By Judi Light Hopson, Emma H Hopson and Ted Hagen /MCT
Does it exhaust you to associate with certain people? Do they drag you down so low, it takes you several days to regain your balance?
Emotional vampires are not interested in fixing their problems; they want to drain away others’ enthusiasm and love for life
If so, classify these individuals as “emotional vampires”. They thrive on sucking life from others.
“I came to work this past week feeling great,” says a bank executive we’ll call Fred. “By the time I dealt with our new branch manager, I wanted to take off a week for sick leave.”
Here are some clues you may know an emotional vampire:
lHe gives you nothing but bad news. Everything is wrong. He’ll tell you that everything is getting more awful every day.
lYou can’t cheer her up. This person refuses to hear a solution or a pep talk. She’s down and she’s going to stay down.
lHis problems never get resolved. They grow. If he had two terrible employees last month, these employees are now - according to Mr Emotional Vampire - stealing company funds or somesuch.
“I think of these life-sucking individuals as dive-bombing birds,” laughs a woman who teaches workplace leadership skills. We’ll call her Vicky. Vicky runs into emotional vampires occasionally at her seminars.
“They hang around for miracle answers on personal work issues,” Vicky explains. “They drone on for hours and offer to drive to my hotel with me.
They are bent on dragging me down.” Vicky says she’s learned to fix these conversations with a simple ploy. “I tell them I will send them some additional literature,” says Vicky. “I quickly try to summarise their problem and name some literature I can drum up.”
So, does Vicky ever follow through with mailing the literature?
“In some cases, I do,” says Vicky. “But mostly, I try to lose these individuals. Emotional vampires are not interested in fixing their problems.
They want to drain away my enthusiasm and love for life. So, I just run!” Keep in mind that we’ve all been emotional drainers at one time or another.
Who among us hasn’t almost crippled our friends with talk of marriage problems, financial woes or workplace issues? When we’re hurting, most of us will launch into a monologue that would try the nerves of any therapist.
So, can anyone unload pain properly - and not become an emotional vampire to others? Try these tactics:
*Go to your bottom-line question. For example, ask your friends, “Where can I get help for my child? She’s getting bullied.”
* Devise a plan of action. If you think your husband is cheating, find out. Don’t waste time calling all your friends 10 times. Cool down and carefully look for clues.
* Don’t discuss every problem with others. There are plenty of bad things to let slide. If someone cuts you off in traffic or your mother-in-law stayed too long over the weekend, don’t make these concerns bigger by talking about them.
“I’ve found that if you talk about problems too much, they will expand!” declares a hospital administrator we’ll call Fred. “I have an imaginary iron skillet that I mentally ‘fry’ some problems in - and I slam the lid on them.” Fred says he’s discovered emotions are catching - just like a cold. “If I seem powerful and on top of things, my fellow workers get into this groove,” says Fred. “But, if I start to complain, my team will waste an entire morning on venting total nonsense.” Over the past 25 years, Fred says he’s noticed that his most valuable employees are like a non-stick frying pan. “They let a lot of bad stuff go - and let it go quickly. They mentally floss away junk that will clog up their wheels. The worst employees, however, are emotional vampires. They get a ‘high’ off making everyone else feel depressed.”
* Judi Hopson and Emma Hopson are authors of a stress management book for paramedics, firefighters and police, Burnout to Balance: EMS Stress. Ted Hagen is a family psychologist. Write to them in care of McClatchy-Tribune News Service, 700 12th Street NW, Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20005; please enclose a copy of the column and the name of the newspaper you saw it in. You can also contact the authors through the website www.hopsonglobal.com.)