Everyone is a psychic vampire to some extent, we're taught by our parents and siblings early on, in most cases. Some people, rare individuals, are completely whole and so don't need to be, but if you have to ask, you're probably not one of them.
Detecting a psyvamp, that said, is easy. Anytime you feel emotionally drained by a person, anytime you are guilted into making a choice by a person, any time you want to put your energy in one direction but end up putting it into a person, that's psychic vampirism. There's a stigma associated with that term, but ultimately, people steal energy from one another, it's the human condition. Maintain power over your emotions and actions, and anytime that power is weakened, you're in the presence of a psyvamp - although remember that they may not always be aware. Either call them out, or understand why they are doing it.
Most couples are mutual psyvamps, for instance. It's destructive, yes, but part of the destruction is beneficial in that it teaches us how to be whole, what we are lacking. But, if one person is directing their energy at, say, a term paper, and the other is low on energy because they lost it all during the course of a bad day, there's nothing wrong with sparing a little energy to comfort them, and there's nothing wrong with their taking it.
On the other hand, let's say you are about to go, say, feed the homeless at a shelter, and your girlfriend throws a pity party that you aren't going to stay home and feed her bon bons while you two watch a ramantic comedy. You feel bad, so you give up going to do good deeds in order to sate her demands. She just stole your energy, when it could have gone to better use. If she had plenty of her own energy, she wouldn't need you to stick around all day when you could be doing more constructive things.
It's not all metaphysical jargon and abstract concepts. Keep it simple, energy is NOT complicated, don't overcomplicate it. Pay attention to living and all of this stuff will make perfect sense in short order. Meditate regularly, and your senses will eventually fill in the details like auras, etc., but you're going to use your own subjective vocabulary for it anyway.
peace
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The world is complicated - that which makes it up is elegantly simplistic, but infinitely versatile.
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