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You've always known there was something different about you. It set you apart
from other people and often drove you into solitude. And yet you always had
this compulsion to be around people, as if their very presence somehow sustained
you. Maybe you wound up being an actor or a musician - someone who related to
others through the medium of the stage. There, with everyone's focus and therefore
their energy directed toward you, you felt utterly vital and alive.
When you did have contact with people on a one-to-one basis, you always got
drawn into them. Their moods and feelings fascinated you, especially because
it seemed you had an unusual ability to sense these things. Sometimes you felt
empathic or even telepathic in your ability to "get inside" people's
heads. Maybe others remarked on this ability also. Maybe some of them were scared.
You might not have been good at relating to people, but you were great at giving
backrubs and neck massages. If someone was tense, you could usually relax them.
It was almost like you could eat their tension through simple touch. Maybe you
even learned that you could take headaches away. You never could explain how
you did it - it ranked up there with your uncanny ability to know what someone
else was feeling because you could feel it through them. And people around you
might have found this a little weird and creepy - but as long as what you did
made them feel good, they tolerated you.
During your teens you either had no relationships at all because you just couldn't
"connect" with anyone or you had a never-ending series of bad relationships
also because you couldn't really "connect" with others. When you had
a relationship, it always seemed like there was something missing - like there
should be a level of interaction or intimacy that just wasn't there. You were
always seeking for this missing something, and you probably lost yourself in
sex for a while, thinking that maybe it was there. But no matter how intense
of kinky things got between you and your lovers, there was just something that
felt hollow, and you couldn't tell what it was.
From your youth upward, people always described you as an "old soul".
You felt it too, and even though you were younger than most of the people you
hung out with, somehow you always felt older than them. Often, people sought
you out for advice. Sometimes, you found that you knew things that you couldn't
possibly have known. Certain time periods leapt out at you, and you knew far
more about the lives of their inhabitants than you ever studied in school. Maybe
fleeting memories, like half-remembered dreams, would rise up in your mind and
you would see yourself - only it was not yourself - living in some other time
and some other country. Sometimes these recollections scared you, because you
thought maybe they meant you were insane. You had a vivid imagination anyhow,
so probably that's all they were - yet sometimes the memories were so intense
you just could not deny them.
And sometimes you just felt strange, restless. It was something you couldn't
really define. When night came, you'd feel it all through your body and soul,
a heady, tingling rush. It seemed like some dark and wild power was rising up
within you. But you didn't know what it was or what you were supposed to do
with it. So you stayed up all night, trying to figure out how to cope with all
the strange feelings rushing through you. Maybe you wrote poetry to get it out
of your system. Maybe you played dark and driving music that at once evoked
and eased the mood. And sometimes you would just stare out into the darkness,
into the night, wondering if you weren't just losing your mind.
Then there was the hunger, and you really did worry that you were losing your
mind. You didn't know what it was at first -- a drive for something you could
not name. For a while you mistook it as hormones and tried to sate the driving
need with sex. This came close, but once the act was finished, there was always
something missing, like a step you just hadn't learned yet. Some of you tried
drugs or drinking to drown out the screaming need. These things dulled your
awareness for a while, but once you came back up or back down, the hunger was
still there, gnawing at you.
And then you saw your first vampire film. Or maybe it was your first vampire
book. Or you went to one of those clubs where the patrons were almost as dark
as you were. Any which way, you caught your first rumor about THEM. The Real
Vampires. And you felt something inside you tear loose: a terrible yearning.
And you felt you had found the answer, but you hardly dared to believe it. It
seemed presumptuous or mad or utterly absurd to thing that you were THAT, some
being so distant, so powerful, so old.
But you were obsessed with the notion all the same. You started reading all
that you could, studying fiction and folklore and comparing these things to
your own life. Some things seemed to fit, and when you found these things, they
always gave you a thrilling chill. Other things seemed completely off the mark,
and when you found such erroneous information, you felt something inside you
sink while a little part of your brain chattered noisily, "See - you've
just been fooling yourself all along!" But you knew there was something,
something you were missing that connected you to this mythical being: the Vampire.
You went through periods of denial and you went through periods of emulation.
You bought a cape or got a suit of Victorian-style clothes. You started wearing
lots of black, and you paled your face and painted your lips a deep blood red.
Some of you bought acrylic fangs and wore them to your club, your school, to
work, to parties - always feeling vaguely naughty when people noticed them,
like somehow they'd caught you touching yourself in public. And maybe you experimented
with cutting yourself or a partner, and that really seemed to arouse that hunger
in your soul. The rush was unbelievable, and you knew then and there that beyond
all the capes and face-paint and plastic fangs, there was truth to all the old
folklore and somehow - somehow-that truth was you.
But there were still so many things left unanswered. Blood played a part in
it, but blood wasn't everything. Sunlight hurt your eyes and maybe made you
queasy and weak, but you could still go out in it without burning to a crisp.
You cast reflections in mirrors (where would you be without your reflection
when sometimes it was your only companion in the long, lonely night?). And there
was nothing to those ideas about garlic or crosses or running water, really.
You had never died, not like the Undead, so how could you be a real vampire
anyway? Then maybe you found some other people like you, and you dared to talk
to them about your experiences. Some of them had answers. Some of them only
claimed to. Some just wanted to use you to make themselves feel more important,
and most of them were just as confused as you were, when it came down to it.
So where were the answers? How could you ever know for certain that you are
what you think you are or if you're just completely insane? Are there any answers?
Yes. There are answers. And you can find them in here. If what you just read
describes your life with eerie accuracy, then this site was written for you.
As you read on, it's important to keep in mind that "vampire" is just
a word. It might be the closest word to describe what you are, but please keep
in mind that it's still just a word. There is a lot that's misleading about
that word, as much as it helps us to define ourselves. Being what you are does
not obligate you to dress all in black or powder your face that perfect shade
of pale. That's all just image, and frankly you'd still be what you are without
it. You don't have to be into BD/SM and you don't have to listen to dark, dreary
music. You don't have to cut people with razor blades to legitimize your hunger
for life. You don't have to kill to survive. You're not damned or cursed or
even properly UNDEAD.
You are what you are. You cannot be other than what you are. And if you really
want to understand that, throw all your preconceived notions out the window
and read on ...
This article is presented as part of an ongoing effort to present other views outside of, as well as within, the online vampire community. Those of us who consider ourselves vampiric don't always look at things from the same viewpoint due to our life experiences. As such, the views and opinions contained in this article are entirely those of the author(s), and may not necessarily be shared by SphynxCatVP. The webmaster is not under obligation to update or otherwise keep current the contents of this article. Most importantly, only you can decide for yourself whether this article or any of the author(s) other views are useful or applicable to you - you are responsible for using your own reasoning and judgement, so judge wisely.
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