Emotional Vampires

Several years ago when Nate and Lindsay visited us in Germany, Lindsay told me of a book that she had read.  In it, the author discussed emotional vampires.  I don't remember if that was the actual term, but you can get the idea.  They are people who suck the happiness from your life (or take away feelings of success in a work environment), or in other words, they drain you dry.  In my mind, they are like the dementors in Harry Potter.

I am so thankful for my job--it has given me the chance to spend my summer with my kids here at Interlochen.  I have been very blessed in my job to work with a lot of great women.  Some are more organized than others, some are chatty, some are quiet, some recognize the "fakers" who are trying to get out of class, and others mother the kids as if they were their own, some make me laugh.  I have made some lifetime friends among those women.  One nurse, however, has made my life miserable.  She has been an emotional vampire, taking all happiness out of the experience for me.  It has been a challenge, to say the least, to continue to show up for work.  In fact, while the first three weeks flew by and I didn't have a complaint, the last ten days with her have felt like a year.  Let me vent for a moment.

She wants to be included in every conversation, whether or not it relates to her, and she hijacks the conversation.  Know what I mean?  She takes one sentence or idea and starts talking about her life.  She talks on and on and on.  There's no back and forth, no sharing of ideas.  It's draining to continue sitting there, nodding while just wanting to RUN AWAY!

In the beginning, I was lured in, thinking we could have some good conversations.  She would ask me a question about myself, and I would just start to answer when she would turn it around to her.  10 minutes later, she would ask me another question, I would start to answer, and she started in again.  After a while I learned to just not engage in conversation with her.

Now picture this--we are together, in a space that is no bigger than 8' x 8', and there's no conversation.  A completely awkward situation.

She's a heavy smoker which usually isn't a problem for me at all--I have no sense of smell--but for the rest of the staff it's difficult to be around her.  If our infirmary wasn't so small, and we weren't all so close, it might not be so much of a problem, but I can only imagine what the campers think when she closes in while they say "ahhhhhhhhhh".  Too, she heads out for her cigarette breaks every 90 minutes or so.  You can imagine the problem this causes when she's the only nurse staffing the infirmary--I just tell the campers to have a seat and wait.

I suspect that because she's a smoker, she's on edge most of the time (she's pretty chill when she first walks in from her break).  She gets irritated at me because she can't always hear what I'm talking about (I believe she's hard of hearing), but she sssssh's me when I talk too loud.  She turns down the radio after the boss has turned it up.  She tells other people that I'm too loud when I'm specifically whispering to avoid her ire.  She slams the exam room doors in my face when I'm talking at all at my desk (right next to the door), but ignores a line of patients when she is busy, loudly talking to her friend, in the waiting area, who dropped in to see her.  She talks loudly when I'm on the phone, but gets mad at me when I say anything at all.  She feels ignored when I read my magazines, but doesn't realize it's in response to her not wanting to hear me utter a word.

In the beginning, I tried really hard to look at her as a child of God.  After all, I'm the one that teaches my kids that we never know any body's stories.  If we could see into people's pasts, and see what they have dealt with, we would have more sympathy for the person they have become.  As I would watch her eat her food, and see her cut up everything into small bites, I realized that this was of necessity because her teeth are rotting, and I would realize how blessed I am to have had good health through the years--she deserved my sympathy.  She spoke of her father who was killed in some barge accident on one of the Great Lakes when she was ten years old, and I could understand the pain of the loss of a parent--again, she deserved to be treated kindly.  She's always hoping to hit it big by finding some treasure at a garage sale, and I realize that she doesn't have much to her name--how thankful I am that I have never wanted for anything.  She has a trucker husband which must be terribly hard on her marriage, and I count my blessings that I have John.  However, it's hard to continue to ignore how she treats me and to try to be understanding when she continues to treat me poorly.

It's come to the point where I feel like the infirmary is a vacuum of happy feelings.  All things good are sucked straight out the windows and I am left with despair and despondency.  I dread waking up in the morning, knowing that she is waiting for me.  Worse though is the fact that I know she's talking poorly about me.

I can't remember the last time I didn't like somebody at work.  Generally, I can get along with anyone.  I can smile and let things roll off my back.  In the past, I have worked with people who are hated by everyone, but I always try and give them the benefit of the doubt--life is hard for everyone, and everyone deserves a friend.  Too, I'm a super hard worker, and I do things well.  I took great pride in that for years, but it only took this woman to take me down.

If only I had asked Lindsay at the time what the solution is for those emotional vampires.  How does one continue to give back when so much is taken?  How does one find happiness when there isn't any to being with?  My only consolation in all of this is that I have only six days left of work, and I can focus on and remember the good friends I made and the good times I had.  If I was stuck in this situation for a longer time, I don't know.