Written by Damien Daville

There have been some questions concerning the effects of aging on one's vampirism, the ability to cope with needs, and how those abilities and needs are affected. Most real vampires awaken or become aware of their vampirism during a young age usually in the teens or early adulthood. This is a time of learning about your abilities and learning how to cope with the need for certain prana, psionic and elemental energies. This also begins the learning of how to assimilate and manipulate wanted energies with the development of filtering and shielding techniques. The learning of coping strategies for the needs and symptoms of vampirism as well as the shielding techniques then becomes a lifetime experience of constant attention to learning to live with the vampire condition, a condition that affects your ability to establish lasting and good relationships in the face of ridicule and disbelief. The odds of having happy lives then become more difficult for the rest of your life.

For those fortunate to learn to cope with the needs of real vampirism and are able to access needed energies with minimal pain and hardship may live non-problematic lives. I have known and have dealt with my vampirism for over thirty years now since I was a teen, and I am now fifty years of age. I have gone thru learning how to develop alternatives when energy sources were not available, and to deal with the symptoms of too little and too much of wanted and unwanted energies. I also have learned to use shields to filter out unwanted energies. As with anything learned, I have seen the peak years of my abilities and the techniques learned to cope with my vampirism, these years being the strongest for me in my twenties and thirties.

While in my forties, I noticed a decreased ability to focus on abilities and techniques learned as coping strategies earlier in my life. I sensed that I am not as sharp now nor as quick with filtering and shielding techniques, important abilities needed in processing wanted energies. Attention to needs is greater now with more time devoted and needed to successful energy manipulation for successful feedings. Now that I am fifty years old, I have had to change much of how I seek out energies and assimilate them. Alternatives have proven to be more important now when an energy source proves to be more difficult to find or more difficult to process. Instead of prana energies being available, I have had to focus on elemental and some psychic sources. Empathic abilities are not as sharp now making filtering emotional feeding more difficult. All of these changes has caused me to become more aware of my weaknesses in adapting to my environment. Relationships with family and friends have also been affected to a degree making them more difficult to maintain in a more harmonious way.

I have found that as a real vampire ages, like any other abilities and learned strategies, those for real vampirism do become more difficult to manage and use. This in turn impacts the person and results in difficulty in managing one's health and one's relationships. Such changes warrant a person to change energy sources and alternatives that may be easier to access and manage. I believe more study on this subject may reveal more information on the effects of aging on a vampire's abilities, health, and relationships. All are impacted in a way that make life more difficult for the already difficult life of a real vampire