To the Awakened who can perceive energy or the subtle body, we may appear flawed or incomplete. This difference in our energy bodies can be mistaken as illness or disease. In truth, most of our kind partially or completely lack an energy center. This is most often the one located in the belly, just below the navel. It is because we lack this center that we need to feed, for our subtle bodies cannot sustain the energy necessary to maintain our physical forms. There is a schism between our body and our spirit, and while this schism places us in our threshold state, it creates weaknesses along with many benefits.
Our physical connection to life is thin and weak. In those of our number who have not become, this may manifest itself in actual physical debility or illness. Severe allergies, immune system malfunctions, and other birth defects are not uncommon. If they gain awareness of their powers and at the very least learn how to feed, they may learn to compensate for these weaknesses. However, once you have learned to compensate, if you are unable to feed enough to sustain yourself, this weakness will return with greater severity than before.
Often well-meaning Awakened will offer to heal you so that you need not suffer the drawbacks associated with this lacking. Their efforts should be discouraged for they do not understand our nature. The absence of this center defines us as what we are and is carried over from lifetime to lifetime. It cannot and should not be "fixed." In this respect, vampirism is a condition of the spirit, and it is the spirit which predisposes the body to physically manifest the characteristics associated with vampirism.
Occasionally damage can be done to the subtle body of another that will partially or completely destroy an energy center. Such damage may be more permanent than the physical flesh, and thus will be carried over from lifetime to lifetime. This damage is most often the result of an accident, yet it produces much the same results as that which we embody.
Those who have been damaged in this way will find that they need to feed. Their subtle bodies can no longer sustain their physical forms, and if life energy is not taken from an outside source, they will suffer debilitating effects associated with the lost or damaged energy center.
Though these are not our children, they are technically of our number. It is our duty to help and guide them in understanding what has happened to them and what this may entail. There is however hope that such individuals will eventually heal on a subtle level, and thus recover from their state of vampirism.