Vampire Ferox:

I don't tend to identify with the label of Vampire, but not due to some need to rebel against the popularity of Vampires in our culture today, I am not attempting to be trendy by being a anti-Vampire nonconformist. Nor is my hesitation due to any dislike of the Vampire communities as a whole.

I feel more comfortable with the title of Siphon than Vampire, because I experience things during my feedings which I do not believe confines to the Occult definition of Vampire.

When I was much, much younger, I used to jokingly refer to myself as part Vampire, part Witch and part Werewolf. I knew that I had "draining" tendencies, although I never saw this as energy feeding, nor did I relate it to Vampirism. I honestly don't know why I associated with the term back then, but as I matured, I left it behind.

It wasn't until some years later when I met with a Psi/Sang Vampire on an Occult forum and after speaking with her, and reading the research she provided, that I became aware of what I had been experiencing. Although, I never claimed the title outside of the forum, because it always felt like I was being pulled into too many directions. Between my shifting, my craft and now energy feeding, I felt like a spiritual hypochondriac. This was only increased by my childhood fantasies, because I couldn't tell if my previous beliefs had any influence on my current experiences. It took me several years before I was comfortable and confident enough in myself to be able to embrace all of my different sides.

Still, I never required so much energy in the past that I considered myself as being on the same level as other Psi Vampires, plus....the term Psi just comes off as weird to me for some reason and I felt uncomfortable claiming it.

Plus, a few years back, I became aware of the fact that I don't just feed on energy, I also inject my own into others. Because I didn't understand this, I avoided talking about it. I had to be sure it wasn't just my imagination.

I also came to understand how harmful energy feeding had been to me before I became aware of shielding or filtering. Due to my shifting nature, I would often take on the personality traits, and emotions, of those I fed from. A type of empathic shifting which I refer to as Chameleon Shifting.

Whenever I was in public and consumed the energy of too many different people at one time, I would completely lose myself. My mind would shift from the fragmented thought patterns of one person to another, their personalities and emotions tearing me apart until my entire mind would shut down in self preservation. According to my Husband, my eyes would become dilated, and I would break out into a cold sweat. I would completely forget where I was, who I was, and if I was alone, would often wander around stores I had patronized hundreds of times in the past, completely lost and confused as to where I was. My thoughts were like a glass of water that had been spilled, and gathering them was like desperately trying to scoop up that water with a butterfly net.

Since learning how to shield, and filter the energy I fed from when grazing, I have been able to keep this from occurring, except for in times when I am hurt in some way and am unable to concentrate. When I am hurt, I require more energy than usual and my self-control is compromised.

It was this that originally lead me to the idea that I infected others with my cast-off energy in order to manipulate theirs. I'm not sure if mine morphs theirs, or just germinates within them and grows on it's own, using theirs as fertilizer, but when this occurs, I am in essence feeding on my own, recycled energy that I've cultivated inside of another.

When this happens, I don't shift, not even in the slightest. I believe this is also why I don't shift whenever I feed from my Mate, as he's so much a part of me, and carries so much of me inside of him, that I am still feeding off myself through my feedings on him.

This is one of the reasons I do not claim the label of Vampire, because I am a Shifter first, above anything else, and it's strong enough that it has influenced my feeding, instead of allowing my feedings to influence me.

I have suspected this for a long time, but it wasn't until recently that I was sure enough to openly speak about it. Like before, I had to make sure that this was not just something I'd dreamed up out of the depths of my very extensive, and often overactive imagination.

The details of the experimentation I used in order to gain confidence in this belief are a bit unpleasant so I'll take the cop-out and spare everyone the gory details.

I want to make it clear that I am not claiming to be some type of Uber-Vampire. I'm not a special, unique energy feeding snowflake. I do not consider myself to be superior to Vampires, if anything the opposite is true, as my feedings are hindered by my Shifting, so I have to jump through hoops just to keep my energy levels balanced.

I am a parasite, but I don't feel comfortable calling myself an energy vampire, because what I do is more akin to energy self-cannibalization.

I believe that there are probably others out there who experience what I do. Although honestly, I am still learning about myself and my feeding as well as my shifting, so I can't even say what I am, let along claim the label of an already defined Sub-culture.