VAMPIRES: Real Vampires, Emotional Vampires, Daybreakers & Thirst

What’s the difference between someone who drinks blood and someone who drains you dry?

Content note: discussion of blood drinking and BDSM within the real vampire community, personality disorders, and a brief mention of rape, murder and the killing of children in a film (about 46:29 to 46:41).

We start with the real vampire community: a docuseries following a vampire house in New Orleans, the sanguinarians who drink blood, the psychic and pranic vampires who feed on energy, and the code of ethics, donors and blood testing that hold it together. Then we turn to the vampires most of us have actually met. Using Dr. Judith Orloff’s four types of emotional vampires, we break down the narcissist, the victim, the controller and the splitter, and how to protect yourself without shutting down your empathy. We close with vampire films: Daybreakers, Park Chan-wook’s Thirst, Therapy for a Vampire, Eat Locals, Only Lovers Left Alive, Stake Land, Vampire’s Kiss and the classics we rewatch every winter.

Therapists Shannon and Cathy talk about identity and community, consent and safety in alternative lifestyles, the signs you’ve spent time with an emotional vampire, help-rejecting complaining and the victim identity, invalidation as control, splitting and why DBT helps, empaths and boundaries, our cultural fear of aging, and why vampires speak to our fear of being controlled.

Covered in this episode:

• Why we’re drawn to vampires: eternal youth and the fear of aging
• The real vampire community in New Orleans
• Sanguinarian, psychic and pranic vampires
• Donors, blood testing and a code of ethics
• Signs you’ve been around an emotional vampire
• Judith Orloff’s four types: the narcissist, the victim, the controller and the splitter
• Splitting, borderline personality and DBT
• The Empath’s Survival Guide: empathy with boundaries
• Daybreakers (2009) and the vampire with empathy
• Thirst (2009), Park Chan-wook’s Cannes Jury Prize winner
• Therapy for a Vampire (2014), Freud on the case
• Eat Locals (2017)
• Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton
• Stake Land (2010) and the vampire apocalypse
• Vampire’s Kiss, Byzantium and the classics: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 30 Days of Night, Blade, Underworld, Let the Right One In and Interview with the Vampire

Clinical themes: identity and belonging, consent, emotional vampirism, narcissism, victim identity and help-rejecting complaining, control and invalidation, splitting and borderline personality, DBT, empathy and boundaries, fear of aging.

Corrections and updates: Willem Dafoe played Max Schreck as Count Orlok in Shadow of the Vampire (2000), not a Nosferatu remake. Thirst runs about two hours and thirteen minutes. Judith Orloff is a psychiatrist; her books mentioned are Emotional Freedom and The Empath’s Survival Guide.

Related episodes:

• WINTER HORROR: Dead Snow, Cold Prey, Pontypool, ATM & Jack Frost
• WINTER HORROR: Krampus, Black Christmas, 30 Days of Night & Gremlins
• DIAGNOSIS: Hannibal Lecter & Will Graham from NBC’s Hannibal

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Two licensed therapists, one forensic psychologist, one clinical LMFT, take apart the minds behind the crimes.

Until then... sleep safe. 😴
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