Dear Al-Anon Friends,

 

I don't know if this will mean anything to anyone else, but it hit me like a bucket of ice water in the face.  I have been reading a book Unholy Hungers: Encountering the Psychic Vampire in Ourselves and Others by Barbara Holt.  Ms. Holt is a Jungian psychoanalyst and the concept of the psychic vampire is something Jung himself came up with to explain those people were are energy drainers and all around leeches.  The following is an excerpt from the book:

 

"Revenants are victims whom the vampire has not transformed into a vampire themselves.  Instead, they function as servants to a vampire, existing in a statae that the vampire maintains at the perfect balance between life and death ... The servant pledges his will to his lord and acts as if he were perpetually hypnotized ... keeping curious visitors ... at bay and providing a constant supply of ... fresh blood, barring all doors and access to the master's place of rest, and making sure that when away from home, the conditons necessary to the life of his master are maintained.  This servant has probably the only close relationship with the vampire, for he is permitted to witness the whole truth of his master's life.  (Maschetti 1992, 96)

  

   Thus the revenant serves as mesmerized accomplice to the vampire, whom he or she resembles and supports, but does not imitate in predation.  The revenant recalls the original motion of codependency, in which friends and relatives enable adn abusive behavior, while abandoning themselves to a state of misery and self-negating unconsiousness.

 

   If psychic vampire = alcoholic/addict (or their disease, which is more accurate I think) and revenant = co-dependent, this fits my mother perfectly - and, unfortunately, me for many years.

 

   Anyway, whether anyone else sees this as an accurate similie or not, it sure is a wake-up call to me and what my disease of Al-Anonism is.

 

Peace and blessings to all of you!

 

Sara