Written by: Paul A Cicchini, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Over the past year, I’ve urged you to be ethical, encouraged you to push past feeling like an imposter, cheered you on as you embraced positivity like Ted Lasso, and even coached you on how to survive a bad boss. One of the final pieces of advice I want to leave you with is how to spot and deal with Energy Vampires.
What’s an Energy Vampire, you say? Well, there are many definitions out there and there are several people credited with coining the term or its synonyms such as Emotional Vampire (A. Bernstein) or Psychic Vampire (D. Fortune). In any case, my own interpretation is that this type of “Vampire” is a person in your life that sucks all of the positive energy out of your being. You know how gloomy weather, or a minor illness can bring down your entire day? People can do that, too.
Search your social milieu. You know somebody like that, don’t you? These people can appear in your world in many ways: a supervisor (which we touched upon in my Bad Bosses article), a co-worker, a customer, a friend, or (in the worst case) a family member.
How do these people siphon the positivity out of you? There are several ways. It can be as simple as them being the constant “Debbie Downer” at work—the one who finds the negative aspect of every situation or story. Say you’re excited about a cool new restaurant on the upper east side that you discovered and can’t wait to share with your coworkers. The Energy Vampire will interrupt your story with, “Oh, I know that restaurant. My cousin went there last month, and he said the wait staff was terrible.”
There are also other, more complex, and more sinister types of Energy Vampires. You may find yourself in a meeting at work and you come up with yet another particularly brilliant idea, and your immediate supervisor for the umpteenth time tries his damnedest to shoot holes in your plan. After the meeting, you wonder, does he do this out of jealousy, or does he do it because he is an undiagnosed sadist?
One of the more exasperating situations is when the Vampire happens to be your client. These folks make you want to re-think the old adage, “The customer is always right.” When I owned a video production company, I once had a wedding customer who despite countless revisions refused to acknowledge their satisfaction with their final tape (yes, it was that long ago-before the fully digital age). Every time I fixed an issue that they had with the video, they found fault with something else. It soon became clear that they were trying to wear me down so that I would cave and give them their wedding package for free just to get them to stop bothering me. The whole experience compelled me to hire a lawyer to craft a “jerk-proof” service contract.
Surprisingly, some of the worst kinds of Energy Vampires could be some of your dearest friends or family. Do you have someone close to you that frequently calls you to relate a story and no matter how you react to their situation, it’s the wrong thing to say? If you play devil’s advocate, they get angry with you. If you offer advice as to what to do next, they argue why it won’t work. If you tell them they are one hundred percent in the right, they dismiss you as lacking objectivity and being biased in their favor. You can’t seem to win with these people, and they suck the good mood right out of you.
Before we tackle the solution to Energy Vampires, let’s recap their personality traits. Why do these people bring such negativity? Because they thrive on drama. It’s like an addiction to them. They love being the martyr. Why do they attack others or even you? Because they never hold themselves accountable. Every terrible thing in their lives is somebody else’s fault. Why do they persist in their ways, even though they lose friendships and damage family ties? Because, like a compulsive gambler glued to a Vegas slot machine, they get enough of a payout to forget about their losses. When they act like this, they frequently succeed because they get their way through guilt and intimidation, so they keep on doing it. Often, it morphs into just another form of bullying similar to the types I mentioned in my Conflict Resolution article.
What to do about these energy thieves? Well, some people say that you should just cut them out of your life, but that’s not often practical or even possible.
That being said, there’s nothing wrong with setting a few boundaries. In the case of the drama-addicted friend, tell them that their situation seems so tricky that you are reluctant to give advice and perhaps they need to seek out professional help. I’m kind of an empath. I’m overly in-tune with other people’s emotions. It’s the occupational hazard of being a psychologist. As such, I can be particularly susceptible to energy vampires and drama queens/kings. The best way to fight that is to convey less sympathy. It’s like air to an Energy Vampire. If you seem indifferent, they may move on to someone else.
In the case of the co-worker that always poo-poo’s your suggestions or ideas, say, “Well, I’d like to see how the rest of the group feels. How about we take it to a vote?”
In the case of the martyr family member, don’t attack them. Instead of throwing up your hands and exclaiming, “I dunno what you want from me!” try saying something like, ‘You know, whenever I’m in a situation like that, I think about my own accountability. Not that I did anything wrong, but what could I have done differently to get a better outcome?”
Finally, the best way to protect your energy (and your mental health) is to learn that beautiful, concise word, No. In the case of the bully, don’t be their doormat. For the conflict addict, tell them you are not feeling well or are too tired for their story today. For the martyr, tell them that you have confidence in their abilities, especially in their ability to find their own solution. In all these cases, when someone tries to steal your positive power, remember the power lies with you to stop it.
Paul A Cicchini, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Sir Paul Cicchini M.Ed., Ed.S., NCSP is a nationally certified school psychologist. He specializes in character education and is the only school psychologist on the East Coast to be certified in the new field of Social Emotional Learning (SEL)/Character Ed (Rutgers Univ. 2016). He is the owner of One Knight Publishing, LLC
Sir Paul aspires to be a well-rounded Renaissance man. His list of personal accomplishments includes cable television host (Cars Weekly Video Magazine-Philadelphia), AP credentialed sports journalist, humorist, adjunct professor, martial artist, fencer, semi-pro football player, high school football coach, collegiate football scout. His title of "Sir" comes from his rank of Knights Commander with the Templar Knights SMOTJ.
His second novel, YOUNG CYRANO, is the fictionalized account of the teenage life of Cyrano de Bergerac. It received a rating from the respected Readers’ Favorite website (click a link to read their five-star review). Paul’s most recent novel, THE ESSENTIALZ is about a team of teenage superheroes that undergo the same challenges as modern teens.
