The Practical Vampire Slayer

Whether they come in the shape of controlling ex-husbands, interfering relatives, backbiting coworkers, or just our habitually critical friends, most of us have a pretty good idea of who the “vampires” in our lives are. The trouble is, almost none of us know the vampire rules. Here's an important one to remember.

The Thing About Power

“… you know what we have to contend against; but we, too, are not without strength.”

— Abraham Van Helsing, from Bram Stoker's Dracula

I think that many of us, especially when we've been hosting a vampire for a while, can get all mixed up about this business of power and who's got it. It is not my wish to hurt anyone's feelings, of course, but I do feel the need to point out here that when a vampire has been draining us for weeks or months or even years, we are not necessarily at top of what you'd call our ‘mental game,’ and are therefore susceptible to all sorts of silly ideas.

One silly idea that most of us are exposed to with perfect regularity and considerable force is this notion that our vampires somehow have all the power, and that we don't have any. Isn't that always the way with vampires? It's like they have this mantra they have to keep constantly repeating about how important and wise and superior they are, and how trivial and dopey and second-rate we are.

They can be downright discouraging…

“Look and see me, puny man… see the great creature of the night whom you would slay with your miserable little stick.”

— Barlow, the Master Vampire, from Stephen King's Salem's Lot

… and have been known to get fairly personal, too…

“Your impotent men with their foolish spells cannot protect you from my power.”

— Dracula, from Bram Stoker's Dracula

… but can always be depended upon to remind us…

“You need me.”

— Spike, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 6

Well, you know how it goes—if we hear a thing often enough, we start believing it ourselves.

Vampires, like any good promotional people, understand the value of frequent repetition. This explains why most of them are faithful to a regular schedule of condescending remarks to us. As hosts we routinely get an earful of our vampire's comprehensive criticism whether (as the saying goes) “we need it or not.” Their lies and exaggerations are precisely tailored to fit our own fears and doubts about ourselves and are in fact custom-made for us.

A few that were, at one time, made to order for me:

“You've never finished anything in your life—why bother going to school now?”

“All you ever do is sit around all day!”

“Where are you going to go? You can't support yourself!“

And my personal favorite,

“If you ever want to get a nose job, I'll pay for it!“

Now that one was confusing. I mean—it kind of sounded like my vampire was trying to be thoughtful or helpful… only, you know… in a totally psychotic and insulting way. But, of course, my vampire already knew I was sensitive about that—that it was an area of my self-image that could be bled with a minimum of effort.

Keeping the host isolated is another important vampire strategy. The last thing a vampire wants is for its host to be exposed to any untoward affection, strength, or (worst of all) “confidence builders,” that might accidentally be absorbed by the host should they be allowed to engage in relationships with others. For vampires, there must be no dissolution of the message; their evaluation of us is the one that counts, and only theirs.

It is interesting, too, that for all of the apparently serious flaws that vampires seem to find in us, they will never, ever suggest professional help or “outside” help of any kind to “fix” us. As a matter of fact, they are always careful to remind us that what goes on between them and us is private and that absolutely no one else must know about it. No sharing, no second-opinions, no way. “This is nobody's business but ours,” they'll explain. “It's a family matter,” they'll say.

This practice of destroying self-worth by privately and systematically taking blood from our areas of “thinnest skin” serves the vampire in at least two ways that I can think of, since it

1. Reinforces in us the necessary belief that we, as hosts, deserve nothing better than our dismal and thankless occupations as vampire chow, and
2. Serves as a reminder to us that only they have the needed expertise to appraise our lives and that our opinions don't actually count.

As hosts of these often-persuasive vampires, it seems that we've surrendered our prerogative; the days of making our own decisions and evaluating our own lives seem to be far behind us—like a dream we can barely remember.

Continue...

So to those of us who may be feeling some doubt about our power—thanks to a combination of blood loss and this steady flow of spiteful fiction from our vampires—I offer the following aide memoire.

There is a principle that Buffy, the vampire slayer, reveals to a group of slayer-trainees (just like you and me), which is fundamental to understanding ourselves as hosts:

“The bad guys always go where the power is.”

Let's take a second or two to think about that.

And now let's think about this: if it's true that we're so puny and foolish and impotent, and our vampires are so big and smart and powerful, then why are they wasting all their precious, powerful, big-shot time with us anyway? Why, if they're so sharp and superior and all, do they keep coming to our “homes,” when what we have to offer is so dilapidated and inferior and clearly beneath them? I mean, honestly, from the way they talk you'd think they'd be ashamed to even knock on our doors, wouldn't you? Maybe we should ask them:

“Say, I wonder if you could tell me, since I'm such a loser and a nobody, why you don't just find somewhere else to feed?”

Oh wait, don't tell me. I think I just figured it out: could it be because… maybe we're not such losers and nobodies? Could it be that our vampires are feeding on our power because we happen to be loaded with the stuff? Is it possible that what Buffy says is true—that the bad guys always go where the power is?

And could it be that if they're coming to us, then we must be where the power is?

That could be. It certainly makes more sense than any of that Braunschweiger our vampires have been trying to hand us about how helpless and pathetic and dependent we're supposed to be on them. Like they'd actually be hanging around to feed where there's nothing left to eat. Right.

Let me tell you something: vampires may be weak in many ways but they are very definitely not stupid.

So here's the deal: if you've got a vampire feeding on you and constantly reminding you about all the power that you supposedly don't have, it is not because you have no power. That's what the vampire wants you to believe, but those aren't the rules. The rules clearly state that

“Vampires always go where the power is.”

Okay? So then it naturally follows that if a vampire is coming to you, then you must be (fill in the blanks):

_ _ _ _ _     _ _ _     _ _ _ _ _     _ _.

This isn't personal; it's just the rules. And if you still believe that you're somehow an exception to the rules and have no power, then it only confirms what I've been trying to tell you all along: that you are simply the victim of another carefully orchestrated vampire snow job.

Sorry, but there's no getting around this one. Because a vampire just won't come to feed where there's nothing left to eat. We're talking practical here. Remember? So next time our vampires are trying to give us a line about what zeroes we are, we can simply and sweetly say to them (and to ourselves),

“Now listen, honeypants, that is just a bunch of Wiener schnitzel, and we both know it.”

Because we know where the power is, no matter what they say.

Claudia Cunningham is a recovering alcoholic who has been hosting her own personal vampires for most of her life and is keenly acquainted with their habits, appetites, and protocols. In recovery for the past 11 years, she has discovered the absolute necessity for practical, unsentimental, and straightforward methods of slaying her vampires, which she has learned from her own experience and the shared knowledge and experience of others like her. Because her background is more functional than scholarly, the insight she shares in The Practical Vampire Slayer is accessible and serviceable to anyone.

A native of Milwaukee, WI, and transplant from hither and yon (San Francisco, CA, and Galena, AK); she now lives in Polson, MT, with her handsome husband Robert and their trapeze-swinging 8 year old, Madeline Jane.

She has yet to tangle with a vampire that she hasn't, in the end, felt some affection for.

You can read more of her work at her website, The Practical Vampire Slayer.