Emotional Vampires: How To Deal With Emotionally Draining People: Julie Hanks LCSW on Studio 5

Summary

Emotional vampires are those individuals who seem to drain all your positive energy, often leaving you feeling exhausted and heavy. Dr. Julie Hanks identifies these energy drainers and offers strategies to cope with them. From narcissists and victims to controllers and splitters, each type requires specific management tactics to maintain your own emotional well-being. By setting boundaries, staying emotionally neutral, and asserting personal needs, one can protect themselves from being overwhelmed by such relationships. Understanding that these people are often dealing with their own wounds can foster a compassionate but firm approach in managing interactions.

Highlights

• Emotional vampires sap your positive energy; recognize and manage them effectively. 🌟
• Narcissists and victims are just some types of emotional vampires. Learn to set boundaries and stay firm. 🌈
• Stay emotionally neutral with splitters who alternate between praise and anger. 🎭
• Remember, emotional vampires are often wounded people; compassion goes a long way. 💖
• Maintaining your emotional health is key in managing these complex relationships. 💪

Key Takeaways

• Recognize emotional vampires by how drained they leave you feeling. 🧛‍♂️
• Narcissists have a 'me first' attitude and limited empathy. Manage by setting realistic expectations. 🚫
• Victims externalize blame and are drama-centric. Be firm yet compassionate in boundaries. ⛔
• Controllers tell you how to feel and act. Maintain your autonomy confidently. 🔐
• Splitters swing between idealization and rage. Stay neutral and avoid taking sides. 🕊️

Overview

Emotional vampires—you know, those people who just seem to drain the life out of you? We’ve all encountered them at some point. Dr. Julie Hanks shares insights on spotting these energy-suckers and offers handy strategies for handling them without losing your sanity. From narcissists to victim players, they might just be holding onto unresolved wounds, sucking out the emotional energy to fill their voids.

Narcissists march to the beat of 'me, me, me,' making it challenging to feel valued by them. While you can’t make them change, setting manageable expectations and healthy boundaries can protect your emotional state, making interactions smoother. Victims, on the other hand, thrive on drama and external blame - don’t engage beyond compassion and set limits where necessary.

Then there are controllers and splitters. Controllers like telling you what to do, potentially squashing your creativity and autonomy in the process. Keep asserting your needs confidently. Splitters, often seen in borderline personalities, swing from love to rage sharply. The trick? Stay cool, neutral, and resist playing into their triangulation games. Remember, kindness combined with firm boundaries leads the way.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Emotional Vampires The chapter titled 'Introduction to Emotional Vampires' introduces the concept of emotional vampires, individuals who drain positive energy from others. The discussion features therapist Julie Hanks, who shares strategies for identifying and protecting oneself from these emotional vampires. A light-hearted reference to fangs and teeth sets the tone as the conversation begins with an acknowledgment of Judith, likely a reference to an expert or author in the field.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Signs of Emotional Vampires In the chapter titled 'Signs of Emotional Vampires,' Orlov identifies five signs that may indicate you are dealing with emotional vampires. Some of these signs include feeling incredibly tired or your eyelids growing heavy during interaction, a sudden drop in mood or feeling 'slimed' as if something distasteful just occurred. Another sign discussed is the tendency to binge on comfort foods, which Orlov describes as a coping mechanism when faced with these draining interactions.
• 01:30 - 03:00: Identifying the Narcissist The chapter 'Identifying the Narcissist' discusses the concept of emotional vampires, which are individuals that can emotionally drain others after interactions. It focuses on identifying narcissists as a type of emotional vampire and elaborates on the importance of managing rather than avoiding them, as people around us may have these draining tendencies. The chapter suggests strategies for managing interactions with narcissists to mitigate their emotional impact.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Managing the Narcissist The chapter 'Managing the Narcissist' discusses characteristics of individuals with narcissistic traits. It highlights a 'me first' attitude, where everything is about them, showing limited empathy toward others. If their desires are unmet, they tend to become cold, withdrawn, or even punishing. The term 'narcissist' is commonly used in society today, with a key indicator being their inability to empathize.
• 05:00 - 06:00: Understanding the Victim This chapter explores the concept of narcissism and self-absorption, highlighting how some individuals struggle to value or understand perspectives other than their own. The author discusses a question posed on Facebook about emotionally draining people, eliciting responses from various individuals, including Kurt Bester. Bester, a musician, shares his experience with a friend he refers to as 'the consumer,' someone who constantly seeks help without offering value in return, emphasizing the one-sided nature of such relationships.
• 06:00 - 09:00: Setting Boundaries with the Victim The chapter discusses managing relationships with emotionally draining individuals, often referred to as 'emotional vampires' or narcissists. It stresses the importance of keeping expectations realistic, as these individuals rarely reciprocate emotional support. Additionally, it advises against tying one's self-worth or self-esteem to the approval of such individuals, as it's an unending cycle. Effective communication strategies are also touched upon, aimed at handling interactions healthily with these challenging personalities.
• 09:00 - 12:00: Dealing with the Controller The chapter discusses strategies for dealing with narcissistic individuals, specifically focusing on framing situations in ways that emphasize benefits to them. It suggests responding to their requests by postponing, helping when possible, and acknowledging their emotional vulnerabilities. The approach is described as leveraging subtle psychology rather than enabling, recognizing them as emotionally wounded rather than inherently malicious.
• 12:00 - 15:00: Handling the Splitter This chapter discusses how to handle individuals known as 'splitters,' focusing on their attempts to draw emotional energy and life force from others. It emphasizes the importance of recognizing these wounded individuals to manage interactions in a way that leaves everyone content. The chapter identifies two main types: the narcissist, who seeks constant attention and validation, and the victim, characterized by a 'yes, but' attitude when receiving advice, often externalizing blame and responsibility.
• 15:00 - 16:00: Conclusion and Final Thoughts In the conclusion and final thoughts chapter, the emphasis is on personal responsibility and the common tendency of blaming others for one's own pain. The discussion reflects on earlier conversations about avoiding the habit of taking on other people's emotional burdens and stresses the importance of setting firm boundaries. Practical examples include limiting the time spent engaging with those who try to offload their issues onto you, such as stating you only have a limited time to talk. This reinforces personal emotional health and self-respect.

Emotional Vampires: How To Deal With Emotionally Draining People: Julie Hanks LCSW on Studio 5 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 welcome back to studio five so emotional vampires are all around those are the people who really they drain the positive energy right out from us while we all know an emotional vampire we may not be able to recognize them so therapist Julie Hanks is here with some of the strategies to spot those vampires and protect ourselves from their bite so tell us how do you know you know you're scaring me with the fangs and the teeth they're know you've encountered an emotional vampire well Judith dr. Judith
• 00:30 - 01:00 Orlov identified five signs one is that your eyelids get really heavy like interacting with someone you're like okay I'm just ready right now and the another was your mood tanks you feel you feel slimed that's so you feel slimed you feel like a little something icky just happened to me or you binge on comfort foods that's my excuse walked through that process in
• 01:00 - 01:30 my mind there are people who after you hang up the phone or after you leave their presence you feel your mood just shift yeah heaviness those are signs that you've encountered an emotional vampire okay you have some examples of some emotional dampers you're gonna walk us through what these are and how we can avoid them what's the first one up that we're gonna talk about well we're not gonna avoid them but we're gonna manage them okay because you can't avoid them people around us will will drain us but how do you manage them so the narcissist
• 01:30 - 02:00 is the first one and you you can notice a narcissist in your life fight they have a me first attitude everything kind of is about them they're they have a limited capacity to empathize with with you it kind of the world revolves around them and if they don't get their way they they become cold or withdrawn or maybe even punishing I think this word this title is thrown around quite a bit right now in society narcissists oh yeah yeah well and one of the big keys is if they're not able to emphasize right so
• 02:00 - 02:30 we all tend to be self-absorbed narcissistic aunt feel with you right think it's hard for them to see your perspective or value your perspective right so I put a I put out a question on Facebook you know who emotionally drains you and got some interesting responses in fact Kurt Bester responded mr. Christmas are are you Tom musician he says he has a friend he he nicknames just in his mind the consumer because everything's about how Kurt can help this person and what he
• 02:30 - 03:00 needs from and it's never reciprocal and so that's a really good example when you're in a relationship where it's not reciprocal so how do we manage that okay what you want to do is keep your expectations realistic you can't expect much reciprocity with an emotional vampire who's a narcissist and never never link your self-worth or self-esteem to their approval so you because you'll just it's a bottomless pit gotta separate that right right and then when you're communicating with a
• 03:00 - 03:30 narcissist frame it in terms of how it will benefit them they're asking you for something and you don't want to do it say you know what I'm not able to help you right now give me a week and then I'll be able to give you what you want so you want to frame it in like how it's gonna benefit that's a subtle psychology it's not enabling no that's just working around there right there handicap is let's call it that or emotional wound okay really these Vail motional vampires are wounded people they're not evil or oh they're
• 03:30 - 04:00 just they're wounded and they're trying to get life force from you and emotional energy from you on this other other hand it's important for us to be able to recognize that so the wounded and we can manage them so everybody's happy okay the narcissist is number one yeah number two is the victim poor me right when you give advice they say yes but try to helpfully solve it so yes but and they're kind of a externalized
• 04:00 - 04:30 responsibility everything their pain is everyone else's fault it's a very common how do you okay you want to last time we talked about not taking on people's emotional baggage yeah you don't pick up their bags when they try to say hey carry this for you we also you want to really set and firm limits with it oh you know what I only have five minutes to talk to you right now or you know what we've kind of
• 04:30 - 05:00 had this conversation twelve times and so let's talk about something else so you want to be loving and compassionate but also firm with your boundaries so they don't suck the emotional life out of you how do you not offend so what if the victim in your life is someone that you have to interact with on a regular basis a mother a sister okay family something like we've talked about that 12 times I can see that coming across almost offensive to that well that's okay boundaries will be offensive
• 05:00 - 05:30 sometimes right but your job is to protect your own emotional energy not to make everybody around you happy big surprise for some of us it's okay to kind of have them go what because they're out of line continuing to to you know try and take your energy and maybe that's the way of managing them is by letting the know you're out of line and maybe they're aware of it and they try not they try to keep it in control a little bit more you want to always be compassionate I know you really need help I know you're in pain and I can't
• 05:30 - 06:00 really talk to you about this anymore so let me know when you are ready for some solutions I'd love to give you some good stuff so be compassionate yeah the next example someone's going to suck the energy out of you this one's the controller tell you how to feel and what to do oh you should do this you should feel this and and you know you've encountered them when you feel invalidated like what you're doing or how you're feeling is not right so how do we avoid that trap the controller well first you never want to tell a
• 06:00 - 06:30 controller what to do you know I had I had an example a facebook friend said that she had a church calling and the person who was over it was a music calling told her how to stand what songs to sing how to teach the songs she said it just killed her spirit in her creativity and so I thought oh that's a great example somebody's trying to micro manage you so what you want to do is
• 06:30 - 07:00 confidently assert yourself so thank you for your suggestion I'll consider it and then do whatever you want with controllers you want to stick to the important issues only don't get in little power struggles just pick out the important issues and you're gonna set boundaries with those and then again never never tell them what to do okay this last vampire you call a splitter what is this literary play or this is also a borderline we've heard borderline personality disorder so you can cite
• 07:00 - 07:30 this because they'll flip on you like you're all good you're my best friend or you're my favorite daughter-in-law and then all of a sudden you they feel crossed and then they're the fangs and the claws come out they get really angry they feed off of anger other people's and their own hmm and so there's this back and forth between idealizing and range it gets a little scary sometimes so the key is to stay emotionally
• 07:30 - 08:00 neutral so if they are coming at you you don't respond in a reactive way because they're trying to get you to react and I see this a lot in my practice clients come in and they have relationships with people who are splitting and another thing they do is they pit people against each other they'll tell one person one thing one person the other get these so this creating a triangle so you never want to take sides or go oh yeah you
• 08:00 - 08:30 know she said this just you want to avoid that that pitting against each other sighs and I think that oh I don't know if we discuss it here in the segment or during the commercial break but you mentioned these emotional vampires they're not malicious they're not out to get people purposely it's just kind of their own limitation right it's their own wounds there's something missing inside of them and so they're looking outside for other people to give it to them without training nor we're just trying to manage them we want we'll help them and help us if we can identify and know how to manage
• 08:30 - 09:00 sometimes you do need to cut it off yeah cut off the relationship if it's really damaging but most of the time it's just something you want to manage good advice thanks - thanks so much when we come