Speaker 1: Actress Juliette Landau is best known for playing villainous vampire
Speaker 1: Drusilla in the classic series Buffy, the Vampire Slayer to
Speaker 1: the outside world. She had a fairytale childhood, daughter of
Speaker 1: Oscar winning actor Martin Landau and three time Emmy winning
Speaker 1: actress Barbara Bain.
Speaker 2: Behind the scenes, her life was anything but a fairy tale.
Speaker 1: On this episode of Navigating Narcissism, Juliet reveals the painful
Speaker 1: impact of growing up with parents who are applauded by
Speaker 1: the world but invalidated and antagonized her at home. Juliet
Speaker 1: knows all too well the parallels between narcissists and vampires,
Speaker 1: who often use charm to seduce before feeding off others
Speaker 1: for their own gain, making them equally dangerous and devastating
Speaker 1: to deal with. From Red Table Talk Podcasts and iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: I I'm Doctor Rominy and this is Navigating Narcissism. This
Speaker 1: podcast should not be used as a substitute for medical
Speaker 1: or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek independent
Speaker 1: medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare professional
Speaker 1: with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue, or
Speaker 1: health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This episode
Speaker 1: discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people. The
Speaker 1: views and opinions expressed are solely those of the podcast
Speaker 1: author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not
Speaker 1: represent the opinions of Red Table Talk Productions, iHeartMedia, or
Speaker 1: their employees. Today, we're going to hear from Juliet Landau.
Speaker 2: So, Juliet, you know, I.
Speaker 1: Consider you, you know, not only an amazing filmmaker, but
Speaker 1: I could to do you a friend. So it's really
Speaker 1: really so wonderful to have you here because you're going
Speaker 1: to give such a unique perspective and yet such a
Speaker 1: universal perspective on all of this.
Speaker 3: So thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: I am so excited to be here, and I consider
Speaker 4: you a very close friend and it's been amazing getting
Speaker 4: to know you, and I can't wait for this conversation.
Speaker 2: Juliette.
Speaker 1: So many people know you from your role on Buffy
Speaker 1: the Vampire Slayer. You played a vampire.
Speaker 2: Some people have seen your film.
Speaker 1: More people are about to see your film, I'm happy
Speaker 1: to say, but you know, some people have seen your film.
Speaker 2: What we're going to be.
Speaker 1: Talking about today is that you're a real case of
Speaker 1: life imitating art imitating life kind of thing, because how
Speaker 1: these themes got captured in your movie.
Speaker 2: It's not just you who's been in a.
Speaker 1: Story about a vampire and made a film about a vampire.
Speaker 1: This has lived experience for you, and I think that
Speaker 1: your story was very much fueled by this personal story.
Speaker 1: And I think what's amazing is you've been doing film
Speaker 1: festival screenings about this all over the place, and this
Speaker 1: film would spur four hour discussions afterwards. I've been on
Speaker 1: some of them, so I know. So I want to
Speaker 1: start your story from the beginning, Juliet, and let's go
Speaker 1: back to your own story. Can you tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about your childhood and elements of your family dynamics.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, Well, I was raised by two narcissistic parents.
Speaker 4: My husband, Dever Weeks, was actually also raised by two
Speaker 4: narcissistic parents, and it's part of the reason in what
Speaker 4: you were talking about with the film, we wanted to
Speaker 4: make a movie that we hadn't seen before that really
Speaker 4: tackled the repercussions of growing up in this environment. How
Speaker 4: it affects every aspect really of your being, and if
Speaker 4: you don't address it, you're really primed to make destructive
Speaker 4: choice after destructive choice in essence is a cautionary tale,
Speaker 4: and it's really about that the feeling of how it
Speaker 4: gets into your very being and your very fibers, and
Speaker 4: you end up in a circumstance where you're so off
Speaker 4: balance a lot of the time that you'd have no
Speaker 4: sense of your own self, your life within securities. And
Speaker 4: I grew up in an environment where there was very
Speaker 4: much all of the tactics that go on in terms
Speaker 4: of suppression, scapegoating, gas lighting, all of those things, and
Speaker 4: so you start to really not trust any of your
Speaker 4: own input of I mean, if people are telling you that
Speaker 4: they love you, but they're doing behavior that is the
Speaker 4: antithesis of that, that is toxic behavior, and as a child,
Speaker 4: you can't actually process that and think, oh, this is them,
Speaker 4: it's their shortcoming. They're not able to do these things.
Speaker 4: You know, you think it's all you. You have to think.
Speaker 3: You develop.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of safety mechanisms to get through
Speaker 4: it that I would say later in life have not
Speaker 4: served me well. And that's one of the things that
Speaker 4: we've been wanting to talk about.
Speaker 1: So you say, growing up like this, you get a
Speaker 1: distorted message of what love is, what caring is? What
Speaker 1: was the message you got in childhood of what love is?
Speaker 4: I didn't actually understand what love was at all until
Speaker 4: I met my husband, and when I experienced what it
Speaker 4: is like when you really have someone's back and they
Speaker 4: have yours, and you want one another to thrive and
Speaker 4: excel and do well and expand and grow.
Speaker 3: That was literally earth shattering to me.
Speaker 4: I thought that love was a very painful feeling and
Speaker 4: an unsafe feeling, and it wasn't until I experienced the
Speaker 4: complete opposite of it that it really became so paramountally
Speaker 4: clear to me.
Speaker 1: I guess the question the next question for me then
Speaker 1: would be how did your parents' narcissism show up in
Speaker 1: your childhood? I think it shows up universally similar for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, but there obviously is going to
Speaker 1: be a difference in every story. How did it show
Speaker 1: up in yours?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: I think the thing for my experience was it was
Speaker 4: like this razor's edge where I became very perfectionistic, thinking
Speaker 4: that perhaps I'd receive love for doing well, and yet
Speaker 4: I wasn't allowed to shine or outshine my parents in
Speaker 4: any way. So it was this razor's edge where you
Speaker 4: had to be good enough since you were reflecting on them,
Speaker 4: but not good enough to actually be your true fulsome
Speaker 4: self because that was a threat. I mean, it's interesting
Speaker 4: because even in getting ready for this interview, and obviously
Speaker 4: in the movie that we've made, it's all such contrary
Speaker 4: action to actually talk about this stuff, to actually voice
Speaker 4: the truth.
Speaker 1: You said something though so beautifully. Actually no one has
Speaker 1: said yet on this podcast about a narcissistic childhood which
Speaker 1: I really appreciate, which is you had to be good
Speaker 1: enough because if you weren't then that didn't reflect well
Speaker 1: on them. But if you were too good, then you
Speaker 1: had to be brought down so you didn't outshine them.
Speaker 1: That's such an important dynamic, and I think that obviously
Speaker 1: in a small child that may not be as a
Speaker 1: pronounced because a small child couldn't really outshine their parents,
Speaker 1: but they certainly could get a lot of attention or
Speaker 1: something like that. And certainly as you get older. I
Speaker 1: think of a narcissistic mother and her emerging adolescent's daughter.
Speaker 1: Obviously that youthfulness that that mother can't go backwards in time.
Speaker 1: There's a resentment that can really grow up. Or a
Speaker 1: son who may be showing prowess in a way that
Speaker 1: the father once had that you have to find that
Speaker 1: absolute middle ground, and nobody's really sort of spoken of
Speaker 1: that as clearly, So I really appreciate you framing it
Speaker 1: that way.
Speaker 4: I also think that there's something, you know, all children,
Speaker 4: all people, have an inherent sort of if you're not
Speaker 4: a person of these kinds of characteristics, if you're not
Speaker 4: a narcissistic person, there's actually an inherent sort of light
Speaker 4: and truthfulness in children. And I think that that in
Speaker 4: itself is threatening to people like this because they sort
Speaker 4: of work in the darkness, you know, they work in
Speaker 4: the shop, and they work very methodically. It's you know,
Speaker 4: it's such a rigged game because and especially as a child,
Speaker 4: you have no idea about what rules you're playing. But
Speaker 4: it was a methodical kind of thing, like whatever you're
Speaker 4: given a compliment, you're also given a slap.
Speaker 3: Like everything is.
Speaker 4: Literally about keeping that structure of you being beneath them
Speaker 4: in some sort of way. So I think that children
Speaker 4: inherently have a sort of joy and openness, a light,
Speaker 4: and I think that's threatening.
Speaker 1: It absolutely can be. And I think that what you said,
Speaker 1: you get the compliment with the slap. You know, in
Speaker 1: essence that conditioning for a child that you could be
Speaker 1: told something good and it would hurt you. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine now you go into adulthood, if somebody compliments you,
Speaker 1: you're going to be more likely to WinCE and pull
Speaker 1: away than you would be to lean into it. And
Speaker 1: this is where many survivors of parental narcissistic abuse will
Speaker 1: find themselves almost sort of stuck in this mediocrity that's
Speaker 1: definitely under what they could have been because that program
Speaker 1: fear of again, the slap that comes with success. Their
Speaker 1: body holds that fear and so they live with that fear.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like that that was something that really
Speaker 1: plagued you until you found And one of the metaphors
Speaker 1: of your film was that love was the only thing
Speaker 1: that could conquer evil until you found true love, that
Speaker 1: you finally were able to push back on these patterns
Speaker 1: within yourself.
Speaker 4: I personally feel like for me, my life bloomed hugely,
Speaker 4: as did my husband's when we decided to have no
Speaker 4: contact with our families. And I understand that that's not
Speaker 4: an option for everyone. Some people have children with this
Speaker 4: kind of person, and even if they're separated or divorced,
Speaker 4: they can't disengaged, or it's a family member that they
Speaker 4: don't want to or can't distance from.
Speaker 3: But you know, we.
Speaker 4: Should be able to talk about this as a healthy
Speaker 4: and viable option as well and not be sort of
Speaker 4: told how dare you for doing that? And I do
Speaker 4: know that for both of us, our lives just grew
Speaker 4: and grew, you know, And in that way, it's sort
Speaker 4: of that old parable about the wolves, like which one
Speaker 4: you're feeding the positive stuff or the negative. I personally
Speaker 4: feel like going toward evil or trying to engage with
Speaker 4: people like this malignant narcissists is not healthy or worth
Speaker 4: the time. If you are able to completely stay away
Speaker 4: from it, It's been for both of us undeniably a
Speaker 4: healthier thing.
Speaker 1: So interesting how you put it, And I don't disagree
Speaker 1: with you, Juliette, that no contact is often viewed I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't want to say suspiciously, but with
Speaker 1: a little bit of side eye. You know, this idea
Speaker 1: of somehow familial estrangement is this terrible thing that must
Speaker 1: always be addressed. Yeah, I hear the disclaimer. I make
Speaker 1: it all the time about most people can't go no contact,
Speaker 1: but I will be frank with you. I remember seeing
Speaker 1: some data. There's a group I work with in Israel
Speaker 1: that has sort of looked at some of the data
Speaker 1: around narcissistic abuse, and one thing they found was that
Speaker 1: when people going through narcissistic abuse, we're asked to say
Speaker 1: what works best to help them heal. Psychotherapy came out
Speaker 1: number one, but number two is no contact.
Speaker 2: So it works.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you as a therapist who's worked with so
Speaker 1: many people who've gone through this, no contact absolutely works
Speaker 1: because in a since it's almost like you think of
Speaker 1: it as a toxin, and let's say a toxin, if
Speaker 1: you breathe it in, it'll make you sick. Obviously, not
Speaker 1: breathing it in is going to be good for you.
Speaker 1: So I do think that people have to feel supported
Speaker 1: when they decide I am going to go no contact.
Speaker 1: Ay is a therapist deeply supportive of it. I think
Speaker 1: where some people struggle is like they'll sometimes say I
Speaker 1: slipped and I contacted, And I always want to remove
Speaker 1: the shame from that because things happen, right, family members
Speaker 1: get sick, funerals happen. Whatever I said, this isn't sobriety.
Speaker 1: It's not like you're getting dinged for having contact, but
Speaker 1: when you have that contact, to have the radical acceptance,
Speaker 1: realistic expectations, all of that, but to go no contact
Speaker 1: it does work. Now, there is an element of your
Speaker 1: story that I think you know, some listeners may know,
Speaker 1: many may not, is that you grew up in a
Speaker 1: famous family and that changed the game quite a bit.
Speaker 2: I mean, that changed the rules. What's your take on that.
Speaker 4: It almost is like a magnifying lens with what everybody
Speaker 4: that grows up in a narcissistic family dynamic experiences. There's
Speaker 4: a disparity between what is publicly presented and what goes
Speaker 4: on behind closed doors. So I think the difference really
Speaker 4: is that the net of that is wider, So the
Speaker 4: projection that's going out into the world is a.
Speaker 3: Wider group of people that.
Speaker 4: Are seeing what my parents wanted to be projected and
Speaker 4: versus the private life. So I think that the difference
Speaker 4: is that people have a relationship potentially to my parents
Speaker 4: because they like them on a TV show or they
Speaker 4: like them in a movie. And I think one of
Speaker 4: the things that's important for us to remember is that
Speaker 4: things can coexist. So you can be a fan of
Speaker 4: someone's work and also know that they're not a good
Speaker 4: human being, and so one that you know isn't necessarily
Speaker 4: related to the other. Many people love Norman Mahler's books
Speaker 4: he stabbed his wife at a party. Both things coexist.
Speaker 4: You can think that the book is of interest and
Speaker 4: know that the man was not a person. So I
Speaker 4: think that's really the difference. Other than that, I think
Speaker 4: all of the experience in the sort of tactics are
Speaker 4: very very much the same. And I do love that
Speaker 4: word you used earlier, of radical acceptance, because I just
Speaker 4: think that's those words. I think it's such a real thing.
Speaker 4: Looking at the truth is exceedingly painful. I mean, I
Speaker 4: feel like you, I went, we both my husband, I know,
Speaker 4: went through a mourning process really for the childhood that
Speaker 4: you never had. But it's so much better to look
Speaker 4: with radical acceptance and truth of what the reality was
Speaker 4: to be able to move on from it than obscuring
Speaker 4: the truth.
Speaker 1: You know, absolutely, And I would say, you know the
Speaker 1: way you grew up again famous parents, iconically famous parents,
Speaker 1: that you in essence experienced what I'm going to call
Speaker 1: societal gas slighting, and if anything, and be shamed for
Speaker 1: having had your experience.
Speaker 2: Well, this has got to be a Juliette problem because.
Speaker 1: They're, like you said, all these things that people project
Speaker 1: onto them, onto their characters, all of that that I
Speaker 1: would say, many many people forget. Even what you had
Speaker 1: was very unique. But even if your your father's the
Speaker 1: pastor and the local parish and every beloved pastor, the
Speaker 1: beloved little coach, see the principal at the school, whatever
Speaker 1: it is in a small town, everyone saying what a
Speaker 1: great person. You're so lucky this person and this great
Speaker 1: teacher of the years, your mom or you know that
Speaker 1: pastors your dad and that person that child. Then it
Speaker 1: multiplies what you were talking about before in terms of
Speaker 1: those survival behaviors, like this has got to be my
Speaker 1: fault because everybody loves them, and they're famous, and people
Speaker 1: pay all this money to see their movies, and you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember when I originally learned of your
Speaker 1: story and we talked more, I.
Speaker 2: Thought, how does somebody survive this?
Speaker 1: You had this story where nobody would have believed you
Speaker 1: because they had to have a They had to have
Speaker 1: a they had to be able to hold these icons
Speaker 1: up to what they needed them to be. So it
Speaker 1: was easier to criticize you, Juliette, than it was to say, wow,
Speaker 1: maybe these people were just really cruel to their child
Speaker 1: and did tremendous harm to her. So I think that
Speaker 1: there's a unique form of gaslighting you experience that most
Speaker 1: of us would never understand it on the scale you
Speaker 1: experienced it.
Speaker 4: I think it's interesting what you were talking about, because
Speaker 4: I was thinking right when you were saying that about
Speaker 4: the pastor or some people in the church. And I
Speaker 4: think what's interesting with all of those scenarios is that
Speaker 4: people develop, like part of how they develop their public
Speaker 4: persona is really i think, equally.
Speaker 3: To hide the private behaviors.
Speaker 4: That are going on and to like it's almost like
Speaker 4: this this balance of the scale, so you know, they
Speaker 4: go out of their way to be exceedingly nice to
Speaker 4: people that they don't have close intimate relationships with and sort.
Speaker 3: Of further that public narrative.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's interesting because I agree with you
Speaker 4: that there's such a thing where it's like also that
Speaker 4: that sort of societal pressure of like how dare you
Speaker 4: talk about this? And luckily that's changing. The thing that
Speaker 4: I found really interesting when we started screening the film
Speaker 4: is how many people actually came forward to me and
Speaker 4: said that they two things happened. One is either someone said,
Speaker 4: you know, oh, I had a wonderful experience where I
Speaker 4: met your dad in a supermarket. He talked to me
Speaker 4: for four hours, and I was like, that's I'm wonderful.
Speaker 4: I'm so glad you had that great experience with him.
Speaker 4: You know, he was furthering that sort of perception, you know,
Speaker 4: in that engagement, and I truly was glad that they
Speaker 4: had a wonderful encounter with either my mother or my father.
Speaker 4: What I found, though, is that how many people have
Speaker 4: said that they actually suspected that, Like many people that
Speaker 4: had worked with my parents came forward and said to me,
Speaker 4: like I sort of knew that this was their natures,
Speaker 4: and I've had some experiences with them that that furthered that.
Speaker 4: I also remember that a family friend I said something about,
Speaker 4: you know, it wasn't it something about initially be before
Speaker 4: he saw the film, I'm not sure this will be
Speaker 4: your cup of tea, and whether you know, what was
Speaker 4: on the inside was very different than the outside, he said,
Speaker 4: whoever said the outside of.
Speaker 3: Your family looks so great?
Speaker 4: So it was actually interesting in opening up the discussion.
Speaker 4: What got reflected back at me wasn't as much as
Speaker 4: I expected to be.
Speaker 3: Only what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: You know what, though, that in its fashion then is
Speaker 1: a strange form of blessing, because I do think many
Speaker 1: people grow up in these homes come out of them,
Speaker 1: and nobody ever says that to them. And then you
Speaker 1: had both sides of the scale. You had not only
Speaker 1: sort of this nightmarish experience of probably of what you
Speaker 1: were going through and thinking, well, no one's going to
Speaker 1: believe me. They're famous, they're powerful, but then as time
Speaker 1: went on, people actually shedding some light on it, and
Speaker 1: that helps.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And you know what, further to that point, I
Speaker 4: think one of the things for my husband, Devyl and
Speaker 4: I there was something about each of us witnessing the
Speaker 4: other's family and corroborating what we saw. I mean, I
Speaker 4: remember with dev he kept telling me story after story
Speaker 4: after story about his father that were really heinous, disturbing,
Speaker 4: awful stories, toxic, terrible stories. And every time he'd tell
Speaker 4: me a story, he would say, but he's so sweet. Oh,
Speaker 4: and then he'd tell me another terrible story and he said,
Speaker 4: but he's so sweet. And I actually met his dad
Speaker 4: and we went for a walk in the park and
Speaker 4: he started telling me yet another horrendous story. And he said,
Speaker 4: he's so sweet. And I said, you know all the
Speaker 4: stories that you've told me, And in meeting him, I
Speaker 4: don't see a sweet man. Do you have some stories
Speaker 4: that are sweet? And he's stopped and he was thinking,
Speaker 4: and he was thinking and he said, I I don't.
Speaker 1: The trauma bonded language gets so embedded in to how
Speaker 1: we speak about invalidating people in our lives that it
Speaker 1: becomes reflexive. Juliette, describing her husband's tendency to always end
Speaker 1: horrific stories about his father with but he's sweet, is
Speaker 1: actually pretty common. It's that small child that never quite
Speaker 1: goes out of us, and that had to keep justifying
Speaker 1: bad parental behavior for survival reasons. However, it also results
Speaker 1: in us maintaining a distorted representation in our mind. The
Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance makes this so difficult because so many inconsistent
Speaker 1: things pile up. I have a father. My father was cruel.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he did nice things. When we can see it clearly,
Speaker 1: it can feel uncomfortable, but at least it's more honest.
Speaker 4: And I think that moment for him was a real
Speaker 4: like wait a minute, he's not sweet, I'm justifying and
Speaker 4: the same thing. I remember we had a holiday. I
Speaker 4: looked over at dev and the expression on his face
Speaker 4: was how I felt growing up like he looked so
Speaker 4: I used to do this thing I called clicking out,
Speaker 4: and he looked completely numb, overwhelmed, miserable. I saw his
Speaker 4: face and I was like, oh my god, that's like
Speaker 4: a mirror of how I felt my whole childhood. And
Speaker 4: again it was that corroboration of an outside witness.
Speaker 3: And I think.
Speaker 4: Because we were already starting the work of looking at
Speaker 4: what our backgrounds were and sort of experiencing this connection
Speaker 4: that we'd never had before.
Speaker 1: What Juliet is calling clicking out, this sort of numbed
Speaker 1: and overwhelmed expression many people in antagonistic and narcissistic relationships
Speaker 1: have is almost like a low grade dissociation where a
Speaker 1: person has to almost distance from themselves and from situation
Speaker 1: because it is so psychologically taxing. For people who can't
Speaker 1: escape these relationships, this clicking out can mean clicking out
Speaker 1: of their lives, being distracted, not being present, and being detached.
Speaker 4: We'd had other relationships, but we never had that real
Speaker 4: true love and support because we were not picking people
Speaker 4: of that ilk. We were primed to pick other people
Speaker 4: for a while that were similar to our environments that
Speaker 4: we were raised in. And I think that the validation
Speaker 4: of that with one another, and it's one of the
Speaker 4: things that we've had with the movie. The movie is
Speaker 4: called A Place among the Dead and we have this
Speaker 4: amazing community that has built up around the film called
Speaker 4: they've named themselves the Place among the dead Heads, like
Speaker 4: the Grateful Dead. So many people have said the movie
Speaker 4: has changed their lives, which is humbling, and they have
Speaker 4: literally we are watching this group of people, which is
Speaker 4: probably now about two hundred hardcore a Place among the Deadheads,
Speaker 4: whose lives are blooming and expanding. One gal was actually
Speaker 4: emailing today who's literally like moved out of her toxic
Speaker 4: house with her parents, gotten a job in the field
Speaker 4: she always wanted to, just got a promotion, has been
Speaker 4: seeing a therapist that is amazing and understands this like
Speaker 4: it's and just seeing this community people are creating art
Speaker 4: and their music and sharing them sharing it and each time,
Speaker 4: like to just see the growth that's happening has been
Speaker 4: so amazing. I think part of it is that validation
Speaker 4: of other people going I get this, I see it.
Speaker 4: And you know, the thing about narcissistic abuse and psychological
Speaker 4: abuse is it's not physically manifested. So that's one of
Speaker 4: the things is that when other people are like, no, no,
Speaker 4: I understand this and I see it, because sometimes people
Speaker 4: find it easier to understand physical bruises than they do
Speaker 4: the emotional toll that gets taken.
Speaker 1: Yes, because that idea of corroboration, of validation, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the idea of somebody got into good therapy. That's
Speaker 1: somebody saying, yeah, this is really happening, this is not you.
Speaker 1: And just simply even that moment of validation is where
Speaker 1: I've seen the beginning of real healing from any clients.
Speaker 1: At what point, Juliette, did you have this, I don't know,
Speaker 1: this awareness, this framework that your parents were narcissistic. When
Speaker 1: did that come to you and how did that come
Speaker 1: to you?
Speaker 4: Well? I didn't for a long long time. And I
Speaker 4: think what happened is I think it was right just
Speaker 4: before developing the idea to do the movie, and we
Speaker 4: were sort of talking about that we had come to
Speaker 4: a place.
Speaker 3: In ourselves truly where.
Speaker 4: We weren't really thinking about our families of origin anymore much.
Speaker 4: We had built our own family with each other and
Speaker 4: with our friends. And that's one other thing I wanted
Speaker 4: to mention is, as you know, started becoming aware of this,
Speaker 4: you know, you start noticing other people in your life
Speaker 4: that ultimately won swell with of us had no contact
Speaker 4: with our with our families. It was, you know, some
Speaker 4: of the people that we had thought were friends, we realized, oh,
Speaker 4: this is the same dynamics. It's literally that same thing
Speaker 4: is going on. So there was a certain sort of Okay,
Speaker 4: those aren't the people I want we want to surround
Speaker 4: ourselves with. So you know, we've now created this incredible
Speaker 4: group of friends. And we had a therapist that once said,
Speaker 4: you know, blood isn't always thicker than water.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's just stickier.
Speaker 4: Great.
Speaker 1: I had never heard this adage of blood not always
Speaker 1: being thicker than water and sometimes it's just stickier. I mean,
Speaker 1: that was some fire from their therapist. We make a lot,
Speaker 1: often too many allowances for bad behaviors within family systems,
Speaker 1: and familial enablers can double down on toxic patterns in
Speaker 1: a family. This stickiness of this blood makes setting boundaries
Speaker 1: all but impossible. And I cannot wait to share this
Speaker 1: new take on the Blood is Thicker than Water with
Speaker 1: the survivors that I work with.
Speaker 4: And so I think that at that moment when we
Speaker 4: started really looking at it in therapy, we had an
Speaker 4: incredible therapist and he really did understand all of this,
Speaker 4: and he had given us a book called People of
Speaker 4: the Lie by M. Scott Peck, and the movie is
Speaker 4: largely based on that book. The case studies and his
Speaker 4: definition of evil malignant narcissism so profound and so powerful,
Speaker 4: and I related so strongly to so many of the
Speaker 4: case studies in there, and was like, that's me, that's
Speaker 4: my experience, that's my experience. And so I think that
Speaker 4: moment of that, and I read a book called The
Speaker 4: Fantasy Bond that he had suggested as well, which is
Speaker 4: all about the idea that you can't think it's your parents,
Speaker 4: so you basically take it all on yourself. And the
Speaker 4: other thing about growing up and this kind of vironment
Speaker 4: is that it's rife with fear and anxiety. Because I
Speaker 4: know you talk about this, but at the root of
Speaker 4: all narcissistic people is a lot of insecurity and also
Speaker 4: they have a constant fear of exposure to the outside world,
Speaker 4: but also to themselves because they're busy sort of obfuscating
Speaker 4: the truth from themselves of who they truly are. So
Speaker 4: you grow up in such a sort of fearful environment
Speaker 4: and you take a lot of that stuff in. So
Speaker 4: I think it was probably a few years before we
Speaker 4: started sort of developing the idea for the movie, was
Speaker 4: in reading those books and talking with our therapists and
Speaker 4: it just being like, Aha, yes, this is exactly what
Speaker 4: we grew up in. I mean, it's like when I've
Speaker 4: read a number of your books, Dr Romini, and there's
Speaker 4: so much of it.
Speaker 3: Where you're just like check check, check, check check.
Speaker 4: You know everything that you say in terms of looking
Speaker 4: out for and everything, and you're just like, yes, I've
Speaker 4: experienced that.
Speaker 3: Yes, I've experienced that. Yes, I experienced that.
Speaker 4: You know, and I think that that's why you know
Speaker 4: the books and that you've written in this that you're
Speaker 4: doing like it's so helpful, and the videos that you
Speaker 4: put out on YouTube, and we've done it through art
Speaker 4: and entertainment. There's so many people that have either said, oh,
Speaker 4: I knew this was going on in my life and
Speaker 4: it's so amazing to see it and experience in.
Speaker 3: This in this visceral way.
Speaker 4: But there's so many people who said, oh my god,
Speaker 4: my life clicked the gal I was talking about earlier,
Speaker 4: when our dead had that I was corresponding.
Speaker 3: With today earlier today.
Speaker 4: She literally is like I had no idea and then
Speaker 4: I saw the movie and my life went boom, Like
Speaker 4: it clicked into place. And it couldn't be more thankful,
Speaker 4: because I think I would have ended up, you know,
Speaker 4: committing suicide literally like she was in such a toxic,
Speaker 4: toxic environment.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting to me you figured it out later
Speaker 1: in your life. I mean later in your life relatively speaking,
Speaker 1: meaning that was only in the last few years until then,
Speaker 1: until you had that framework, What did you think what
Speaker 1: was happening with you and your parents and that relationship, Like,
Speaker 1: how did you make sense of it?
Speaker 4: I thought, first of all that my mother was my
Speaker 4: best friend, and I really always knew in myself in
Speaker 4: terms of I knew something wasn't right as a kid.
Speaker 4: If I even think of my childhood, I never can
Speaker 4: think of it without this pervasive sense of really depression
Speaker 4: and nauseousness. I knew I was not in a safe environment.
Speaker 4: I knew it, but I had to keep that truth
Speaker 4: for myself. It was way too scary to look at.
Speaker 4: And I think it really was having for me having
Speaker 4: like a partner, not being feeling so alone in the
Speaker 4: world where I felt the safety to really take off
Speaker 4: the blinders and look at it. But in myself, I
Speaker 4: really I knew it. I was tap dancing away from it.
Speaker 3: And if that makes sense, Oh.
Speaker 2: It absolutely does make sense.
Speaker 1: And I think that you know, even as you put it,
Speaker 1: you felt it like you thought about my childhood. It
Speaker 1: felt depression. It's interesting to me you felt nausea, because
Speaker 1: to me, that's almost like being in such a toxic
Speaker 1: environment made you sick. My conversation with Juliet will continue
Speaker 1: after this break. So you grew up like this, You
Speaker 1: felt it almost in your body that something wasn't right,
Speaker 1: But you came through adolescens and you actually went into
Speaker 1: the entertainment industry, which is one of the most validating
Speaker 1: industries a person could go into, especially as a performer.
Speaker 1: How did how you grew up affect the early evolution
Speaker 1: not only of your career but even of your adult relationships.
Speaker 4: Well, I think it affected a lot of things in
Speaker 4: that for a long time I was not picking healthy
Speaker 4: people to be in relationship with.
Speaker 3: One of the things that we look at in the
Speaker 3: film is that.
Speaker 4: Idea of you know, replaying the unwinnable parent or the
Speaker 4: past trauma in life, and how we do that over
Speaker 4: and over and over, hoping for a different outcome. But
Speaker 4: in fact, when you do that, you don't get a
Speaker 4: different outcome. It actually just gets worse and worse and worse.
Speaker 4: We've been exploring that idea in our movie, and I
Speaker 4: think it speak because we had the experience of doing that.
Speaker 4: It's interesting because yes, the entertainment industry is obviously has
Speaker 4: a lot of rejection, is invalidating, as you say, and
Speaker 4: obviously is also rife with narcissism. And now it's an
Speaker 4: exciting thing I'm doing sort of contrary.
Speaker 3: Action to what I was raised to do.
Speaker 4: So even sitting here and having this conversation with you
Speaker 4: so publicly about this making a movie, I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: neither dev nor we were told we couldn't really do anything.
Speaker 4: So the fact that we had one hundred and fifty people,
Speaker 4: you know, crew working for us, and we helmed a
Speaker 4: movie and I directed it and co wrote it, co
Speaker 4: produced it, I'm starring in it. We got incredible actors
Speaker 4: to come on board. Gary Oldman, Ron Pearlman, Robert Patrick,
Speaker 4: Lance Henrickson, best selling author Anne Rice appearing for the
Speaker 4: only time in a scripted movie, all these people that
Speaker 4: in of itself is contrary action, and then the actual
Speaker 4: subject matter of it to actually go like take that
Speaker 4: subject matter head on and say, you know, it's worth it.
Speaker 4: This mission is sort of bigger than me and my story,
Speaker 4: and I want to do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think I love that concept of
Speaker 1: contrary action. I think one of the challenges or when
Speaker 1: it comes to contrary action, I'm going to do the
Speaker 1: opposite of what I was told I could or couldn't do,
Speaker 1: is that a lot of people feel like an imposter.
Speaker 2: Did you ever feel like that when you were absolutely?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm absolutely That's the challenge, and that's another
Speaker 1: contrary action.
Speaker 4: Right. We make these agreements with our parents, and these
Speaker 4: are spoken, and some of them are tacitly unspoken, but
Speaker 4: these agreements really become the thoughts in our minds and
Speaker 4: the mantras that we live by, which inform our choices
Speaker 4: and can lead to destruction. And in the movie, my
Speaker 4: character is making destructive choice after destructive choice. Hopefully I'm
Speaker 4: not doing that in life anymore. But as we've been
Speaker 4: talking about, I was for a really long time, and
Speaker 4: I was ignoring all the red flags and doggedly sort
Speaker 4: of going forward and listening to those thoughts and those voices.
Speaker 4: And the whole point is that, you know, as adults,
Speaker 4: we can break those agreements. I think it's important also
Speaker 4: to think about the fact that these poisonous seeds can
Speaker 4: be planted, you know, obviously by parents and family members,
Speaker 4: but also in love relationships or at school by teachers
Speaker 4: and peers, and you know, once they're planted, they just
Speaker 4: fester and fester and grow. So it's really about that contrary,
Speaker 4: you know, action and changing some of that thinking that
Speaker 4: goes on, which obviously always will rear its.
Speaker 1: Head absolutely, and I think, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: what you're talking about has been framed. If we look
Speaker 1: at doctor Kristen Nef's work on self compassion, she calls
Speaker 1: it the inner critic, you know, and it goes beyond.
Speaker 1: I mean, the inner critic is a pretty beastly vampire
Speaker 1: like quality, and a person who is surviving from narcissistic abuse,
Speaker 1: especially childhood narcissistic abuse, But one thing that Nef and
Speaker 1: others who have done work on this idea of the
Speaker 1: inner critic point out is that once we can recognize
Speaker 1: that our inner critic isn't just there to torment us,
Speaker 1: but actually exists to keep us safe, we may be
Speaker 1: able to say, Okay, inner critic, I see what you're
Speaker 1: doing on thanks, let's dial that back.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: And you know, but it was really for the child
Speaker 1: to feel like when it comes out of childhood. It
Speaker 1: was this idea that if I'm the bad one, then
Speaker 1: they're not the bad one. And when you can see
Speaker 1: the inner critic for what it was trying to do
Speaker 1: for you, all of a sudden, we can become not
Speaker 1: only compassionate towards our inner critic, but compassionate to ourselves,
Speaker 1: which is such a crucial element of healing from narcissistic abuse.
Speaker 1: You had played a vampire in a very successful television show,
Speaker 1: Drusilla in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In doing that, you
Speaker 1: kind of obviously were very immersed in the vampire world.
Speaker 2: That's where there was a lot.
Speaker 1: Of time spent in that In playing that role, did
Speaker 1: that give you any insight did you connect the dots
Speaker 1: basically by playing Drusilla and Buffy. Did you ever connect
Speaker 1: the dots between vampires and what was happening in my
Speaker 1: family and did all of that ever come through for you.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious because it seems like that was the
Speaker 1: birth of an idea that became a place among the dead.
Speaker 2: That's why I'm asking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's interesting because I don't think it did at
Speaker 4: the time. I mean, it's funny because even with how I.
Speaker 3: Was, I sort of approached the character of Scilla.
Speaker 4: I never thought of her really as a vampire as such,
Speaker 4: in that she was a very multifaceted character and she
Speaker 4: had a lot of trauma in her background, but also
Speaker 4: had like this epic love story that went on for
Speaker 4: two hundred years, and so there was so much dimension
Speaker 4: to her that my main.
Speaker 3: Thrust was to how to flesh her out.
Speaker 4: In a way that was human, so that you would
Speaker 4: relate to her and sort of pull for her, even
Speaker 4: though she is the villain, but because she was written
Speaker 4: and created and had three hundred and sixty degrees, where
Speaker 4: sometimes a villain can be very one dimensional. So I
Speaker 4: don't think I thought of it in a cognizant way.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about your film Place among
Speaker 1: the Dead, which is a vampire film. It is a yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a vampire film. I want to say that maybe
Speaker 1: in the horror genre, but it's also very much a
Speaker 1: narcissistic abuse film, which of course that's part I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I see it, I see it, I see it. So
Speaker 1: one of the sort of technique's tools, if you will
Speaker 1: you used in the film was these internalized voices like
Speaker 1: you said that running tape that people have in real time,
Speaker 1: and some of the things that you're your character. This
Speaker 1: woman who is trying to save others and trying to
Speaker 1: save others is putting herself in harm's way. These internalized
Speaker 1: voices of her parents are things like we need you.
Speaker 2: To be a mess.
Speaker 1: I need you to be confused, there is something wrong
Speaker 1: with you. You are unlovable. Never outshine us, your to blame,
Speaker 1: and those lines, when I pulled those out of the film,
Speaker 1: like my goodness, that is the ideation of the vast
Speaker 1: majority of survivors, even if this didn't happen to them
Speaker 1: in childhood, even if this happened to them in an
Speaker 1: adult relationship for the first time. And so let's talk
Speaker 1: about the film. A Place among the dead, and also
Speaker 1: even take a step back, is that you know your
Speaker 1: whole you've spent some time in the vampire genre and
Speaker 1: you know, you were on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You
Speaker 1: were in that vampirey world for a while. And then
Speaker 1: use that metaphor, but it was so apt and then
Speaker 1: combining it with this idea of that running self talk
Speaker 1: that's not even our voice, it's theirs. And I think
Speaker 1: that that was what was so powerful about your film
Speaker 1: because we often think like, oh, I'm just talking to
Speaker 1: myself badly. I'm like, nah, I think it's them talking
Speaker 1: to you and it's just playing in your head. So
Speaker 1: talk to me about where the film came from, how
Speaker 1: you came up with ideas like that, your vampire Journey
Speaker 1: as it were.
Speaker 4: Absolutely what you said resonates so much. In the opening
Speaker 4: part of the voiceover. It actually starts with the parents
Speaker 4: whispering the thoughts, all of them like what you mentioned,
Speaker 4: and then there's a point where the character's voice picks
Speaker 4: them up and so you're exactly, isn't you know they've
Speaker 4: been help like planted in there and it's in her voice.
Speaker 4: The movie is a genre bending art film, and you know,
Speaker 4: we wanted to use genre for a number of reasons.
Speaker 4: First of all, we wanted to make an entertaining movie,
Speaker 4: and I really wanted to lull the audience into a
Speaker 4: sense of safety, using a genre that they love and
Speaker 4: tropes that they feel comfortable with to talk about unsafe
Speaker 4: and uncomfortable ideas.
Speaker 3: The whole movie is scripted.
Speaker 4: But I blur the lines of reality. So all of
Speaker 4: the known cast play alter ego versions of themselves, and
Speaker 4: every single one has a tie to vampire material. So
Speaker 4: I play Jules, and obviously I was on Buffy and Angel,
Speaker 4: and Gary Oldman was in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Ron
Speaker 4: Pearlman was in Blade two, and Anne Rice wrote the
Speaker 4: Vampire Chronicles Interview with the Vampire and such, and so
Speaker 4: it was a way to bring in all of our histories.
Speaker 4: And truly, I felt like the vampire is the perfect
Speaker 4: metaphor for the ultimate narcissist. It's a being which drains
Speaker 4: all for its own needs. Vampires mesmerize and have people
Speaker 4: in their thrall narcissists are often exceedingly charismatic. You have
Speaker 4: to invite vampires in when we're talking about narcissists in
Speaker 4: the family you don't invite those people in, but you
Speaker 4: do invite others of that ilk once you've been primed
Speaker 4: to or if you get into a love relationship and
Speaker 4: you're not even from this background, you invite that person
Speaker 4: into your life. Vampires do not change, They stay exactly
Speaker 4: the same.
Speaker 3: Narcissists do not change.
Speaker 4: Vampires cannot see themselves their own self reflection in a mirror.
Speaker 4: Narcissists have zero capacity to self reflect. And it goes
Speaker 4: on and on and on, and really, in the movie,
Speaker 4: what we're exploring is the whole spectrum, so from the systematic,
Speaker 4: consistent nothing of spirit, light, liveliness all the way to
Speaker 4: the heinous snuffing of life. And the Darcel character in
Speaker 4: the movie, he personifies the most diabolical, the darkest end
Speaker 4: of that spectrum. In fact, Darcel means darkness in French,
Speaker 4: and in the movie you're never quite sure is he
Speaker 4: a vampire or is he a serial killer who emulates
Speaker 4: a vampire. It doesn't matter because the traits are so
Speaker 4: much the same. And what we're exploring we talked a
Speaker 4: little bit about this earlier, is that idea how we
Speaker 4: often just replay the unwinnable parent or the past trauma
Speaker 4: in our lives, and we keep wanting desperately this other
Speaker 4: outcome that we're gonna win this time, and in fact,
Speaker 4: when we do that, we don't. It just gets worse
Speaker 4: and worse and worse, and we put ourselves in harm's
Speaker 4: way in more and more dangerous situations.
Speaker 1: You know, I never even thought about all the other
Speaker 1: metaphors you are sharing about how vampires parallel narcissists. A
Speaker 1: big one though, and when I watched the film a
Speaker 1: second time third time I got was the idea that
Speaker 1: the vampire is forever young and they attempt to steal
Speaker 1: youth right, their victims are always young. And I forgot
Speaker 1: that element of it because that also is that piece
Speaker 1: of when we think of the narcissistic vanity, how important
Speaker 1: and their quest for eternal youth and however they can
Speaker 1: get that, whether that's by changing their appearance or how
Speaker 1: they dress, how they present to the world, the age
Speaker 1: of a partner, whatever it may be, they try to
Speaker 1: stay young. And that idea to me, of stealing youth
Speaker 1: in essence is stealing innocence. They take people and they
Speaker 1: distort what love and goodness and kindness are into relationship
Speaker 1: and the people who come out of narcissistic relationships will say,
Speaker 1: I don't think my conception of love is ever quite
Speaker 1: going to be the same. I don't think it'll ever
Speaker 1: quite be so innocent or trusting. So that theft of
Speaker 1: the vampire of youth and they're sort of their commitment
Speaker 1: to youth was a piece I didn't get until this
Speaker 1: most recent viewing.
Speaker 4: And it also that thing you're saying, that thing of
Speaker 4: literally being sucked dry, literally, you know, in these kinds
Speaker 4: of relationships, and the other element of it that I
Speaker 4: think why to use this particular genre is also to
Speaker 4: show how harrowing this experience truly is, how destabilizing it is,
Speaker 4: how we really use a device, because you're inside Jules's
Speaker 4: POV for a lot of the film, and we want
Speaker 4: the viewer to experience what it's like, how disorienting it
Speaker 4: is when and confusing when you're inngaged in this kind
Speaker 4: of relationship.
Speaker 1: Not only is she losing herself, she's becoming more and
Speaker 1: more sort of dysregulated, and other people around her are saying,
Speaker 1: what is wrong with you? And I thought that was
Speaker 1: an interesting thing too, is that the sense of for
Speaker 1: many survivors as they as they'll feel there sometimes their
Speaker 1: own mental health is deteriorating while they stay in these
Speaker 1: relationships where they think about these relationships, other people around
Speaker 1: them will say, okay, you need to slow your role,
Speaker 1: like what is wrong with you? Instead of because I
Speaker 1: think the direness of it is something that people don't
Speaker 1: see it. They don't see, they don't see the metaphor
Speaker 1: of the Darcel, of the terrifying person. And one of
Speaker 1: my takeaways from watching that character was it also felt
Speaker 1: like Darcel the vampire killer was actually at an unconscious level.
Speaker 1: And I think you used imagery to create that a
Speaker 1: composite of both of your parents.
Speaker 4: Because it is that thing of like where you are repeating,
Speaker 4: you're repeating, and you're going toward someone that does not
Speaker 4: have your best interest at heart, and you're.
Speaker 3: Doggedly going toward it.
Speaker 4: And so absolutely, you know. It's interesting because one of
Speaker 4: the things when we were hiring our crew, I think
Speaker 4: there was like one hundred and fifty one hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty three people that we were hiring, and Devin I
Speaker 4: literally after we met each person, we said to our elves,
Speaker 4: to each other, do we like this person because they
Speaker 4: feel like they're going to be collaborative and creative and wonderful,
Speaker 4: or do they feel sickly familiar and so we like them?
Speaker 4: And we actually didn't hire a few people We were like, no,
Speaker 4: I think that's sickly familiar. And we didn't have a
Speaker 4: bad apple in the bunch, Like we.
Speaker 3: Did the best job with that.
Speaker 4: But it literally took concerted efforts saying wait a minute,
Speaker 4: is this because it feels that awful but familiarity, And
Speaker 4: so you know, we really employed that and in vetting people,
Speaker 4: and it's something that I think to this day we
Speaker 4: sort of continue in any kind of business or personal
Speaker 4: relationship as well.
Speaker 1: I wish this is something that everyone could take away,
Speaker 1: because what you're describing is really discernment. Is this, Do
Speaker 1: I feel safe and heard and respected and seen by
Speaker 1: this person? Or is my draw to this person the
Speaker 1: sort of sick familiar. And the other thing to pay
Speaker 1: attention to is do I feel any drive to sort
Speaker 1: of fond to this person or submit to this person
Speaker 1: even if they're you know, they they're lower than you
Speaker 1: on any kind of hierarchy you'd say, is there some
Speaker 1: like do I feel like I'm trying to win them over?
Speaker 1: And I think once you feel that that is when
Speaker 1: a survivor really is going to be like, ah, you knows,
Speaker 1: there's something happening here, and it's ancient and it's not
Speaker 1: about this this conversation. There is another couple of other things.
Speaker 1: It's some themes that came out in your film that
Speaker 1: so captured the experience of survivors. One is in the
Speaker 1: very beginning of the film, and you're talking about narcissistic
Speaker 1: parents and you're narcissistic parents. You were talking about how
Speaker 1: your father and mother would refuse to see you and
Speaker 1: that there would be no reflection of you in this case.
Speaker 1: You're saying in his eyes that you're talking about your father,
Speaker 1: and I think that captured such an important theme. And
Speaker 1: another thing you brought up is this idea of your
Speaker 1: character saying I'm so tired, and that really struck me
Speaker 1: because I have to say, universally, that is what so
Speaker 1: many survivors says, that I am so tired, and it's
Speaker 1: not tired. I need to go to bed. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not tired. I need to take a nap. It's
Speaker 1: not tired. I need to go on vacation. It is
Speaker 1: so tired. It is existential tired and you really capture
Speaker 1: that because that's such a universal survivor experience. But there
Speaker 1: was one line you gave which I thought was so important.
Speaker 1: You said, in my desire to be loved, I am
Speaker 1: willing to be sacrificed. Talk to me about that line,
Speaker 1: because I have to say there was a real I
Speaker 1: stopped the film, went back and say, I want to
Speaker 1: make sure I heard that right. It was so powerful
Speaker 1: and profound, and it's so captured the experience of survivors
Speaker 1: who often then feel shame for wanting to be loved
Speaker 1: and then sacrificing themselves and saying, well, maybe this is
Speaker 1: my fault. So can you break that down? Because I
Speaker 1: thought it was such an important line in the film.
Speaker 4: The first thing I was going to say is it's
Speaker 4: interesting because that was an actual poem with no reflection
Speaker 4: of me in that part.
Speaker 3: It was his eyes, but it was about both parents.
Speaker 4: It is that thing of your soul having been sapped
Speaker 4: so much and having been sort of suppressed for such
Speaker 4: a period of time, and you giving yourself up and
Speaker 4: subjugating any of your needs to take care of other
Speaker 4: people's needs, and feeling like, you know, a completely wilted
Speaker 4: flower because you haven't nourished yourself at all or had
Speaker 4: any nourishing.
Speaker 1: When did you come into awareness that this was the case.
Speaker 4: It's interesting we've been talking about that idea of like
Speaker 4: when do those thoughts come up? I mean they come
Speaker 4: up obviously when when you're stressed out and things aren't
Speaker 4: going well. They come up when things are going really
Speaker 4: really well because you.
Speaker 3: Think you don't deserve it.
Speaker 4: You know, we've been talking about like, oh, these these
Speaker 4: anxiety provoking thoughts, this false stelf, like they rear their head,
Speaker 4: these thoughts at all different times where you've been sort
Speaker 4: of conditioned to if you're feeling open and joyous, that
Speaker 4: that's a very unsafe place to be.
Speaker 3: And so I think.
Speaker 4: That very young, I knew that I had to do
Speaker 4: whatever I could to take care of other people. And
Speaker 4: you know, you live in a sort of vigilance as well,
Speaker 4: and so you're not only downloading like all the fear
Speaker 4: that goes with that they have, you're also your own
Speaker 4: fear of like needing to be taken care of as
Speaker 4: well and feeling unsafe.
Speaker 3: So you're in sort of this.
Speaker 4: Constant stressed situation fight or flight to some degree.
Speaker 1: The exhaustion of survivors of these toxic relationships is known
Speaker 1: to anyone who has been in one, and Juliette makes
Speaker 1: the point really well here that you are going back
Speaker 1: and forth between anxiety and depression. It may not even
Speaker 1: be at a level that others notice, but life in
Speaker 1: these relationships, especially growing up like this, is a vacillation
Speaker 1: between disappointment, fear, helplessness, hope, confusion, and worry over time
Speaker 1: that takes a toll on a person's psyche and leaves
Speaker 1: them not just tired, but existentially exhausted.
Speaker 4: And I think you're ebbing, like when I've talked about
Speaker 4: my childhood feeling a sense of depression, You're ebbing between
Speaker 4: anxiety and depression basically, which is why it's so tiring.
Speaker 4: That's sort of where you are and in those two
Speaker 4: states most of the time. So I think pretty young
Speaker 4: I knew that. I don't think I knew it as
Speaker 4: clearly as the line states it, but I think I
Speaker 4: knew it, and very early on was like, I need
Speaker 4: to subjugate my own needs, and I am willing to
Speaker 4: do anything to potentially get you know, get this, like
Speaker 4: even a crumb of love.
Speaker 1: We will be right back with this conversation with Juliette.
Speaker 1: So one thing you talk about is going no contact.
Speaker 1: At what point did you have that recognition of, in
Speaker 1: order to preserve myself, I've got to put them behind me.
Speaker 1: How did you come to that realization and then how
Speaker 1: did you execute it?
Speaker 4: I guess it's been about fifteen years, almost maybe thirteen years,
Speaker 4: and so that's probably when I became very very clear
Speaker 4: about what was going on, and I really felt like
Speaker 4: I had given enough time. Dev always says we've already
Speaker 4: had served to life sentences, and so I felt like
Speaker 4: I've I had given enough, and I wanted to surround
Speaker 4: myself with people who were truly loving and nurturing, and
Speaker 4: where there was a two way street where I was
Speaker 4: really loving and giving to them and they were really
Speaker 4: loving and giving to me. And so once I see something,
Speaker 4: I can't unsee it. So once I saw it, I
Speaker 4: really did not want to ever engage again, and I
Speaker 4: haven't and I literally didn't even on my dad's deathbed.
Speaker 4: And this may be controversial to many people. I did
Speaker 4: not go and I really felt people said, oh, you're
Speaker 4: going to regret it. I actually don't regret it. I
Speaker 4: feel like for me, it was the right decision.
Speaker 3: It would have been a lie.
Speaker 4: It would have been a lie to what our relationship
Speaker 4: truly was. And I felt like he made his choices
Speaker 4: in his life, and he made his bed, and it
Speaker 4: was for him to lie in that bed, and it
Speaker 4: wasn't really for me to be there one way or
Speaker 4: the other, because I felt that the price would again
Speaker 4: I would pay a price for it, and I didn't
Speaker 4: want to pay a price for it.
Speaker 3: It would have been a lie.
Speaker 4: So for me, it was the right decision not to go.
Speaker 4: And I have not regretted that, you know, in terms
Speaker 4: of forgiveness. For me, it really was about, like my
Speaker 4: experience with my parents, I wasn't going to get resolution
Speaker 4: or peace with them ever, Like that's never going to happen.
Speaker 4: And once I realized who they My mother's alive, so
Speaker 4: who they are, who they were, that was never going
Speaker 4: to happen. The resolution actually had to come in myself
Speaker 4: and in my own behavior and my own way that
Speaker 4: I want to navigate the world and the things that
Speaker 4: I want to do and be and give and experience.
Speaker 4: And so I feel like, you know, we have this
Speaker 4: idea and if you see someone on their deathbedd they
Speaker 4: all of a sudden say even the most wonderful thing
Speaker 4: they've said.
Speaker 3: You know what, for thirty five forty five years.
Speaker 4: They've behaved one way, and then they have one moment
Speaker 4: where they say something else, like what because they're afraid
Speaker 4: of dying?
Speaker 3: Like what does that really mean? I don't think it
Speaker 3: means anything.
Speaker 4: So for me, I feel like we have this idea
Speaker 4: about forgiveness, and I know you talk about that too,
Speaker 4: which in a way is sort of that it allows
Speaker 4: bad behavior. There's certain things that aren't forgivable. So I
Speaker 4: think that the peace comes within your own self and
Speaker 4: in the change that you can affect in your own
Speaker 4: life and in other lives.
Speaker 1: No, I mean again, you know I've spoken widely about
Speaker 1: this of the risks of forgiveness and narcissistic relationships, the
Speaker 1: acknowledgment that it's a personal decision, but if a person's
Speaker 1: making that decision because they think it's going to change something,
Speaker 1: and many times feel this real grief that their forgiveness
Speaker 1: has really only resulted in a replaying of the behavior.
Speaker 1: When you decided to go no contact, both parents are
Speaker 1: obviously living at the time. Did you tell them you
Speaker 1: were going to do it or did you just sort
Speaker 1: of fade away?
Speaker 4: Well, I also went to contact with my sister as well,
Speaker 4: and she has made very different choices and is very
Speaker 4: similar to my parents, And so I did tell my
Speaker 4: sister that I wanted to surround myself with people who
Speaker 4: were loving and caring. I think I sort of faded
Speaker 4: away and then just stopped. I mean literally was just
Speaker 4: I don't I mean it was literally for a long time,
Speaker 4: like just delete. I wouldn't even listen or messages or anything.
Speaker 4: Just literally delete, move on to something Like I literally
Speaker 4: felt like I have given this so much time in
Speaker 4: my life, and now that I'm conscious of it, I
Speaker 4: don't want to give it even a second more So
Speaker 4: I literally would just be you know, like no, delete,
Speaker 4: move on to something that's actually sort of going to
Speaker 4: be positive and nurturing to someone else or to me.
Speaker 1: I mean again, it's not easy to do, which is
Speaker 1: why a lot of people don't do it, But it
Speaker 1: sounds like once you did it, it had a huge
Speaker 1: influence on you.
Speaker 4: Huge, I mean everything. Literally the word bloomed comes to
Speaker 4: mind because and I think dev felt the same way
Speaker 4: that there was. I think, in first of all acknowledging
Speaker 4: that even if you try not to. When you're engaging
Speaker 4: with people like this, there it reignites.
Speaker 3: A feutal hope that it's going to be different, or.
Speaker 4: It's going to change, or you're finally going to get validated,
Speaker 4: or you're going to be loved or like all of
Speaker 4: it sort of opens up that old abyss and then
Speaker 4: you know everybody. It's interesting because when we talked with
Speaker 4: the dead Heads and the people that have gone no contact,
Speaker 4: and then if they have contact again, they literally end
Speaker 4: up it's like what you said earlier, detoxing, like it
Speaker 4: takes a while to sort of They're like, oh, I
Speaker 4: was feeling like myself, I kind of understood who myself was,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, I'm feeling really off kilter
Speaker 4: again and really insecure and really confused. And you know,
Speaker 4: it's taken weeks for me to sort of get or
Speaker 4: months or however long it takes. You know, from exposures,
Speaker 4: obviously there's tactics, but I find that, you know, these
Speaker 4: people are very good at getting in.
Speaker 3: Through the cracks.
Speaker 1: Even if you don't go no contact, but have a
Speaker 1: period of time where there is no contact with a
Speaker 1: very antagonistic or toxic person, many people report that they
Speaker 1: start feeling better, functioning better. I've had many people say
Speaker 1: that health problems improved really fast, their hair started to
Speaker 1: grow back, they were sleeping better, working better, and felt
Speaker 1: more connected to other people, and it would all happen fast.
Speaker 1: The unfortunate flip side of this is that after a
Speaker 1: long break from a toxic relationship and then having to
Speaker 1: be with that person again, even if you practice radical
Speaker 1: acceptance and maintain realistic expectations, people will report that they
Speaker 1: feel drained and sick and lethargic once they do need
Speaker 1: to be with them again. Before you got to know
Speaker 1: contact with your family, did you attempt to try other strategies.
Speaker 1: Did you say, Okay, let me try it this way,
Speaker 1: let me try it that way, or how did you
Speaker 1: come to that?
Speaker 2: Because I know a lot of.
Speaker 1: People they grapple with it for a while. They say, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I just won't go to the holidays, maybe I
Speaker 1: just won't talk to them as often. Maybe all this,
Speaker 1: maybe all that. It's sort of it's a process. How
Speaker 1: did you get to that point? Did you just go
Speaker 1: from zero to sixty and say a cold turkey or
Speaker 1: was this a process where you were trying to use
Speaker 1: other strategies.
Speaker 4: I think I had used other strategies for a while,
Speaker 4: and then there was a moment where once I really
Speaker 4: saw and understood who they were, I knew there was
Speaker 4: nothing there for me, and I knew that all it
Speaker 4: would be was me literally sort of serving them and
Speaker 4: their needs. You know. Once I sort of accepted everything,
Speaker 4: it was almost like a breakup that I've had, you know,
Speaker 4: previous with relationship breakup where once you kind of see
Speaker 4: and you go, this is not a healthy interaction, this
Speaker 4: is not a good match. I'm not a person who
Speaker 4: would ever like once breaking up, go like, oh we
Speaker 4: ended up back in bed together or whatever, because once
Speaker 4: I sort of get it, it may take me a
Speaker 4: while to get it, but once I get it, I
Speaker 4: was like, yeah, this is not And I think there
Speaker 4: became a point where literally, you know that feeling that
Speaker 4: we were talking about, that sort of revulsion feeling, and
Speaker 4: I know you've talked about that when you sort of
Speaker 4: like you're like, oh, I've met someone at a thing,
Speaker 4: and I right away like the hair goes on my
Speaker 4: back of my neck, like I know that they're this
Speaker 4: kind of person. And I sort of moved away from
Speaker 4: that even at a party.
Speaker 3: I know you had said that once to me, literally the.
Speaker 4: Idea of engaging for me literally makes me feel a
Speaker 4: sense of revulsion and again kind of nauseousness, like I
Speaker 4: just don't want to do it, like it literally feels
Speaker 4: in my body like something where it's like this is
Speaker 4: not a healthy thing for me to do.
Speaker 1: So you did it, and again, many people have shared
Speaker 1: what you've shared, and you saw the parallel process because
Speaker 1: it sounds like dev got your husband. Dev got there too,
Speaker 1: so you were able to have that shared experience.
Speaker 2: Again, I have to tell you I am.
Speaker 1: Actually not a horror or a vampire person, because I
Speaker 1: have my own anxieties and fears for my own history.
Speaker 1: But I actually enjoyed the movie each time I watched
Speaker 1: it because I think it became more layered and more interesting,
Speaker 1: telling to me of sort of the abject terror that
Speaker 1: in many ways a person who's.
Speaker 2: Gone through narcissistic abuse goes through.
Speaker 1: So I really feel privileged that I've not only had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to watch it a few times, but even
Speaker 1: speak with groups alongside you about it. So as we're
Speaker 1: closing up here, Julia, any any final thoughts, where can
Speaker 1: how can people support you? In your film.
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely, Well, my website is Juliet Landau dot com
Speaker 4: and we're in the throws. We've had multiple offers on
Speaker 4: the film, and we just have are finishing out our
Speaker 4: festival run, which has been extraordinary. We just won our
Speaker 4: thirty seventh major awards, sweeping the twenty one festivals we
Speaker 4: submitted to and played. I think we have twelve Best
Speaker 4: Feature of the Festival, nine Best Actress for me, six
Speaker 4: Best Director. It goes on and on, like all major awards,
Speaker 4: and so it's been just an unbelievable and humbling and
Speaker 4: incredible experience that we're really honored to have been on.
Speaker 1: I really think it gives so much more context, and
Speaker 1: I think for people who are survivors who can say, oh,
Speaker 1: I see, especially the running voices and how we remain
Speaker 1: we remain in these voices and in our head, in
Speaker 1: these relationships for a very long time. So the film
Speaker 1: fostered in empathy in a very creative way that I
Speaker 1: am very grateful that you've sort of contributed to the
Speaker 1: sort of canon of how we think about narcissism and
Speaker 1: narcissistic abuse.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Here are my takeaways from my conversation with Juliet First,
Speaker 1: juliet talks about this idea of contrary action as a
Speaker 1: tool that has helped her manage her healing from narcissistic relationships.
Speaker 2: It's a tool that.
Speaker 1: Has often suggested in managing anxiety. It's basically doing the
Speaker 1: thing that we are afraid to do or we're told
Speaker 1: we couldn't do. It's almost an act of abandon It
Speaker 1: can feel like a folly, and it can be scary
Speaker 1: to do these things. But many people in toxic, antagonistic,
Speaker 1: or narcissistic relationships clip their own wings and believe the
Speaker 1: negative talk that these relationships fill us up with. You'll
Speaker 1: never amount to anything. Who do you think you are?
Speaker 1: You aren't smart enough to do that? Who would ever
Speaker 1: listen to you? Contrary action may feel like a ridiculously
Speaker 1: of faith, like jumping into the ocean in January, but
Speaker 1: when you do it, you never know what you may
Speaker 1: find out about your limitless capacities. In my next takeaway,
Speaker 1: Juliette talks about the destructive choices she noticed herself making.
Speaker 1: Many survivors struggle with this. They want to take responsibility
Speaker 1: for their choices and recognize that they cannot blame another
Speaker 1: person for the choices they made. And I get that,
Speaker 1: and I understand that. But unpacking consistently self sabotaging harmful
Speaker 1: and destructive choices and connecting the dots, it can be
Speaker 1: helpful to recognize how often these choices reflect an internalization
Speaker 1: of a lifetime of invalidation, a working through of old patterns,
Speaker 1: and a living into the limiting narratives placed on us. Yes,
Speaker 1: we do need to take responsibility for our choices, but
Speaker 1: you also have to take the weed out by its roots,
Speaker 1: and that means understanding the roots so we can understand
Speaker 1: our choices. And in my next takeaway, she shared how
Speaker 1: she was so careful about vetting the people that she
Speaker 1: and her husband hired on their project that they would
Speaker 1: actually ask themselves, does this person feel comfortable because they
Speaker 1: are nice and solid or because they represent that old, familiar,
Speaker 1: toxic chaos. And in being very careful and checking in
Speaker 1: with each other, she reflects on building a team which
Speaker 1: worked well together and was very functional, whether it is
Speaker 1: how we choose someone we will have on our team,
Speaker 1: a partner or a friend. After a person has survived
Speaker 1: narcissistic abuse, it becomes important to check in with yourself
Speaker 1: and with a trusted other. Being discerning is essential giving
Speaker 1: yourself a minute and paying attention to whether you are
Speaker 1: attracted to toxic familiarity or whether you are recognizing healthy
Speaker 1: qualities including compassion, respect, integrity, kindness, and self awareness. And
Speaker 1: in my last takeaway, Juliet said that no contact ended
Speaker 1: up being the strategy that worked best for her. However,
Speaker 1: this is not an option open to most people or
Speaker 1: that even feels comfortable for many people. There are so
Speaker 1: many reasons people cannot do no contact co parenting, caregiving responsibilities, culture, religion,
Speaker 1: practical factors, or you just don't want to. Healing and
Speaker 1: growth are possible even if you can't or don't want
Speaker 1: to go no contact. It's important to recognize that what
Speaker 1: works for one person won't necessarily work for another, and
Speaker 1: also that you may go no contact in some former
Speaker 1: relationships but not in others and have to learn other
Speaker 1: techniques such as bad injuries, acceptance, disengagement, and rely on
Speaker 1: tools such as therapy and support in relationships in which
Speaker 1: you remain low contact or even if you have regular contact.
Speaker 1: One size does not fit all when it comes to healing.