There are many types of people we come across in life. One of these types, I call "The Emotional Vampire". This type of vampire is far more dangerous than the type that feasts on your mere blood. The emotional vampire feeds on your soul by sucking your emotions dry until it is difficult to care anymore.
Several years ago I had a run in with this type of vampire. We worked in the same office. She was intelligent and witty and fun to talk to - at first. We became friends in short order and spent lunches and breaks talking about many things. Of course, eventually the conversations became more personal. We confided our hopes and dreams, and of course our worries and problems.
A few times she lightly brushed upon somethings that seemed to indicate trouble in her marriage. My sixth sense raised a quiet alarm, but she would quickly breeze onto another topic and I would inwardly chide myself for being paranoid and began to doubt my own inner feelings.
One day, she wrote me and email and asked me to meet her outside at break time. She was in her car, crying. As a sympathetic friend, I instantly became upset myself and listened to her as she began to tell a horrific story involving herself and her husband, who was emotionally abusive and very controlling.
I was scared because I felt that it was important to give her good advice, but I also felt ill equipped to be giving someone important advice on something of this nature. I asked her questions, trying hard not to make her feel defensive or to sound like I was interrogating her. At the same time, this was difficult because I realized that I was a little angry with her and part of me wanted to shake her and ask why she would put up with that.
I listened and gave the best advice I could. I obviously thought that the best thing she could do was to leave him, especially for the sake of her 4 year old daughter. Her other two "children" still lived in the home as well, but they were grown adults. The daughter at least seemed to have a work ethic and had two jobs, albeit minimum wage ones with no career path. The son; however, was repugnant to me because he was in his mid 20's living at home with no job, or desire to have one apparently. But it was just as apparent that he was her favorite kid so I had to try to keep my expression from showing my distaste when she mentioned him.
Over the course of the next several months, most of our conversations became about her situation. At first I listened to her and nodded in sympathy. Then, I did what most other people would probably have done and started trying to help her leave the situation because I incorrectly assumed that she would want to leave this bad situation that she took the time to complain and cry about nearly every day. And that, was where I made my biggest mistake.
At first, she would listen, or maybe pretend to listen, to my plans for her to get free from this marriage and strike out on her own. There were obvious obstacles because of a long history of bad choices she had made. Things like getting into debt and not being able to have the power turned on in her own name due to serious delinquencies and having chosen to buy sports style cars and having many traffic tickets so her car insurance was very costly.
I researched for hours looking for free legal help and ways for her to save money and reduce her expenses so that she would be able to leave. When I gave her the information and presented my plan to her, she looked at me and shrugged. She must have had 10 excuses for every idea I suggested to help her. Then she mentioned that the adult son in his 20's promised he would "look for a job" and if he got one then they could afford to move away from the abusive husband.
A few more months passed and I asked how it was going. She said her son still had not gotten a job and wasn't really looking. This made me a little angry and I asked her why she would not demand that he get off his lazy butt and stop playing video games all day.
Once she had mentioned that he was mad at her because he wanted to take her car on a road trip with his pals and she came to work with the car instead. I was appalled by this, and also be the fact that this freeloader son also made his mother buy him cigarettes, pay for his car insurance, and give him gas money.
On this particularly day, things came to a head. All the months of her sobbing on my shoulder, yet making excuses and taking no action. No matter how nice and gentle I tried to be with her in pointing out things that were very wrong and could be changed, she just shrugged it all off. I told her that she was doing her son a real disservice by enabling his lazy freeloading behavior. I mean he was in his mid-20's. I told her how horrible that is going to look on a resume if an employer sees a person that has dropped out of college years ago and is that old and hasn't had a job.
She got a bit defensive at that point and said that he helped get her four-year old off to school in the mornings which was a help to her, and that she didn't mind paying for his things. She also pointedly commented that it was no one's business what she did with her money and at least he wasn't on welfare. Now, able-bodied people collecting welfare is a real sore-point for me. I told her that maybe her son wasn't on welfare now, but that she was raising a future welfare recipient that others would eventually be forced to support when she was not around. I'm sure she was offended, but I didn't care at that point.
Eventually the whole thing began to feel like an endless loop of unhealthy insanity. for me, and I started avoiding her when possible until she got the hint and found someone else to sob to. This may seem callous, but honestly, if someone is just going to constantly complain about their situation, but has no intentions of even attempting to change it, what is the point of dumping the burden on someone else?
After distancing myself from this former friend, I felt more positive and energized to help people who wanted to actually be helped. I was only then that I realized the real harm that this "friendship" with the emotional vampire had been doing to me. It really is true that you become the sort of person you surround yourself with. That is why it is always better to surround yourself with positive people with a good attitude instead of those who are negative and a constant drain on your energy.