I’ve recently been reading Dr. Christiane Northrup’s new book, Dodging Energy Vampires. This book is a life-saver for highly sensitive people, also known as empaths, who are often the target for “energy vampires”.
In a nutshell, Dr. Northrup is describing what has commonly been referred to as narcissistic abuse. Narcissistic abuse is perpetrated by “vampires” on the sensitive souls who they covertly feed off of in order to fuel their own emptiness and dysfunction.
Energy vampires are typically individuals with a character disorder such as narcissism, borderline personally disorder, sociopathy and psychopathy. They can be very charming, disarming and seductive when luring someone into a relationship with them which is one of the reasons it is so hard to break away.
When things turn bad, the empath is often blind-sided and strives to get back to the “good stuff” which was there in the early days of the relationship. The empath will often continually over-give while receiving little in return.