Despite making progress on other fronts in my life currently, this phenomena is still irritating me.

Why do people constantly cough around me?

For a time I believed many to be reading my thoughts and began to think that maybe the two phenomena were part of the same thing.

I'm sure I would be "over it" if it was something that only happened occasionally and in a seemingly "random" context, then I would have no issue rationalizing it away and getting on with things.

Some causes I have entertained include:

-Those coughing are part of some sort of hivemind that have the abilities to read my thoughts and cough as a form of intimidation

-I have a higher energy level than most people, so I'm basically "cleaning" the energetic bodies of people by being close to them so they "cough" etc

-Many of those coughing are intimidated by my presence for whatever reason, so they cough as a means of trying to establish dominance

I'm just trying to make sense of it because it is so annoying and feels like people are taking non-verbal sleights at me

And no, this isn't the "normal" type of cough. There is a subtle violence in it.

Okay, so vampires?

Fact of Fiction?

I have noticed that when I'm around certain people for extended periods in public that either my body starts to get this weird dis-associative feeling and/or my eyebrow area begins to throb or just has a very particular "heavy" sensation about it. Shortly after removing myself from their presence I often feel down or sad for no reason, it feels like my body is trying to recover from being drained- I will often feel tired. It often feels like my brain is being sucked out of my skull.

I know how sexist some of the posts made on this board are. That said, it appears that women do this energy draining far more often than men do. I can tell just when they're doing it around me because their energy is very sticky and direct. They often begin to drain just by looking into your eyes and stealing energy that way. I've found that flirting isn't really a thing, they're just trying to hypnotize and establish a subtle control.

I can tell that they're draining me purposefully, because as soon as I radically shift my thoughts or my body, they also radically shift accordingly.

It's like many of them are eavesdropping on my thoughts the way they react to my thinking. Sometimes I think abrasive things just to see if they react and they almost always do.