There are two things I have always been certain of: I was never meant for the daylight, and I was born to know the vampire.
While vampires in the True Blood sense don’t necessarily exist, vampirologists do, and I am proud to be both: a vampire in spirit and a vampirologist in title.
One is about who I am, and the other is about why I am. But how, you might ask, can someone be both the monster and the scholar? Let me take you to the shadows where this all began.
A Strange Child in the Shadows
I was never the child other parents wanted near theirs. I was the one whispering ghost stories at recess, the one drawing castles and coffins while others drew flowers and sunshine. My earliest fascinations were the things that hid in the dark: what went bump in the night, the cold hush of a graveyard, the skull half-buried in the woods.
I was raised on Goosebumps and Fear Street, and graduated early to Stephen King. I read Misery at eleven, but it was Salem’s Lot that sank its fangs in and never let go. I was already pale, already red-haired, already too quiet. But when I saw the vampires in King’s world, I didn’t see monsters. I saw kin.
A Gothic Soul
Ballet and acting were my childhood disciplines, but even there, I gravitated toward the melancholy and macabre. While others dreamed of mansions, I dreamed of living in a converted church beside a graveyard. Not for the aesthetic alone, but because it felt right and familiar. Gothic wasn’t a phase. It was home.
Even as a teenager, I didn’t dream of prom nights or wedding bells. I dreamed of my own gothic magazine and my own mortuary. Something about death felt intimate, unafraid, even protective. Maybe that’s what vampires are to me: not predators, but guardians of darkness.
Born of Blood and Flame
My body never liked the sun. Red hair (more like dirty blonde mixed with red.) Ashen skin. Eyes that winced under even a cloudy sky. Five minutes in the sun and I looked like a boiled lobster. As a child, it was frustrating. As I grew older, it became something more.
After my grandfather passed away, the man who raised me alongside my grandmother, I unravelled. My OCD intensified and soon bloomed into more diagnoses. I tried yoga. Meditation. The world told me to relax, to breathe, to be calm.
But I wasn’t made to be calm. I was made to endure.
Medication helped, and then, ironically, the vampire became closer than ever. The chemistry in my body shifted, and with it came porphyria: the infamous vampire disease. It was mild, manageable, but real. Suddenly, the sun was no longer a nuisance. It was dangerous.
The Vampire Disease
Porphyria is often romanticized in pop culture, but the reality is haunting. The photosensitivity can cause burns, welts, and open wounds. For me, it meant bruising, scabbing, an extreme vitamin D deficiency, and an urgent need for constant protection.
Sunglasses, even at dusk. Umbrellas that block UV. Layers of clothing. And a complexion now so white it borders on translucent.
I jokingly say I’ll burst into flames if I step into the sun, but like most dark humour, there’s truth underneath.
When the Fiction Becomes Flesh
It was around that time that I stopped fighting the idea. I started to ask: What if I’m not pretending? What if this isn’t just a phase or an aesthetic?
That question evolved into an obsession, and that obsession ultimately led to a study. I needed to know everything. Not just about vampires in fiction, but in folklore, anthropology, psychology, and theology.
What began as a personal spiral became a professional calling.
Becoming a Vampirologist
In 2019, I became a certified vampirologist. It wasn’t a gimmick. It was a declaration. I studied everything from the ancient vampire myths of Eastern Europe to the clinical conditions that inspired them. I dove into the medieval revenants, the Romanian strigoi, the Chinese jiangshi, the Indian vetala.
What I found was profound: in every culture, across every continent, there was a blood-drinking, death-haunting figure. And more importantly, they weren’t just monsters. They were reflections.
Vampires are us, amplified. They are our shame, our hunger, our fear of death, our wish never to die. They are about control, about otherness, about seduction, shame, and sanctuary.
And in every text I read, I saw pieces of myself.
My Vampire Self
Who am I, then? I am not Lestat. I am not Dracula. I am a little Mavis Dracula from Hotel Transylvania, full of childlike longing and misunderstood softness. But I’m also Pam from True Blood: unapologetic, snarky, dressed in my own style, and not here for anyone’s nonsense.
Yes, those characters are romanticized. But strip the glitter, and what remains? Mavis seeks belonging and freedom. Pam demands respect and power. Both are deeply territorial. Neither of them easily trusts humans. Pam doesn’t even remember what it was like to be one.
That’s me. That’s the vampire in me.
Escaping the Tower
For years, I lived in a kind of exile. Trapped in my own “tower,” whether by illness, mental health, or isolation. The world felt too bright, too loud, too cruel. I created my own kingdom in the shadows. Like Nadja, haha.
But now, I’m leaving the tower.
I am moving to Romania. A country whose forests and folklore pulse with the vampire’s heartbeat. Not because I think I’ll find Dracula. But because I think I’ll find myself.
Romania is calling me not just as a vampirologist but as a vampire. As someone who has always lived on the margins, always felt different, and always searched for a home that feels as old and haunted as I do.
A Gothic Pilgrimage
This isn’t a fantasy. This is my life. My research. My identity. Being a vampire isn’t about fangs or immortality. It’s about existing on the edge of things. It’s about seeing the world through a darker lens, about feeling time stretch differently when you’re awake at 3 a.m., about holding grief, rage, and love all at once.
And being a vampirologist? That’s just the mirror I hold up to it.
Ultimately, they aren’t separate things. One feeds the other.
I am both a vampire and a vampirologist.
And now, finally, I am free to be both.
Katarïna DuBroc is the editor of Gothic Bite Magazine and a certified vampirologist since 2019. She writes from the shadows about folklore, identity, and the strange beauty of the night.
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