off the hook, but it might help us be kinder and more patient when dealing with them.

In my experience, most people who drain us emotionally have unhealed trauma. They are easily triggered, defensive, and have a huge blind spot when it comes to being accountable for their behaviors and choices. They likely don’t realize that trauma is the root cause of their actions. They are living by reflex, responding in ways that most of them don’t even understand. These responses are so deeply ingrained that rarely do they question them.

I know this because I’ve been there. Trauma therapy was an incredibly revealing experience. It made me look back at my past and reframe much of it. So many of my responses — in relationships and even in the workplace — came from unresolved trauma in my life. As I learned to heal and integrate those pieces of my past, I found that many of the triggers were gone. I didn’t take things as personally. I wasn’t reactive to people or events in the way I once was because I had a new perspective that allowed me to draw on my coping skills.

How to Ward Off Emotional Vampires

I’ve come across a few emotional vampires recently. They take as much as they can and give nothing back. They operate in a way that seems selfish, thoughtless, and erratic to other people. As much as I understand and can empathize with the root cause of this draining behavior, I also have learned techniques to ward off emotional vampires in my life.

Arm Yourself with Boundaries

Emotional vampires hate healthy boundaries. They don’t know what to do with them. They will absolutely take them personally and think we’re somehow attacking them rather than protecting ourselves. Moreover, when we enforce our boundaries, they will feel like they’re being punished because they’re so used to running roughshod all over everyone.

At their core, most people who drain us have unmet emotional needs. Many of them come across like narcissists when they are often compulsive people-pleasers with massive control issues. They won’t respond well to boundaries, but it will change interactions with them. Be prepared to have those interactions escalate for a time but keep boundaries firmly in place. Over time, they’ll learn that their emotionally draining behaviors aren’t welcome. They’ll either learn a new set of behaviors, or they’ll take themselves out of our lives.

Balance Empathy with Firm Communication

While it’s possible to hold empathy for the emotional vampires we encounter, we have to balance that with firm communication. It’s more than just boundaries. We need to be able to speak up rather than simmering in resentment about their behavior. Communicating about how their actions directly impact how we feel is a way of holding them accountable.

Keep in mind that most emotional vampires don’t realize that this is why their relationships suck, pun intended. They think that everyone else is the problem. Part of the reason they go on thinking this way is because many people will ignore or ghost them instead of communicating directly about how their actions made us feel. It might not change what they do or how they think, but if enough people are saying the same thing, it might help lead them to greater introspection — and hopefully into therapy.

Don’t Take It Personally

Emotional vampires often make us feel used or abused. It really isn’t personal although it certainly feels that way in the moment. It’s easy to let ourselves be triggered by their often-unhinged behavior, but their reactions come from their history and experiences. It really has nothing to do with us at all.

People learn through trial and error. It’s how humans develop. Emotional vampires are using maladaptive coping skills to survive. Even when they are no longer in danger, they will continue responding in the ways that they always have because they haven’t learned any other way to live. It damages relationships, careers, and families, but it won’t change until we do.

Stop Waiting for Them to Change

Notice that I didn’t say that it changes when they do. We need to stop waiting for the people who drain us to change their ways. They may never do that. They may live their entire lives this way. It’s tragic really, but it’s out of our control.

What is in our control is how we deal with the emotional vampirism we encounter. It’s impossible to avoid these types completely. There are more of them than we likely know. What we can do is enhance our boundaries and communication skills while adjusting our expectations. They might not change their behavior, but we can change how we choose to deal with it.

Reducing or Eliminating Contact

I used to think that the only way to deal with people like this was to cut them off entirely. For some people, that might be true. For others, we can adjust our expectations and accept them for who they are. Once we do that, we won’t constantly feel disappointed when they act in accordance with their true identity. We will expect it and will have developed healthy ways to manage it.

Sometimes, it involves limiting our contact with these people. In friendships, we might move them out of the inner circle and into the realm of acquaintances. For family members, we might reduce our interactions. In the workplace, we may have to develop strategies for dealing with them minimally but professionally. What we can’t do if we want things to change is continue on without acknowledging that their behavior is harmful.

How to Heal from Emotional Vampires

We need to learn how to care for ourselves after encountering someone who drains us. For the neurodiverse and those with chronic illnesses, we have spoon theory to represent what it’s like to be depleted of our energy and how it impacts our lives. When we run out of metaphorical spoons, we have no energy for basic living tasks. It’s important that we budget those spoons when they are in limited supply. Even though neurotypical, healthy individuals may find their energy more easily renewed, we’ve all experienced people who’ve left us feeling drained.

Take Time and Space

When we’ve experienced emotional vampirism, it’s important to take some time and space to rest and recover. It’s exhausting. It creates anger, resentment, and disappointment. Getting away from these people is paramount to being able to begin the recovery process. Even if the person is someone in our households, it’s important to get some alone time to process how we’re feeling.

Time and space will also help us confront any triggers that may have arisen from dealing with people who take from us, giving little to nothing in return. Having a little distance from the issue can help us find perspective. It can also help us consider why we continue to be drained by this person and how we can better manage them in the future.

Practice Increased Self-Care

Self-care is meant to be a daily practice, but after encountering someone like this, it’s important to increase the level of self-care. I usually find that eating a good meal, watching something uncomplicated on TV, and going to bed early can help me start feeling like myself again. Food and sleep are particularly important, but hydration is equally essential. Instead of reaching for a glass of wine, I opted for water. Although sometimes, self-care for me might be having the glass of wine.

After an emotionally exhausting encounter, I found myself standing in the shower for an extremely long amount of time. The water felt good. I ran it as hot as I could stand and just let it wash over me. Sometimes, a cleansing ritual can help us feel like we’ve washed off the worst of the day. It certainly leaves us feeling somewhat refreshed. Doing what we can, even if it they are small things, can help us reset ourselves and feel better.

Be the Change

Part of healing from the experience involves creating necessary change in our dynamics. When we recognize that a person consistently drains us and leaves us feeling awful, we have a responsibility to ourselves to manage this better. We can’t stop the other person from being who they are and behaving in those ways, but we can certainly make a plan for how we’ll deal with them and protect our energy going forward.

Part of creating that change is realizing that our time, energy, and resources are not unlimited. We can’t get back time spent with these people. Our energy will renew eventually, but over time, these interactions can change us in ways we don’t like. Our resources shouldn’t be available to people who don’t value and appreciate us. As we begin to recognize the value of our own well-being, we will take steps to nurture ourselves. We will gravitate toward the people who make us feel good and stop allowing the people who make us feel bad to take up so much space in our lives — and in our heads.

Emotional Vampires: The True Story

These people aren’t going anywhere. As long as there are those who leave their emotional wounds to fester, there will continue to be people who attempt to meet their needs by taking from everyone around them. They may not even realize they’re doing it. In fact, many of them have constructed a narrative that they would do anything for anybody when the reality is that their actions are only ever self-serving.

That’s about them. We have to focus on ourselves. There are ways to ward off the emotional vampires in our lives and to protect ourselves. We can get comfortable complaining about them and feeding general resentment, or we can begin to take steps to change the dynamic by changing the only person we can: ourselves.