Vampires

There are certain kinds of people in life that seem to suck up every pleasure, every small achievement, every tiny happiness, every moment of kindness and relaxation, every quiet enjoyment of nature that you might experience.

They seem to find it imperative to point out faults, failures, or human errors in everything you do, write or say.  These are the parents who wind up alienating their children, folks who drive away spouses who have sense enough to leave, who when angry, upset or depressed will take it out on others in order not to have to recognize what is happening to them.

It isn't that many of these pathetic people can't love; their self esteem is so low that having to acknowledge it would kill them, that having to feel the depth of their self-loathing would be a mortal blow.

Everything you do is judged by them.  It's as if they are ever on the alert to find a fly in the ointment, or the minute grain of sand on a pristine floor.  They often manage to hook up with people who need to go through life being judged, so as couples they form the ideal mesh of pathologies until someone manages to change--if it ever happens.

There is a certain kind of envy in psychology that goes beyond the "I wish I had what that guy has" type, the garden variety envy that all of us feel.  These emotional vampires feel an envy so corrosive that if they cannot have or be what they envy, they want to destroy it in the other person.  It is a hideous, soul-killing envy that injures everyone around them.

Others, however, prefer to provoke irritation or anger in the rest of us so we have no chance of exploring what they are all about; the black fear that someone might discover how worthless they really are makes them guarantee their safety by getting everyone else angry, a sure-fire way of avoiding intimacy and everything it might reveal. 

In my experience with family and friends who suffer from this kind of emotional rabies, they may have every kind of courage in the world except one: the courage to face their own feelings about themselves.  Their most horrific fear is having to find out how they feel about themselves in all its ghastly detail, in spite of the fact that once done, it seems to be a case of much ado about nothing.

They hide behind a wall of judgmental criticism and fault-finding that keeps everyone out--because who in his right mind would want to go there?  And yet they yearn for affection, admiration, and closeness while making sure it will never happen.

It is a nightmare to be this kind of vampire.  Keep it in mind next time you come across one, but don't put up for a minute with his/her attacks.  It constitutes psychological abuse, and tolerating it only prolongs the vampire's capacity for self-deception.  And surely you deserve more than this.