It’s entirely possible to be surrounded by people every single day and still feel completely alone, unsupported, and unenergized.
If that resonates — keep reading. Because the problem might not be that you don’t have people. It might be that you don’t have the right people.
Here’s the truth I share when teaching the Lack of Community Overwhelm Culprit™: if the people around you aren’t supporting your growth or giving you energy, you don’t have a support team. You have a liability you can’t afford to keep carrying.
In this post I’m sharing the 10 signs someone is an energy vampire — plus exactly what to do when you identify one.
Signs Someone Is an Energy Vampire: My Story
After my divorce, I moved from Brooklyn out to Long Island to be closer to family. In the process, I ended up three counties and a 45-minute train ride away from all of my friends.
I had also just become a new mom. My life had changed completely. And there were a couple of friends from my old life in Brooklyn who — any time I came to them for support in rebuilding my new life — left me feeling worse and more exhausted than I did before the conversation.
There’s a term for this. Energy vampires. Once you learn how to identify whether someone around you is draining your energy, it becomes so much easier to either set boundaries or deprioritize time with them — and create space for relationships that actually energize you instead.
Before we dive in — these traits can show up in anyone. A spouse. A family member. A parent. A friend. A colleague, boss, or neighbor. So when you’re looking at the five people you spend the most time with, look at everyone in that circle.
The 10 Signs Someone Is an Energy Vampire
1. They Make Everything About Them
You call to share what’s going on in your life — and within minutes, the conversation has pivoted to them. Their challenges. Their problems. Their needs. What you were carrying? Still yours. Unaddressed.
This was exactly what happened with some of the Brooklyn friends I mentioned. I’d reach out when I was struggling — and somehow end up holding space for their problems instead. It takes energy out of you every single time.
2. They Complain Constantly
Everyone needs to vent sometimes. That’s normal. But if every conversation is a complaint session — and you’re the one holding that space every time — it drains you. Especially when you need support yourself and have no room to voice it.
3. They Love Drama
They’re a drama magnet. They bring it wherever they go. You never know what to expect when you spend time with them. And managing that unpredictability takes real energy — whether you realize it or not.
4. They Always Try to One-Up You
You call to share a win — a promotion, a milestone, something you’re proud of. And before you’ve finished the sentence, they’re redirecting to something they did. It deflates your moment. Every time.
5. They Manipulate or Take Advantage of Your Kindness
This one is particularly painful when it’s someone close — a family member, a spouse, a longtime friend. Because you can see it happening and still struggle to stop it. Know this: every time you allow it, they are taking your kindness and your energy from you.
6. They Criticize or Bully You
I write about this in my book. I was in an abusive relationship where emotional criticism was constant. It affected how I showed up in every interaction — personally and professionally. When you’re regularly being criticized or doubted, you start to doubt yourself. That doubt is exhausting to carry.
7. They Take No Accountability
It’s nearly impossible to get an apology from them. If anything, they turn it around so you end up apologizing instead. Having that dynamic in your life — where accountability only flows one direction — will drain you consistently.
8. They Guilt Trip You
I hear this often from people navigating difficult family dynamics — especially with parents. The guilt trip is used to get you to attend things, do favors, or put others before yourself. And it works because it taps into your love for them. But it costs you every time.
9. They’re Always the Martyr
The spotlight is always on them — their suffering, their sacrifice, their struggle. It’s a form of narcissistic behavior. And by constantly keeping the light on themselves, they’re taking it away from you. You never get to be the hero of your own story when you’re around them.
10. After Spending Time With Them, You’re Exhausted
This is the most obvious — and the one I felt most clearly during that season in Brooklyn. It didn’t matter what I’d called them about. When I got off the phone, my first thought was always: why did I even do that? I feel terrible.
Managing someone else’s emotions when you’re already emotionally depleted and need support yourself — that’s the surest sign someone is an energy vampire in your life.
What to Do When You Spot the Signs Someone Is an Energy Vampire
Identifying energy vampires is step one. Here’s what to actually do about them — based on how close they are to your life.
Strategy 1: Set Boundaries
You can set limits around the topics you’ll discuss, the behaviors you’ll accept, and the energy you’ll hold space for.
For example, if you have a chronic complainer in your life: “I completely understand what you’re going through. I don’t have the capacity to help with these complaints right now. If you’d like to talk about something else, I’m here.” Clear. Kind. Direct.
You are allowed to protect your energy through boundaries — even with people you love.
Strategy 2: Deprioritize Time With Them
Especially if this is someone you can’t go no contact with — a family member, a spouse, a coworker — simply spend less time with them. You’re not saying goodbye. You’re saying “see you later.”
And the time and space you create? Use it to proactively seek relationships that actually energize you. That’s how the balance shifts.
Strategy 3: Go No Contact
In the most extreme cases — when a relationship is consistently harmful to your wellbeing, your growth, or your mental health — sometimes the most protective thing you can do is remove that person from your life entirely.
This isn’t a decision to make lightly. But it is a valid one. Protecting your energy is not selfish. It’s necessary.
The Bottom Line on Signs Someone Is an Energy Vampire
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Choose your personal board of directors accordingly.
When you identify the signs someone is an energy vampire, you have options. Set a boundary. Deprioritize. Or walk away entirely. What you don’t have to do is keep carrying them at the expense of your own growth.
Find Out If Lack of Community Is Your Overwhelm Culprit
If you’ve been feeling drained, unsupported, or like you’re surrounded by the wrong people, the Lack of Community culprit might be at the root. The free Overwhelm Culprit Quiz tells you in three minutes which of the five culprits is holding you back — and your most powerful next step.
Take the free Overwhelm Culprit Quiz here.
Go Deeper With the Book
I cover the Lack of Community Overwhelm Culprit™ in full detail in my book — with even more strategies for identifying who belongs in your support circle and building the community that actually moves you forward.
The Five Overwhelm Culprits™: Strategies to Save Your Sanity Without Sacrificing Your Success is available now everywhere books are sold.
This is the book for the high-performing woman who is done surrounding herself with the wrong people — and ready to build a circle that actually lifts her up.
CLICK FOR TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] How to identify whether people in your life are supporting your growth or draining your energy? This is a question I received during a recent private event Q&A while discussing an exercise that I share to help with the lack of community overwhelm culprit. And I realized we should be covering this here because it’s all too common to be surrounded by people every day but still feel completely alone, unsupported and unenergized.
But here’s the truth. You can have people surrounding you, but if they’re not supporting your growth or giving you energy, you don’t have a support team. You have a liability that you cannot afford to keep carrying. If you’re a high achiever who is surrounded by people every day and you’re not sure whether you have the right support team, then you’re gonna wanna stick around.
By the end of this episode, you’re gonna know exactly what the wrong support feels like and what to look for in your support circle instead.
If you’re new here, my name is Corrie LoGiudice, otherwise known as Corrie Lo, and I’m a professional [00:01:00] keynote speaker, facilitator, leadership expert, and author who helps high achievers transform overwhelm into confident leadership action, even in times of crisis.
So I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the famous motivational speaker, Jim Rohn, but he once famously said, ” You are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with.” And in my book, The Five Overwhelm Culprits™, I share a story where I talk about having to rebuild my life from scratch following my divorce.
I had just gotten divorced. I moved from Brooklyn out to Long Island to be closer to my family, and in the process, I ended up moving, three counties away and a 45-minute train ride from all of my friends that I had been living with at the time in Brooklyn.
And to add to that too, I’d also just recently become a new mom, so there was a lot going on in my life that my friend circle wasn’t really jiving with the life that I had just built.
Now that said, there were a couple of [00:02:00] friends from my old life in Brooklyn that any time that I came to them for support in rebuilding my new life, I’d honestly feel worse and more exhausted after speaking to them than I did before. And there’s a term for this. It’s called energy vampires. Once you learn how to identify whether someone around you is draining energy, it makes it so much easier then to either set boundaries or deprioritize time with them to create time and capacity for new relationships that will actually energize you instead.
So before we dive into that, I would love to know, have you ever experienced an energy vampire? Definitely raise your hand, share your experience below in the comments. You are definitely not alone here.
Now, before we dive into this, it’s important to know that these traits can be found in anyone. It can be found in a spouse, in family members, parents, friends, colleagues at work, your boss, vendors, it could be even your neighbors. So it’s really, really important when we’re [00:03:00] looking at the five people we spend the most time with, we’re looking collectively at everybody that we are spending the most time with. It might be a mix of all the above.
So here are some signs that someone is draining your energy.
First one is they make everything all about them. This is what happened to me when I would call some of my friends from Brooklyn, where I would be trying to share what was going on in my life and how difficult it was, and they would immediately pivot it to talking about them and their challenges, which were really paled in comparison to what I had just gone through.
So that’ll definitely take energy out of you. The next sign is they complain a lot. Who’s ever been around somebody that all they do is complain? It takes the life out of you having to hold space for that for somebody else, especially when you need to have a platform that you’re allowed to be able to talk things out.
The next sign is they love drama. So who here has known somebody that it’s like they’re a drama magnet? They bring it with them everywhere they [00:04:00] go, and in the process, you never know what to expect when you’re with them, and it can take a lot of energy out of you.
The next sign is they always try to one-up you. So you call them to share a great milestone or an achievement, and they might say,
“Oh, yeah, that’s great, but did I tell you I did this?”
And they’re trying to one-up you in the scenario and that’s never fun to have to experience.
Next up, and this one sucks, it’s they manipulate you, and they take advantage of your kindness.
And it’s always worse, especially when you know it’s happening. And a lot of times we accept this behavior because, it might be a family member or it might be a spouse or somebody that’s very close to us, and it’s not very easy to set boundaries with. And know though that every time you do that they are taking your kindness and your energy from you each time that you allow it to happen.
Next is they criticize or they bully you. I talk about this in my book where I had been in an abusive relationship where a lot of it was emotional abuse and I was constantly criticized on a regular basis and I tell multiple different stories of how that [00:05:00] criticism affected me both personally as well as professionally.
And that takes a lot of energy out of you because if you’re dealing with that level of criticism and you’re starting to doubt yourself, you show up energetically very different in every interaction that you’re with.
Next up is they don’t take any kind of accountability. It’s near impossible to get them to apologize for something. If anything, they’re always looking for you to apologize for the scenario and having that in your life, it’s gonna suck the life right out of you.
Next is they guilt trip you. I hear this a lot, especially with folks who are dealing with more toxic parents in particular, that they feel guilt-tripped into attending certain activities or for doing favors and things like that.
And it’s gonna take a lot out of you to continually put other people before yourself and they know that the way to be able to do it is by guilting you into doing it. And that’s not a great way to get anybody to do anything.
Next up is they’re [00:06:00] always the martyr. Always. They need the attention on them. It’s very kind of narcissistic behavior but by taking the light and shining it on them all the time, they’re taking the light away from you and not giving you the ability to be able to show up and be the hero for certain people.
And last but not least, and this is probably the most obvious of all of them, is after spending time with them, you are absolutely exhausted.
And this was the one thing that stood out to me in my experience when I was sharing about the certain friends I had from Brooklyn, that it didn’t matter what I called them about. When I got off the phone with them, I was like,
“Oh my G**, why did I even do that? I feel terrible, I’m absolutely exhausted”
by having to manage their emotions and feelings at a time when I was emotionally depleted and I needed support.
So what exactly do you do if you have energy vampires? Some of the best strategies to handle this are,
number one, to set boundaries with them. So it could be letting them [00:07:00] know certain types of conversations you’re just not available for. If you have a complainer in your life, as an example, you are within your right to let them know, like, ” Hey, I completely understand what you’re going through. I do not have the ability to be able to help you with these complaints right now. If you’d like to talk about something else, I’m here and ready to listen.” So you could set boundaries surrounding what topics you’ll talk about, the behavior that you’ll accept, so on and so forth.
The next thing that you could do with energy vampires, and this is an important one to look at, especially if it’s somebody that you can’t go no contact with, in terms of your life, whether it be a spouse or family member or something like that, you just simply deprioritize spending time with them.
You don’t spend as much time with them and in that time and space that you then create you could spend it with people who are gonna bring you energy. So you’re not saying goodbye, you’re just saying, “See you later” and going out and proactively seeking the type of support that you need.
And then lastly, and this is the most extreme case for folks, sometimes it’s better to go just completely no [00:08:00] contact and eliminate communication with that person out of your life to be able to protect yourself, protect your energy and protect your growth.
So to recap everything we just talked about today, you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. Choose your board of directors accordingly and if you would like more information on who should be in your personal board of directors, feel free to check out this video right here.
Next, people may not deserve a space on your board if they drain your energy and are unsupportive. So really quick recap of the signs that we talked about is they make everything about themselves. They complain a lot. They love and attract drama. They always try to one-up you. They manipulate or take advantage of your kindness.
They criticize or bully you. They don’t take any sort of accountability for anything. They guilt trip you. They’re always acting like a martyr and most importantly, after spending time with them, you are completely and utterly exhausted. So identify your energy vampires and adjust accordingly. So hopefully you found my sharing this today [00:09:00] helpful.
If you have a question that you would like for me to answer, feel free to leave a comment, and I just may feature it on a future episode. And as I mentioned before, I cover the lack of community culprit in detail with even more strategies in my book, The 5 Overwhelm Culprits: Strategies to Save Your Sanity Without Sacrificing Your Success, and it’s available to purchase in the show notes.
You also can learn more ways to work with me, whether that be one-on-one through coaching and advisory work, or with your organization and team through speaking offers. You can learn all about that in the show notes as well. So thank you so much for being here, and I will see you on the next episode. I’ll see you then.
Thanks for checking out The Next Step with Corrie Lo. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review. Together, we’ll transform overwhelm into action, and we’ll keep taking the next step towards confident leadership. See you next time.