Emotional Vampires: When Family Drains Your Energy
It’s Halloween this week, so I thought it would be the perfect time to talk about something a little spooky — not ghosts or monsters, but the emotional vampires many of us grew up with. I wanted to blend a Halloween theme with something real: the ways childhood trauma and toxic family dynamics can still haunt us as adults.
There’s a certain kind of exhaustion that comes being around people who drain your energy.
You can feel it in your body after a phone call, a visit, or even a short message.
Your chest tightens, your mood drops, and you start second-guessing yourself.
That’s the aftermath of emotional vampires, the people who feed off your energy.
And for many adult children of toxic families, these patterns didn’t start recently. They began long ago in childhood, when the first bites were taken out of your self-esteem.
When the Biting Began
The vampires don’t come out only at night to seek fresh blood; they live right inside the home drinking your blood.
Maybe your mother’s words cut like tiny fangs, each bite drawing a little more of your blood, meaning your confidence: For example, words like:
“Why can’t you be more like your sister?”
“You’re too sensitive.”
“No one likes people who act like that.”
“You have to stay quiet, or stop being so shy”
Or just simply she gave you the stinky look, the disapproving look that those non-verbal made you feel like you are defective.
Or maybe your father used control or bully you to feed off your fear:
“Stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about.”
“What are you so happy about?” “Stop laughing”
“You’re imagining things — that never happened.”
“Don’t talk back to me or I will hit you”
You learned to survive by staying small or acting our your emotions on other people.
But those small bites add up.
Over time, they drain the color out of your spirit — your spontaneity, your joy, your sense of self.
That’s what emotional vampirism looks like in childhood:
A slow, invisible draining of life force — your energy, your truth, your light, and again your sense of self.
The Family Legacy of Emotional Vampires
Dysfunctional families often run on a system of emotional feeding.
Someone needs control, power, admiration, or constant reassurance and someone else learns to provide it.
For example, a narcissistic parent feeds on your approval, admiration and vulnerability.
The controlling sibling feeds on your obedience.
The victim relative feeds on your sympathy.
The codependent or needy relative who constantly calls to gossip or vent, but never asks how you are doing, and there is no space for you in the conversation.
And the gossiping or venting parent who twists your words, plays victim, and leaves you questioning your own sanity.
Each interaction becomes an exchange where your peace, time, or emotional safety is the price.
They bite not with fangs, but with guilt, manipulation, or criticism, taking advantage of your energy.
And sometimes you might not even notice you’re being drained until you’re completely depleted.
How It Shows Up Now
As an adult, you might find that after family interactions you feel:
Foggy or confused — questioning what just happened or if you overreacted
Guilty or obligated — feeling like it’s your job to maintain peace
Drained and heavy — as though something literally sucked the energy out of you
Anxious or on edge — like you can’t relax, even when you’re home again
These are all signs that your body recognizes the emotional danger before your mind does.
Your nervous system remembers the “bite” — the tension, the tone, the look that meant criticism was coming.
You’re not overreacting. You’re remembering.
The Poison They Bring
Toxic families often carry their own kind of poison — unhealed pain passed down through generations.
The criticism, manipulation, or emotional neglect you experienced wasn’t random; it was learned.
But when you start healing, you stop allowing their poison to circulate through you.
You start filtering what enters your mind and heart.
You begin to recognize that the guilt, shame, and exhaustion you feel after interacting with them aren’t proof that you’re bad — they’re evidence that you’ve been bitten too many times.
Breaking the Curse
Here’s the good news: you can break the family curse. You don’t have to turn yourself into a vampire.
What I mean by that is that you can
Set limits even when it makes others uncomfortable.
Choose not to engage in gossip, venting, or drama, where there is no space for you.
Say no.
Rest after emotionally charged interactions.
Allowing yourself to see that distance can be love too, in order to protect your energy.
You can be a healthy parent yourself, a healthy partner, a friend and even a healthy parent for yourself and stop draining your own energy. Stop becoming your own vampire.
Notice what dampens your energy, what makes you replenished and how you are balancing your energy. Draining your own energy means, not being disciplined, not following through the things you wanted to do, procrastinating and constantly beating yourself up.
You Deserve to Protect your Own Energy
If you’re ready to stop feeling drained by family dynamics and start protecting your peace, I offer a free 30-minute consultation to help you explore what healing and support could look like for you.
You can schedule your free consult here and take the first step toward peace and emotional freedom.
