suck the air out of

“We spent time on learning facilitation skills in order to bring all voices into their conversations, to quiet those who tend to 'suck the air' out of ...

It was this last possibility that sucked the air out of me. It was this that caused me to finally collapse back into the driver's seat of my car and tremble like I'd just come in soaking wet from a cold, hard rain, like I'd just started trying to extract the poison from my system all over again.