[acceraStoof]

I don't want to come across as a "know it all", but a couple of things said in this thread prompted me to say something.
Your not a little baby sucking the energy out of people who pick you up I would almost bet the farm you've never had children, much less a baby. It seems some people have the Hallmark card vision of what a baby is all about. A long time ago, I had a career as a labor and delivery nurse. I worked in a teaching hospital, which means we had a lot of poverty level mothers, and not just a few "crack babies". These babies are a mess emotionally. Not only do they have a high degree of stress, they also increase the stress of everyone around them. One of my own children was an extremely (I mean extremely) high strung baby. No matter what I did, he could not be comforted. He would scream at the top of his lungs, literally for hours while I was holding him. There was absolutely nothing wrong with him physically. He's in his 30's now, and it's very obvious to me that he came in with a lot of unresolved past life issues. To some degree, we are, shall we say, exchanging lots of energy with each other. I love him dearly, but life has never been easy with him, nor with me. So, no, I don't believe babies are born into this world with a "blank slate" as many psychologists would have us believe. Sorry, just speaking from experience.

Wrong Eye said:
Depression, etc. does not necessarily constitute a lack of energy. and Tiredness is not a symptom of my depression. I don't mean to offend, but "tiredness" actually is a symptom of depression. A very well known symptom. I've been clinically depressed in my life, and understand it well. It's not usually the cause of depression, but can be, particularly when the tiredness comes from other physical ailment. But, when nothing else physical is going on, depression will cause tiredness. It feels like the need to escape by sleeping, but there is a lot more going on physically. There are a lot of chemical problems going on. Which brings me to my next comment...

I think that, to some degree, people are mixing up physical energy drain with psychic energy drain. Yes, they are intimately linked, but there are also very different actions going on, with often completely different causes. You can have physical energy drain by being physically sick. This is at a chemical level, and won't be corrected until the physical problem is corrected. On the other hand, you can be perfectly healthy physically and experience psychic energy drain...created by yourself or others. Your own strong emotions can drain your psychic energy...as in becoming angry. Blaming that on another person, "he/she made me mad", will bring about an instance of you being the cause of leaking your own energy. No one can make you mad, that is a choice that you have made. If someone is around who will soak up that energy, it's still not always the case that they "sucked" it from you. You gave it freely, probably unconsciously, but you made the choice to become angry.

Our bodies and consciousness are intimately linked, but you (the universal "you", not anyone in particular) can't make a blanket statement that someone stole your energy. For one thing, you are missing the point that we constantly exchange energy (which has been shown scientifically), and the biggest point that you are responsible for your own life and how you interpret things. I already see someone saying that they didn't ask to be robbed, beaten, etc. At the risk of being very controversial, I think that person did on some level. We make a lot of decisions about how our life will go before we incarnate. We are the masters of our own ships. With my clients, I see how laying the blame for their lives at everyone else's feet is detrimental to their recovery. I've even learned to recognize this in myself. It's the easy thing to do. The hard thing is to take control of your own life and make the best of what you've got.