Vampires are mythological creatures who
subsist by feeding on the life essentials, like blood, of living creatures. They
are animated corpses who rise from the grave at night to suck blood from
sleeping people.
The idea of vampires started to become
popular in the 18th century in Western Europe. They believed vampires have no reflection in the mirror and they could be warded off by apotropiacs like
garlic, wild rose branches, and hawthorn plants.
In modern fiction, vampires are depicted as
suave and charismatic blood sucking creatures.
But do vampires really exist?
Of course they don’t exist in real life.
But we do all have vampire attributes and we are all personal vampires to
somebody.
Vampires are the difficult persons in our
lives. Much like the fictional character who doesn't have a mirror reflection, difficult
persons cannot self-reflect. We all are vampires at one point, to one person, to a certain level.
Personal vampires are infectious. They either
attack your immune system by stressing you out or they pass on the virus to you
and influence you by their ways.
There are three types of vampires:
1. Pure Vampires
-always
difficult to all people
-they
think and feel that they are really good people and are always right
2. Personal Vampires
-your
vampire may not be a vampire to another person
-they
press a certain personal or sensitive button in us
3. Partial Vampires
-all
of us are this
But before we judge others as vampires or
tag others as difficult persons, let us first look at ourselves. Perhaps, there
are also areas in our lives that we must first fix or remove before we fix
others’ or remove the speck from their eyes.
It is very important that we spot the
vampires in our lives so we will be able to protect ourselves with the right
apotropaics or ways to ward them off, without having to hurt them or allowing
ourselves to be continually hurt.
There are eight common vampires:
1. Criticizing Vampire
-it
would seem that their divine mission is to correct the world
-they
always feel the need to make others feel small so they become big in others eyes
-they
think they’re going to explode if they don’t air their criticism or unsolicited
correction
2. Controlling Vampire
-they
use intimidation, guilt, anger to manipulate your emotion
-they
cannot execute their good intention without hurting others
-they’re
like children that if you don’t give in to their plea or want they will whine
or cry
3. Contradicting Vampire
-they
will disagree with you because for them “it will just not work”
-they’re
not open to new ideas
-they
are “that’s difficult, let’s not do that,” as opposed to, “that’s challenging,
but we can find a way and do it”
-they’re
like children trapped in adult human bodies, they have good intention but they
don’t know how to execute them
4. Clinging Vampire
-they’re
like parasites looking for hosts
-his/her
self-esteem is totally dependent on others, until they smother others
5. Crying Vampire
-they’re
overly sensitive people
-they
easily get hurt and they suck the energy out of you by crying
6. Complaining Vampire
-wherever
you put them they just love complaining and whining anytime about whatever
-they
easily lose interest and tend to be unappreciative or ungrateful
-they easily look older than their ages
-they easily look older than their ages
-they
are not aware that they have choices… to choose to be happy or to stop or to
change
7. Coward Vampire
-they
don’t know how to say NO at the right time with the right reason
-they
love pleasing other people, that they are no longer able to attend to their
accepted responsibilities
-they
tend to become liabilities instead of assets
-they
easily get burnt out
8. Con Vampire
-can
be very charming, kind, and good
-they
are good at convincing people, but they are also very good at telling lies
after lies after lies
-they
are capable of making people believe them in the midst of their doubts, because
he is good at supporting one lie with nine others
-pathological
liars
These difficult people becomes our vampires
because they suck the energy out of us when they press our personal buttons.
The core of vampirism is low self-worth. Vampires
are like little children desperate and hungry for love and attention.
One of their biggest problem is they cannot
see their reflections in the mirror. That is why it is very important that we
actively take the role of spotting them.
Once we find them and do our best to
understand them—that we all have past and wounds or are going through something
difficult at that moment—then we can help them by providing the right apotropaic
to help them take off their masks, cloaks, and fangs that make them vampires to
others, or if not, for us to put emotional space between us and them without
having to cut relationships with them.
In fiction, once a vampire always a vampire.
But in real stories, there’s hope. We can change! We have choices—to grow, be
happy, improve, which company to be in.
Before we spot our vampires, it is also
very important that we take the time to first pause and self-reflect. Sometimes
the weaknesses of others that irritate us are the same unacknowledged weaknesses
that we have.
As we assess ourselves, ask the right
questions and totally take off our blindfolds. We cannot lie to ourselves; not acknowledging
our defects will only worsen us. Accepting that we have problems to fix is the
first step to solving them, to improvement.
Our illnesses or defects are not who we are
supposed to be. Rather, they are the ones keeping us from who we are supposed
to be.
Also, these vampires or difficult persons
will help us see ourselves clearly and know ourselves better.
We are all vampires to somebody else. But
if we start thirsting for the blood of Jesus and desire to have it pour on us—on
our wounds, on our confusion, on our hopelessness—Jesus’ blood can surely
cleanse us and make us anew (Revelations 1:5, “To Him who loves us and has
freed us from our sins by His blood.”)
Jesus doesn't care where we have been and
what we have been through… All He cares about and sees clearly is our
potential and the direction we can take to the place we are supposed to be
going—in His kingdom of eternal joy and love.
We can all change! It’s not the person per
se that makes him a vampire, but his behavior. We are all boxes of possibilities… Don’t
worry, we can all change for the better—if we want to and act upon it.
(Second installment, click Protecting Yourself From Vampires )
