Emotional receptors are like black holes that swallow around them, drain our energy with their demands, exhaust us with their behavior, their complaints, their manipulations or their wounds. There are parents-receivers, partners, friends and even children to whom we bestow the power of abuse and the loss of our authority and dignity.
Mark Twain said with a touch of irony that the principle of giving and receiving requires enough competition to give and receive ten times as much in return. Now, something explained by experts like Adam Grant, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book?It tells us that borrowers would not exist without donors, that is, sometimes we are the ones who fall into this spiral of unbalanced exchange: we let the balance always tilt in the same direction.
- Borrowers have a peculiarity: they like to receive more than they give.
- They use reciprocity to their advantage.
- Putting their own interests before the needs of others.
It’s not about looking for the culprits. It is simply a matter of realizing that in all kinds of interaction there is exchange, we offer our time, we give ideas, encouragement, advice, we trust others and we trust in ourselves, yet there are those who have the inherent capacity to emit light, to give that nourishing affection, which always encourages and pushes people to move forward. They do it without realizing it, because that’s how innate donors understand life.
Without a doubt, next to a donor there will always be a borrower, someone who will become stronger and stronger, someone who (and don’t forget) always has a?Radar? To identify more donors and feed on them without any coercion.
Faced with this question, it can be said that there are no conclusive studies clarifying this fact, however, pediatrician and researcher William Sears, known for his work on parental attachment, introduced the term ”high-demand babies” in the 1990s. According to this expert, there are babies who come into the world with more intense emotional needs, children who have difficulty falling asleep and whose education is generally much more complex and demanding.
This could explain the fact that there are people more likely to receive than to offer, better placed to be cared for than to pay attention. However, there are many subject matter experts advocating for another idea, another approach no less interesting and even very revealing. Emotional takers are narcissistic personalities. In addition, in 1979 Professors Robert Raskin and Calvin S. Hall developed a scale to measure and identify narcissistic personality. On this scale, the existence of the same toxic and comprehensive pattern became clear.
Emotional takers represent another side of narcissism, there is a sense of superiority in them that validates them as the center of attention, take control of each conversation, have exclusivity in any initiative, authority in any project, attention in all circumstances and forgiveness in any crime. They are this black hole that sucks everything and steals all the energy, rights and self-esteem of the people around them.
Most of us are donors in our friendship and relationship relationships and, as we are, we believe that others are too, and that’s why it’s so hard to recognize emotional recipients, while they have a radar to recognize the donor.
As we have said, emotional recipients are very adept at recognizing a donor, however, who is used to giving everything for nothing, including a relationship such as sincere exchange of affection and attention, is not able to detect a narcissistic receptor.
Let’s see what we need to do to defend ourselves against this personality profile.
Emotional takers cause discomfort. At first we may not be aware of your attitude, your tricks and your intentions, yet will we notice a contradiction in ourselves, a sense of physical exhaustion, a tiredness, when we spend time with that person?
When someone does something that annoys us, causes us discomfort or creates a contradiction, we try to justify that behavior, we tell ourselves that the person may be stressed, have done it or spoken without thinking and that he will soon realize and ask forgiveness. idealize this person because he is our partner, friend or brother; We idealize him because we love him and, without realizing it, we feed an insured.
You have to be able to disable the filters you actually place to see the others as they really are.
We might suggest here that the best strategy to defend ourselves against emotional takers would be to move away from them, however, this is not always possible and even intelligent, the narcissistic insured should be aware of the effect of his actions and, for that, nothing better than to make him see what our limits are, what are (and can be) the consequences of his actions.
Should we practice zero tolerance? With those who are used to boycotting our limits, therefore, and always doing worthwhile, we must demonstrate everything we do not tolerate, what we need, what we are willing to give and what we hope to receive. instead.
In conclusion, I would like to point out that, in this area, it is better to be prepared and to recognize in time those who are willing to exhaust us to take away our happiness, as Shakespeare said, an ounce of prevention frees us from a pound of pain.