For nearly a decade, I was an active part of the vampire community. Within that space, I learned much, became a teacher, a ritualist, and ultimately maintained a behind-the-scenes leadership role. Sometime in early 2024, after years of struggle within that space, I stepped away. The time, attention, and resources that it required to remain in that space inevitably ran me to a point of deep burnout and beyond. At first, I held onto the notion of remaining actively in the community but was soon met with the ramifications of what that level of burnout meant. I was cooked.

I decided to unplug from many things and kept a low profile as I received retaliatory harassment, spurned on by individuals in the space I had left. The further away I got, the more perspective I received. From a distance, removed from the environment of sections of the vampire community, I saw with even more clarity the patterns of abuse, manipulation, hurt, harm, and ego that all factored into what was a toxic and inhibiting space. Ultimately, I arrived at the fundamental truth that the term ‘vampire’ no longer resonated with me and had become synonymous with toxicity.

This became a point of contention within me. For ten years, I connected deeply to the term. I maintained energy practices to stabilize my experiences and continued to do so even after departing from the community. The reality that a term, once held so dear, now brought me such aversion was painful to experience. I mourned the loss of the word and recognized that it was, ultimately, just a word after all.

I have taught in the past that modern vampirism as a word is loaded with baggage. Negative associations, ideas of predatory romance, even fashion, and aesthetics. Entire books within spiritual and occult spaces have been written around the ‘problem’ of vampirism. This ‘problem’ was something I actively battled against through education, assuring individuals that bad people are bad people and that vampirism was not innately ‘bad'.’ Even now, I still agree with that, but it has become far broader. Within any community, there will inevitably be bad eggs and drama-centered people.

When I set the term down for myself, I recognized an immediate and profound liberation. The structures, the beliefs, and the practices (while they held value) no longer served to teach me or help me grow. The vampire practices had become for me a weight of chains, tangles, and constriction that was actively limiting my personal growth and spiritual development. This is when I recognized a very blunt truth: two things can exist at the same time. I can acknowledge my vampirism while also moving on past it. Vampirism does not define me. I am and have always been more than it. I have spent my time in that space absorbing and coming to understand fundamental truths of myself, and it has taught me all it can.

I will no longer define myself as a vampire. I am more than that label and that box. How I define myself going forward doesn’t yet have a name. Perhaps I will come to make one for myself or discover something that fits better.

I look forward to sharing what I discovered in the year that I have spent mostly away from the public. The practices I have developed and the explorations had within. I look forward to a life filled with curiosity, discovery, and moving at a pace I set for myself, free of the pressures to conform to somebody’s or some groups’ ideas of reality.

The Issue of Vampirism

A Community of Teeth

The Seat of Instinct