This is an old post but I’m thinking energy thieves today and I knew I’d written about this before. I’m pulling up the old post up because the comments are great. Here it is:
s said on Using Other People’s Energy:
“Cold-blooded is all I can say about lack of reciprocity. Vampires of the spirit. Have to add that, too.”
I thought this was interesting. I’ve never considered people who do this do be cold-blooded though they may be. I’ve considered them to be foolish and short-sighted.
If someone is in a position to help you it makes no sense to take a lousy five bucks off them rather than establishing a relationship that can be sustained because it’s mutually beneficial.
It reminds me of something Henry wrote once. He said, a thief has to keep moving all the time. They can never stop because they get discovered. An honest man can stay in one place.
How do you see the energy thief? What do you think drives them? What are they thinking when they take the five bucks?
~~
That’s the end of the original post. Today, I have realized for myself, what some people said in the comments, years ago. A person who does this to others may not know they’re a sink! They just don’t realize, they are draining you; taking from you and not giving anything back.
So what if you like a person who is like this? You enjoy them but you feel your pocket has been picked after every interaction? Is there a way you can let them know? Can you fix something like this, short of amputation?
To be thorough, I have thought about this being a (my) personal problem. But in the cases I’m referring to, I can see the other person creates the same scenario with everyone. They wind up rejected.
What is this? Is it possible that some people have no internal balancing mechanism or that it’s a half-bubble off or something? The habit is to take a dollar, give a dime. ALWAYS.
What do you think, circa 2020?
s- LMAO! What Italian veils their boasts! Ha ha ha, you made my day!
But really, this is a Pluto Moon thing. The favors granted and debts incurred is baked into the Italian psyche
::ducks:: in case the Italian (non) mafia gets on my ass again… 🙂
But really the cold-blooded thing is just fascinating to me. Cold-blooded means “deliberate and calculated” to me and I guess if you are going to be deliberate and calculated you should at least be smart about it.
Mega scorpio, Doug of doug and the slugs has a song about this.
“You can probably keep on winning, but all you’ve got is penny ante stakes…”
I have to say I’m still not emotionally involved to the place that I need to be with energy thieves. It took me until my Saturn Return to wake up and realize we do not all have the same capacity for self reflection.
[I attribute this realization to major transits of both Saturn and Pluto to my natal 12th House Neptune–a planet I consider a key part of my psychic awareness).
They are driven by insecurity. I see them much more benignly now, because I’ve finally realized they can’t something from me that I’m NOT giving away.
A person’s ability to protect themselves from an energy thief is not a limited commodity.
I think this is what both thief/thieved from have in common: both are worried that their resources in the emotional/psychic realm are limited and so the weirdness is born.
Since I’ve had this realization, the feeling of panic that I got when I could feel a thief in my vicinity has diminished greatly.
I’m trying to become more detached in general as I don’t want to have such strong emotional reactions to things. Still working on it.
oops! *emotionally evolved*
Kashmiri–You’re right. But I visualize it a different way: fear is what freezes the heart, and thus, coldbloodedness. Which leads to a need for blood transfusions, and thus, vampirism.
Actually, I was riffing a bit against Elsa’s veiled boasting about her hot-blooded Italian virtues. 😉
You can see the thief by the bag. If you see pieces of your life passing in front of you, it was him. He knows no limits, that’s why he doesn’t have his own life either and needs to suck. He goes – it’s there I like it let’s take it. He doesn’t think, that’something he leaves up to his victims.
yeeeah…I dunno. I don’t really see it as cold-blooded myself. I resist that way of viewing it because I want to believe that I have more personal power than that. I believe that no one can take something from me unless I (mistakenly) allow it. And it can happen through no fault of my own. Maybe I’m sick, or depressed, or down and out and therefor more susceptible. But I always am conscious of my role (this may be all my Buddhist studies talking).
I have been victim of energy theft, but in hindsight I missed my opportunity to protect myself. The theft usually came from an established relationship, which I myself chose to enter. There were signs given that I consciously ignored because I wanted the person to be what/who I wanted them to be (Neptune/Venus).
I just wanted them to be NICE…you know? ‘If I keep being nice they’ll love me and treat me the way I want to be.’
Yes, cold-blooded, that’s why they need to suck warm blood to stay alive. They need to be smart because sometimes it’s not easy to find a victim, and it’s a stress with Saturn always hunting them. Later in life they get really desperate, when they fail to find a victim or the victim gets free, they turn into dust. The cross is a good protection, I think it’s a Saturnian symbol?
Rox – yeah, were on the same wave length. I sometimes think, boy did they sell me cheap. I think it is stupid but it is also may be desperate.
I have met some energy thieves who were cold-blooded about it, but most are just unaware I think. They don’t realize that they’re draining you because this is how they’ve been all their life; it’s not malicious, it’s their stock-in-trade! And, like kashmiri said, most people aren’t self-reflective enough to see this about themselves. To me, once they recognize how they affect people yet continue to do so, then it’s cold-blooded.
It’s like the mom and son on the bouncy horse (from a year or so back) — he’s going to feel that it’s others’ duty to take care of and validate him, right? So that’s how he’s going to work until he understands that he does this, why he does this, and where it comes from. Once he hits that point he can continue to sponge energy and stagnate or take control of his own self and validation and grow. But until he makes that decision I can’t in good conscience accuse him of malicious intent.
The next 5 minutes & the next five minutes only. Short sighted indeed.
Cold-blooded in the sense of being unable to warm themselves without an outside source. Deliberate and calculating the same way starving dogs can grow to be incredibly clever about stealing food.
It just seems like some folks never learn to grow their own. Some eventually come to the conclusion that stealing is easier, but some just genuinely can’t seem to get the hang of it.
I like your description of cold-blooded ewinbee, it resonates with me. (I’m still on the stupid train, though!)
kashmiri, you don’t sound stupid to me.
People wouldn’t beg on street corners if all of us were emotional tough-guys. 🙂 We’re social creatures… it makes us susceptible to those in need. Hopefully not completely susceptible.
I’m a damn easy mark myself.
I’ve also been the starving dog quite a few times…
thanks ewinbee, you are very sweet! I actually meant that even though your description of energy thieves’ coldblooded-ness resonates (makes sense), my gut instinct is to agree that they are stupid…that’d be the thieves on the stupid train, LOL.
I have been screwed by thieves, but as I’m not operating the same way they are (they subconsciously/consciously think they can’t produce their own power, so they try and steal mine) I’m still going to be better off than them.
My energy, as my ability to protect myself, is not a limited commodity. It’s like having your gas tank cyphered. There’s gas to be got somewhere…I’m not a gas thief. I count myself lucky and ultimately %400 tougher than any damn thief, even if they did happen to catch me on a bad day!
I’m with SaDiablo. In my experience, they have NO IDEA that they are doing it.
I find it ironic that this got posted on a day where I was ABSOLUTELY BEING SUCKED DRY. I actually felt like a viper had been sucking at my neck. I tried explaining to her that I have very little/nothing left to give any more, and it’s not that I am cold and unfeeling and don’t want to give her anything she wants (well, I am cold and unfeeling, but guess why), so much that I just can’t give her enough that will ever satisfy her.
Yeah, you can guess how that went.
Interesting that this post came up as I have have just put a family member back on the plane home after an extended visit. I was appalled but also impressed as to the extent she would go to get what she wanted, emotionally and materially. I could see this coming after a while especially as she got more and more desperate. What I couldn’t see was the kick in the proverbial kidneys after she got what she wanted. Drain you dry then punish you for it. Would have been easy to sink to those depths too but managed to drag myself back from the brink – just! She has sun exactly conjunct pluto with significant saturn squares. Lots of fear with lots of power too!
jennifer-i have yet to find a situation where someone happily accepts my explanation of why i’m cutting them off of my energy feed. so i don’t anymore.
i have mixed feelings about the knows vs. not knows question. suppose it’s because i’ve seen it both ways. i have a kid who has done this both unknowingly and as calculated as a freakin’ hitman, too. and those times, it’s been very cold-blooded and lacking feeling. when it was just “issues,” then it wasn’t so much cold, just an incredibly self-involvement that didn’t bother to calculate the cost to anybody else. although the arguement could be made she didn’t care, even if she did know the bill for it.
goddess: me too. I still feel sorry for them when I cut them off my energy supply that they are sucking dry. God knows why.
because they’ve never learned that you can rely on other people to give back… so they just take.
i guess.
or they don’t want to be vulnerable.
know a guy who couldn’t stomach the idea of grounding because he didn’t want to let go of the energy he had (but if it’s poisoning you???)
I think a lot of energy thieving happens kind of unwittingly. Many people put themselves in a position to help others and leave their good, powerful, fresh energy open and accessible. This kind of no holds barred helping sacrifice causes damaged or bad energy filled people to latch on and drain them for all they are worth. It’s like, there is a gaping hole of someone’s unprotected, strong energy and someone who needs it is going to fall in and deposit their own crap energy. Like, if you even hang out with sick people for a long time, they will feel and thrive on your good healthy energy and deposit their own. When it comes to this very literal form of energy, “giving back” isn’t possible until the sick person is no longer sick so the healer knows what position they place themselves in, knows that the energy exchange is unwitting, has to be strong and not vulnerable enough not to be hurt every time. I’m thinking of Pisceans. I’m talking from personal experience. I tend to hurt healers because I have OCD traits and think all kinds of nasty things about sacred healers because my mind suggests it to itself. I think calling energy thieving cold blooded or calculating is a sack of shit. It’s the economy of energy, the way it works. Crap energy fills a vulnerable vaccuum.
Ok, I have to add that there are of course calculating energy thieves. But unless someone is protected, energy thieving happens ALL THE TIME. Put two people in a room, one more clear than the other, it could even be one of you guys, and one can pick up some of the other’s energy.
Dina, that’s amazing that you say that. I know I’ve been stolen from by two people that are OCD – and I’m not a healer. Was quite angry at the extent of the damage. It was a social situation and so was not prepared for that kind of interaction…
I kind of chalked it up to their OCD (which was part of teh conversation) but am thrilled to have it verified by someone with more knowledge and experience!!
There are people that make the choice to get what they can and run with it, with no concern or caring for the impact on others. Those are the theives, and some are very aware of it, although they may not use the same terms.
Yes, every interaction is an exchange; I don’t consider normal exchanges anything like theiving, and in most cases, there is both give and take. Even an occassional mostly one-sided exchange is not akin to selling somebody cheap. That’s the give and take from relationships.
People who do healing work are a special circumstance, and have to specifically strengthen boundaries and build their own energy, as well as learn to manage the sometimes messy energy they get from other people. Not everyone can do it, and that’s why you see such high burnout rates from mental health workers. It’s a skill.
Yeah, but goddess I disagree. I’m not talking about a simple interaction where “bad energy” is meanness or callousness. It’s not just healers, it’s an unequal energy relationship in any setting. People not knowing how to protect themselves will absorb bad energy like a sponge by which I don’t mean malicious. People confuse it (bad energy) as a bad term. Bad energy is like lint, it also wads people up so that they have a lesser sensitivity to other people’s energy and is a way of protection. You can often pick up bad energy from places even and it takes a while to expel it. Like my school library which was so full of lethargy, negativity, and the crazy lifestyle students have on the last weeks. But you see, there is no “give and take” in the energy relationship, for instance, I hug a guy with rather bad energy, I absorb some and take some off him. He has nothing to offer me. It’s not about human interaction, but simple proximity.
That said, there are somewhat malicious energy thieves that take advantage of the fresh, vulnerable energy of someone else. Once a (different) guy hugged me and I felt like I was disappearing in a black hole. The energy was so bad I dry heaved for a while afterward.
mudlikesubstance, I’m sorry about the OCD people. Did they mean to hurt you? Was it their personalities or were you feeling the brunt of what they were thinking about you? I feel really ashamed if anyone suffers for anything I think about them. The undesirability of the thoughts and possibility of hurting them makes them come all the more. Were you protected enough to not get hurt? Were you sensitive enough to energy to be at risk?
Dina – the first one happened in my early twenties and I remember it well as I threw up and spent a day in the bathroom and sleeping afterwards. Was eating very healthy from the garden then and couldn’t pin it on any other stuff in my life. I guess I am that senstive but have learned to protect myself. I don’t think that woman who was OCD (and others around me explained that she just didn’t have any control over her needs and so sensitive people tended to take her in very small doses) did not mean to take – i don’t think and I don’t want to think that she did.
On some level I have some earth energy and she gravitated towards me probably because of that – that and I give and used to give more to everyone around me.
The guy who did it was recent and is a friend of my SO’s and he’s just a prick in general and I basically told him to mind his manners in my home (in relation to his comments towards others). I wasn’t thinking of protecting myself and boy did my energy get sucked. He’s stayed away from our house and social circle for a few months now. I know he’s OCD and don’t know if that was him going off balance with no control or him reacting to my comments.
Am learning. I don’t think that people who are OCD are bad or malicious in any sense – just difficulty balancing and boundary-ing when other stuff is right in front of them to deal with. Same for many non-OCD people 😀
In many senses there are lessons there for me. It take two and so I have learned to protect myself better, care for myself better, and everything in moderation as my father says 😀
A song about a bad relationship/energy thief:
“sometimes at night i stare at the ceiling and i wonder what’s wrong with me
to involve myself with people who don’t know what my
true feeling might possibly be
who latch onto my strength like it’s all they have got
it takes all of my strengths and i go through such lengths to show them it is not
what they think they are stealing”
http://youtube.com/watch?v=oVE2-CfFZ9k
interesting dina, the artist has venus conj neptune in sag ( 3 degree orb ) and is a sun capricorn( Saturn ruled )… guess it was cold hard experience by that which she had to learn. all these responses have been so helpful to me… i’m going through all sorts of interesting transits right now… Saturn & Pluto to my moon & my 12th house neptune, too. sigh. I want to climb over to the other side. Reality is bubbling to the surface… it’s not pretty but it’s real and what can i say to that. I’m learning a lesson about my boundaries.
thief has to keep moving all the time. They can never stop because they get discovered while an honest man can stay in one place.
Well, I’ll be dipped. That is so freaking true!
How timely this is for me. This speaks to me of my sister, and makes me agree with how kashmiri described it. My sister isn’t a coldblooded person…except when it comes to her thieving(and I’m quite sure she doesn’t see it that way).
With me, it’s financial. We’ve shared a household for two years now, and she squeezes every penny out of the arrangement. She’s getting ready to go out on her own. I ask her if she’s going to take any of the food, and she tells me, no, and in fact she’s going to tally up the stuff in the pantry that she’s paid half for over time, so she can get recouped for that. WTF? Never mind times I’ve completely paid her way in different things out of generosity and love. It’s the principle of the thing for me. I’ve been there for her the entire time, plus some…I feel like I can’t rely on her for anything, plus she wants to nickle and dime me. But kashmiri is also right that it doesn’t happen unless you let it, and I’ve let it. I’m tired though, this is my last Saturn in Libra lesson (through my 2nd, better believe it), and I’m boxing up a bunch of the pantry stuff while she’s gone tonight.
She also feeds energetically off of others, usually romantic partners. She doesn’t believe she has anything worthwhile, so she takes what she can from others. It’s sad, really.
In a consult, Elsa told me that due to her Cap stellium in the 8th, scarcity of resources is a reality and a significant fear for her. I get it – when you think you’re going hungry, you’re going to steal to eat. Still bugs the hell out of me though.
I see them as blood sucker, looking to suck the life out of you. What drives them is their selfish MARS motives to seek for life that they apparently can’t make for themselves. They are thinking how can they be more selfish and take what is not theirs. I’ve encountered lots of energy thieves in my life. I can spot them a million miles away.
They also get upset when you let them know u see them. All I can say is their like dead zombies. They have no light at all. They want to take yours. You kill them with truth!!!
:). This is the story of my life. I’ve always been pretty sadgey, believing that actually everyone has perpetually regenerating energy at their disposal, which is true — but with that attitude and no protection you run into *real* bloodsuckers who genuinely, purposely deplete you. This was the case with my ex; and also my mother.
I’m sure they knew they were doing it. They just didn’t know what it was called.
My boss is actually somewhat of an energy vampire, though you wouldn’t think it. Leos need their tributes. For example, he’s got massive salary. Yet he invited his employees to his daughter’s wedding and all of us were issued a *registry card*. In other words, we were all expected to bring a gift when we barely knew this girl. But we all showed up and did this, because what choice do you have.
Shortage of pens in the office. I went to Office Depot this weekend and bought some killer GS 2 pens and a couple other types I like to write with with my own money. Brought it in with me to ask for his signature and he signed the form, closed his hand around the pen and kept smiling into my eyes while he was talking to me. Was not going to give it back,ever. I had to let him keep it.
He’d probably not register that either one of these things he did was even slightly unfair. It’s only the *slightest* pressure on the goodwill he generally enjoys; just the *smallest* press for advantage. So small you might not even notice.
In my experience the best strategy is to pretend you don’t notice. Later on that knowledge will help when they ask you to sign your houses over to them and so forth.
I’ve met a few. It’s not fear which usually motivates them but an unrestrained ego: a rampant sense of entitlement. Some people truly do feel supremely entitled to whatever is going.
No sign seems to have a monopoly on this. I’ve certainly met a couple of Leos who are prime examples (loved them both, and have been well played by them). My mother was one as well, and she was a Libra Sun (though with a ton of Scorp, and I’ve known a few Scorps guilty as charged, one in particular).
With all my Cap I think I’ve been guilty sometimes too – as was noted above, this is due a an actual fear of scarcity of resources. I’ve stolen food to survive, in the past, and ‘played the game’ to get help where I can. But I do give back generously when I have money or anything else to give. Not always to the same people though
I think energy vampires are Masters at mixed messages… a friend described it to me best… its like the goose and the golden egg. You may have come and stolen a golden egg, but u don’t have the goose… I got it right away
Interesting post. I have Saturn in Scorpio in the 12th. Energy vampires hate me because I don’t respond to their usual tactics. I usually find that these sorts work by dumping their energy on you – showering you with attention, or giving you a sob story that makes you feel like you’re the only compassionate soul in the world who truly understands them – and then pulling back so that you respond in kind, and give them back your energy and more. They try to suck you into a dynamic they control.
It’s kind of sad that we all seem to resonate with this. There are a lot of them out there.
Anyone recall “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”? That’s what EV’s remind me of. I remember the line in the movie when the doctor started to freak out.
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next, You’re next…!”
I use to battle EV’s to try and prove a point to them. Pointless. I bolt quicker than a tick in water now when they come around.
I have “Moon conj. Pluto” in my chart. I find I don’t take from people but I have “Moon-Pluto conj.” in synastry with them and they took from me…but as Kashmiri said in #7…it wasn’t anything I didn’t let myself get into. I just wanted to make them happy etc.
I meant “with someone”
Do I hear the sound of denial here?
Aren’t we all guilty, of seeking whatever and whoever, might fulfill our need/s, du jour? I think the real issue/s may be, that we aren’t taught the proper way/s to establish boundaries and to say “no”, in all the necessary ways, of saying it. If a person has always been a “yes” person; it will, at some time or another, become burdensome; and, when it finally comes down to saying “No”, for whatever reason, it’s going to create some strain on unhealthy relationships; and, maybe, (likely) even breaks, in them. Why? Because the out of balance “taker” is, whether they know it, or not, a spoiled brat, who’s likely been conditioned to believe other people owe them whatever it is that they want or demand; disguised as “need”, from their S.O. My dad was wise to tell me “not to ever start anything that I didn’t want to keep doing”. Experience taught me that, finally. Who hasn’t done something “nice” for someone, and it was appreciated, at first, then expected, and finally, demanded, as “just desserts”..? Human nature will always be, just that, in all it’s, mostly predictable, forms. I think men are more likely to be cast in that mold, by a doting, guilt-ridden mother; and, then mistake it for “love”; in all of his women. They will, however, many times figure out how to cajole and make cutsy gestures, in order to bring about that same mothering instinct, in other women. I would think (not having the experience, myself) that a “daddy’s girl” probably pursues the same M.O.? I used to be a highly charged go-getter, with limitless energy; who attracted those energy vampires, spoken of, here. When your batteries run down..don’t expect a hoard of ardent lovers to come to your “rescue”, as you once did, them. They are likely to think it’s a sign that you aren’t interested in them, anymore..if they even care to consider that..as they go after the next shining light, in the distance. As the saying goes, tho: “bright lights..attract bugs”..&, I’d add..mostly, the blood-sucking varieties.
SAMcClellan, I happen to agree with quite a lot of what you’ve written. What I wrote above was 4 years ago… I don’t think I am a vampire at all but I am far more conscious of my energy now than I was then, and far more conscious of my ability to wear certain people out. We ALL wear SOMEONE out. Not everyone is going to like our energy. Some people don’t like the Dalai Lama’s energy and it’s not like he’s running around trying to get people to help him, lol.
Most of this has been a painful discovery, painful because I don’t intend to suck anyone dry. 19 months of very intense weekly therapy (during Pluto’s transit to my Capricorn Moon) led me to see I was one of the walking wounded. But I no longer had to be.
Despite my Earth and Fire placements, I attract and am attracted to water types (I think this is due to my Moon trine Chiron and Sun inconjunct Neptune). I wear out people who want to don’t like to go as deep as I do. That could be anyone.
The past 12 months have been a year of reckoning for me. Or the year of rude awakenings. After my tears dried I was HAPPY. I did not, DO not want to go through life the way I had been. Yes I am a good person, but I was, literally, looking for love in all the wrong places.
I personally feel that although most definately energy vampires are real and quite alot of them at times, they are to me a very subtle projection, cos of course vampires dont have an obvious reflection so easy to miss, of somthing in the dark crevices of my mind that is constantly churning away using up my energy without my realising it, they never voluntarily come to light, I gotta go down into the crypt and find them to take away their power that drains the life force, so i have more to use on what iI actually choose. Quite plutonic and yet neptunian, yep thats my generation, neptune in scorp…
@SAMcClellan – brilliant post, AMEN!
Wow, this is high quality analysis. You know what image I kept seeing when in the thrall of an energy-identity-time-snatcher? Like a sun being drawn into the gravitiy field of a black hole. They shine on the outside and inside there is abolutely nothing. Only lately it hit me like a ton of bricks, that this entitlement thing wich was mentioned above, very good indeed, and this immediate neediness, that I was dealing with a three-year-old in the body of a 30something-year-old. This was so sobbering. It made me see my own conditioning, like was also said above about the yes-sayers. I mean, you think, you cannot deny help, that would make a bad friend (when in fact I was expected to be a good mother to my friend), so you say yes and mean very no. Every once in a while I would explode, when running low on esteem or energy or time myself, an inarticulate emotional discharge for which I would feel bad later. It is so simple it makes me go dark red in the face that it took me two decades to find out. I was not dealing with a grown-up….
Beautiful analogy, ‘like a sun being drawn into the gravity field of a black hole’.
Next time I collide with a toddler in the body of a grown-up, I will tell them to connect to the mains and stay away from my personal ducts.
…to be fair, it taught me a lot about myself. I am grateful for that.
I have a real bad temper that will scare the crap out of these types they keep their distance naturally .
Energy thieves? At the time of this discussion, 2008, I was in the thick of battling with them. Actually, I had just emerged from a hard won victory. Some are completely unconscious of their actions. In this case, the thief was conscious of his actions, and did it, to quote someone, ‘for the enjoyment of the theft’.
In either case, there is a lot of suppressed material in the psyche they are working to keep down, which takes energy. Since all their energy is already taken up, they have to take it from others to keep up what is essentially a grand self deception.
I learned to become immune to such people. Some people have an energy others want. Hell, it happens all the time.