Friday 15 November 2013

Trauma Vampires: Is There One in Your Life?


We all are aware of, and have encountered the 'fair weathered friend' phenomena. The individual who comes into to your life when things are going well for you, but have a habit of vanishing when you are in difficult circumstances. 

There is also another kind of conditional friend or acquaintance who performs the reverse function. They only enter your life when you are going through a particularity difficult period. Unlike a true friend who arrives under the guise of sincere support and compassion, the type I have come to term as the Trauma Vampire are a very different kettle of fish altogether. They come to feed and not to provide genuine compassion. The see themselves in the middle of a soap opera without the soap.

The Trauma Vampire is an individual who is literally energised by your personal difficultly. They will be there non-stop to constantly enforce and remind you of how bad things are for you. However, it'll be done under the guise of compassion and support. In many cases the Trauma Vampire has no deliberate design to compound your misery and harvest it. So they are not always evil or pathological in their intent. But sometimes they are too. Either way, they are very difficult and unhelpful people to have in your life.

The video below gives an outline of the personality type and how you might spot them. 




One spectacular example I witnessed on Facebook a couple of years back was a woman who had her 'friend' post photos of her recent ex-husbands wedding to a woman he left her for onto her wall with comments such as, "he's already walking down the aisle!!!!" This wasn't stupidity, this was feeding the poor woman's trauma and soaking up her suffering.



CAR CRASH FRIENDSHIP 101


Common Traits of the Trauma Vampire:
  • You feel much worse and far more despondent when they come in with their 'support'.
  • Just when you feel you are getting some relief from your torment they knock on the door, call, email and throw you right back into the depths of despair once more.
  • They try to convince you in a passive aggressive manner hidden in 'advice' that you will not recover from this.
  • Other genuinely supportive friends will tell you the Trauma Vampire is only making your feel worse by constantly returning you to the sensations and misery you underwent at your lowest point.
  • When you do stand up for yourself and try to get your old self back, you get warnings that you could be making a huge mistake.
  • When you overcome your misery or hardship they vanish!
  • They are very fond of disgusting statements based on nothing substantial such as: 'no smoke without fire...' and 'people are talking...' This is not support, they are enjoying and harvesting energy from your pain.
  • They seem almost 'electrified' when talking about the pain you are going through. It is like they are watching an exciting 3D movie you are the star of.

If you have experienced this type of individual feel free to post your story in the comments section below.

11 comments:

  1. I remember when my son was born severely disabled, there were certain people who I felt were loving the drama of it all, not because they wanted to cause me harm, but because it made them feel important, and that they were at the centre of the eye of the storm, some people are addicted to drama. And then there were the Schadenfreuders, who quite enjoyed watching me go through my trauma, because it made them feel as though their life wasn't so bad compared to mine, and they got to feel a little bit superior. I became their "somebody to feel sorry for". I have often noticed how certain people are much less interested when you tell them about your successes and the good things that have happened to you - all of a sudden they want to change the subject!

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    1. stacy i know what you mean, its weird some people like magnet to bad news and want to talk about it, making it seem worse, and its just weird that they need this to fill their life and they would stay away when you have better news just in case they will envy you about it and they might feel inferior then

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  2. I came to your website by way of James Corbett, and Russell Brand's interview. I was one of those was mesmerized by Russell until I listened to your analysis on Red Ice.
    Really insightful, interesting and substance! As much of your work is especially on psychopathy. A real education on human personalities. Keep up the highly interesting work. The woman above good analysis. Thanks for all your effort Thomas.

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  3. harvesting energy, good way of explaining

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  4. This is a bit of a non-sequiter but I think it's really important. Maslow's hierarchy of human needs shows that every human has to satisfy 4 stages until we reach the self-actualization stage and unfortunately most of us aren't even getting past the first stage which is the physiological stage because of the global diet (opiate wheat, dioxin meat, estrogen chicken, heavy metal fish, etc, etc). It's going to be a long time before the human race has an uplifting of global consciousness because of this. Is "someone" messing with our food for this reason? Sorry, but I have to bang the drum about this. The opiate wheat thing is getting a lot of press at the moment t G (youtube "wheatbelly" by Dr.William Davis).

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  5. Regarding Bruce Jenner, I don't understand why you are pro-transgender? That whole thing is a psy-op wanting the masses to accept that crazy shit. I had a roommate back in 98 that was transgender (male to female) and he was a freak show, worse then any woman when it came to moods. He at least wasn't a sex trade worker like most of them.

    Great article, I think I am definitely a Trauma Vampire, I love seeing people down in the dumps and not happy. I can not be happy so why should others? F-cked up I know but how can I change that? Reading your blog, listening to your shows are helping me out a lot :) Love you Thomas <3

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    1. It must be a gift to be able to judge an entire grouping of individuals on your encounter's with one...

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    2. Thinking you're another gender is a mental illness.

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    3. So, if we allow that that thinking you are another gender is mental illness like any other mental illness, say schizophrenia or bipolar, how do you treat your friends with a mental illness. I guess if you thrive on spreading your personal gloom, you might suggest your schizophrenic friend may as well quit taking the meds and just pretend they will be ok without them, so you can bask in theird crash. Oh but wait, you don't have any friends, you may have a group of acquaintence that mistaken you for a friend. I will predict that once you accept some e warts and all, you will find that lifting one another can produce those elusive feelings of worth and happiness you actually crave. Best of luck!

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  6. This is exactly what happened to me after the sudden death of my husband, People who show up with toilet paper of all things! (helpful) and want to hear every wretched detail of the horrific accident. I never understood it, then they would give me unsolicited hypothesis as to what they thought occurred which would only freak me out more. Now, I have a name for it. I soon stopped answering the phone or the door. They wore out an already worn out widow. It wasn't long after that I was targeted by a psychopath, but that's another story.

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  7. This Topic never ceases to amaze me!

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