Setting Boundaries with Emotional Vampires: A Guide

In a culture that loves to pathologize bad behaviors, I’m a big fan of distancing myself from emotional vampires, those who drain emotional energy from others. We all know one. Their behavior doesn’t necessarily rise to something that can be diagnosed…certainly not something that I am able to diagnose, since I’m likely not qualified to do so…but people who just suck the life out of us for any number of reasons in any number of ways.

To me, an emotional vampire is like pornography: I know it when I see it. There’s not specific conduct that warrants the label, but once I spend time with an emotional vampire, I know that I don’t want to do it anymore. Yet sometimes I must. Some of these folks are family, and some are even “friends” in that 21^st century definition…

So, what’s a person to do? Setting boundaries is important, but oftentimes, try though we may, our boundaries aren’t as stationary as we’d like. That is, we think we know what we’re going to do until we’re asked to do it. For example, a loved one is “living rough” because of a multitude of choices he made. My boundary is that I will not give him cash, though I will buy him food. But now it’s cold and dark out, and I don’t want to leave my house when he calls and tells me that he’s hungry. Getting him food has a lot more steps in it than does giving him money, so suddenly my boundaries are in question. So, what’s a person to do?

I can’t answer that question for anyone but myself, and I know that I can be wishy washy to a point. Give him money; don’t give him money; go out of my way to get him food; don’t go out of my way to get him food; figure out a plan B and C and D. Those may all be on the table when I don’t want to leave my house that’s warm and safe and dry.

I’ve been accused of lacking sympathy, empathy, compassion…and mostly I disagree with that. I can almost always sympathize, feeling pity and sorry for others’ misfortune, even when it’s been brought on by themselves. But that doesn’t always lead to the more important feeling of empathy.

While I usually do have empathy, typically understanding and sharing the feelings/emotions of another or see things from another’s perspective, sometimes I can’t. If you’ve continued to make really poor choices that have led to misfortune, I probably can’t see things from your perspective. I don’t really understand how you got there. And if you tell me that you did something that I could never see myself doing…a heinous crime, for example…I have a very hard time empathizing with you.

Still, I don’t think I’ve ever lacked compassion if we consider it to mean “suffering together.” I show unconditional positive regard and don’t judge people just because I don’t understand them or their choices or because I wouldn’t have made the same ones. I’m an advocate through and through, and I don’t have to have been in your shoes to want to lighten your load.

Boundaries are a funny thing: they keep people out, but they also force us to stay in. That often makes our lives uncomfortable, so we look for an out. We don’t want to live in stagnant air, so we open the window a little bit and are shocked when we figure out that those emotional vampires have left bite marks on our necks.

For me, instead of setting rigid, stationary borders that would also restrict my movement, I’ve chosen to deflect the emotional vampires in my life by wearing a (virtual) string of garlic around my neck. You can’t see it, but I know it’s there, and that makes me immune to the energy suckers in my life. I’m present and compassionate, but you can only get so close to me. And, really, that’s better for everyone.