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Be advised, this is a long post but worth the read if you are interested in some real-life interactions. You may find you have experienced similar things.
Have you ever been around someone that you start to dread your interactions? They may be polite and nice and often friendly or outgoing but their conversations are long-winded and center around themselves and by the end of it you feel so drained and annoyed by them.
This post is going to discuss unintended energy drainers. I am not talking about energy vampires, as this is generally done intentionally and the person is aware of what they are doing. This is about individuals who, for one reason or another, have specific character developments that cause people to not enjoy being around them for the reason stated.
I have encountered a few people that fall into this category. It is disheartening as they genuinely do not understand why people avoid them or do not like hanging around them. Often, they are excluded from events and parties or get-togetherssimply because people cant stand to be around them. I have done some work with a few of them to try and curb some of the habits they have developed that cause people to feel drained around them. Sometimes it isnt even energy draining per se, but attention draining.
My first example is the negative Nancy. We will call this person Nancy for the sake of this example but she is in fact a real individual that I have known for the better of 25 years. My encounter with her started in middle school where she was the loud, boisterous girl who was very short and very stocky. She was made fun of by the popular kids but it never bothered her, she just handed it right back to them. She was the nerdy one who smoked pot and hung out with skater boys (you young kids, thats a skateboarder). Grungy garage bands and drinking on the weekends.
Fast forward now to her being in her 40s. She is still severely obese, but only stands at a mere 47 so weight management is difficult. She has had two knee replacements, gastric bypass that she failed twice, she has two children, both of which have autism, and she is married to a guy who is a compulsive video gamer. They live in his mothers basement. She will call me regularly to chat but the conversation is always exactly the same. She rants about her mother never telling her she loved her, she does not love her husband and wants a divorce, she hates her living situation, she works from home because she cant walk due to her weight and she is just completely miserable and talks about everything she hates in her life.
I advised her to consult her doctor to start a weight loss regimen. I advised her to look into her general assistance to see what help she can get as a single mother for housing. I advised her to look into finishing her Associates Degree so she can get a better-paying job instead of the telemarketing she hates doing. I give her many suggestions on how to improve all that she dislikes about her current situation. A year goes by and we are still having the same conversation. She sucks the energy from me every time and feels really good talking to me at the end of the call. This is because she has no intention of working to change her situation. She is not motivated to do something hard but when she talks to me she feels better because I have positive energy that she has taken.
I dread the calls. So, I stopped answering them. I explained to her in an email that I cannot afford to continue to lose my positive energy because she wont do anything to improve her life and all she does is repeat the same complaints over and over. No one wants to hear someones sob story over and over and see them not do anything to change it. She does not understand why her mother stopped taking her calls, why I stopped, or why people dont want to hang out with her. A mutual friend stated she did not understand, and even when we explained it, she did nothing to change.
A negative Nancy is someone you care about but they will always focus on the negative in their life and always be in a state of depression and despair. While you may find yourself wanting to help them and comfort them, all you are doing is feeding them your energy.
So, how do we deal with someone like this? We care about Nancy and we want to see her life improve but you have to remember, if they are given the tools but refuse to do the work then nothing will ever change or improve for them. Change is never easy. It is often scary. But if someone is unwilling to do anything, then how do they expect anything to change?
To manage a Nancy, you do not need to cut them off completely, but you must keep your own energy and stability at the forefront. I still send emails to Nancy. Occasionally I will respond to a text but the phone calls have stopped as they continue for over an hour and by the end of it I am exhausted and I do not want to put my energy towards a lost cause. You must determine what you want to take on and manage, and it is okay to pull back and say that you do not have time for them right now as you are prioritizing things in your own life. If they are a friend they will understand and respect this. Boundaries are extremely important, especially with those that drain you.
The next example is a little more sensitive. This deals with a topic many will relate to on a personal level. I manage over 20 employees. One employee, who is at a sub-supervisory level is hated by nearly every single employee. We will call her Rose. Rose was promoted to a sub-manager level. She is not a direct supervisor over anyone, but rather she is the assistant to the supervisor and the supervisors report to me. Rose was promoted and immediately displayed she is not a leader but a boss. She yells, she commands and she will deflect any accountability and blame others for anything that goes wrong. No one has any respect for her because she does not lead, she just bosses people. I have sent her to leadership training and still, she cannot change how she manages. If an employee makes a mistake, a leader will reassure that employee that it was an error and together it will be corrected. Once it is fixed, a leader will ask that employee how they can help them or what changes they think they need in order to ensure that the same error does not happen again. There is reassurance, there is support and there is teamwork. Rose will yell at them. Make them feel stupid and then revoke any privilege to doing the job that caused the error, so there is no learning or teaching.
She comes to me often upset that she does not understand why no one respects her. She will give an order and the employees will just laugh at her and ignore her. She has many flags of being on the spectrum. She does not have any social boundaries for understanding appropriate conversations. I have written her up for having conversations that were sexual in nature with employees who did not want to hear her talking about those things. I have written her up for doing 97mph in a company vehicle with an employee who asked her to slow down and she laughed and didnt think it was a big deal. I have written her up for tasing someone, without a warrant, because she was triggered by her PTSD because the individual called her a swear word. There are multiple write-ups but she is protected by the union so dismissing her is very difficult.
People leave the room when she enters because she will dominate the conversation. Her speaking voice is a shout. She gets defensive when we explain that she yells when she talks, which she does. She repeats stories as if she is fixated on telling them, over and over and over, to the point where if something happens, she will tell the story at least 10 times to multiple people, and by the end of the day people are yelling at her to stop talking about the same thing. She is clueless to her draining people during these stories.
This situation is difficult. She genuinely wants to help people and she believes she is skilled and knowledgeable but she has extremely low self-esteem and self-doubt that anytime she makes an error, she deflects it and blames anything so she does not have to state she was wrong. I have counseled her many times and tried to curb her behavior. She would text me on my work phone multiple times during the day and night shift to update me. I had to remind her she isnt a supervisor, she shouldnt be texting me at all and only if there is an emergency. Her lack of understanding of social boundaries and common social constructs indicates many aspects of autism. She refuses to seek any sort of consulting or even medication to help her focus better, stating she only has dyslexia. Regardless, she displays major issues with regular social interactions.
When an issue happens, she will type up an incident report like everyone else does. Everyone puts them in my mailbox. She does not, even after repeating and telling her to. She places them on my desk, enters my office, and leaves it there on my keyboard. Then she will type up an email that explains the entire report and email it to my work email. Then she would text me to tell me that she placed it on my desk and sent me an email explaining it. (so now she has told me three times about an incident). When I arrive at work if she is working she will come in and ask me if I received the report. If I say yes, she will then take an hour to explain the entire situation and what happened even though it is right in the report. If she isnt working she will call me to ask if I got the report then spend an hour on the phone telling me the entire story again, despite me having the report in front of me. It is the constant need to tell a story and talk that drains people. Throughout the day she will then repeat the incident story to every single person working.
So, how do you deal with a Rose? Someone who has a small position of power and zero management skills and does not understand social conversational boundaries? You are drained talking to them and they repeat the same story over and over to the point that you actively avoid them at work? For me, as an Administrator, I cannot avoid her. I must consult all of the employees who come in to complain or vent about her. I must guide them to be firm with letting her know they do not want to hear her repeated story but in a way that is not rude or disrespectful. I have encouraged everyone to set boundaries with her. If she is overstepping her authority, which she does daily, those reports should go to her direct supervisor. In a work situation, I never want to see someone terminated or demoted, but sometimes it is unavoidable. I ensure that everything is documented and progressive steps are taken to try and correct the behavior. You should never be fired from a job without warning unless the action is a result of a criminal offense. (ie. If you steal money from a cash register at work, this would be an automatic termination of employment, trespass notice, and criminal charges for theft). Generally, you will have some form of notice that your actions are being corrected and you need to improve them or eventually you will be let go.
Energy draining comes in all forms. The important part is to recognize it. If you dislike someone for no apparent reason, look at how you feel when you interact with them. Many times, it is because they suck energy from you and often it is done without realization on their part. Yes, this post was very long-winded but I wanted to give you some detailed examples of how this type of negative energy interaction can appear in your life. Whether it is someone you have known for years since middle school or someone who is a recent acquaintance or co-worker. Losing your energy can affect your own personal life and health. You need to be mindful of how you feel around certain people and protect yourself. There is nothing wrong with simply stating to someone; I am sorry but when we have a conversation I often feel my energy being drained. Can we only discuss positive things right now? Pointing out the concern can often make them aware that it is something they are doing.
I hope this post helps some of you. Maybe there are people in your life you do care about but you dont feel good around them or they leave you feeling drained. Examine why that is happening and it may very well be that they are drawing off your energy. Set boundaries and practice grounding and shielding. You may see a drastic improvement in both yourself as well as them.
Happy casting and healing!
~Kaurora (The storyteller)
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