My Famous Parents are Narcissists with Juliet Landau

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Actress Juliette Landau is best known for playing villainous vampire
Drusilla in the classic series Buffy, the Vampire Slayer to
the outside world. She had a fairytale childhood, daughter of
Oscar winning actor Martin Landau and three time Emmy winning
actress Barbara Bain.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Behind the scenes, her life was anything but a fairy tale.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
On this episode of Navigating Narcissism, Juliet reveals the painful
impact of growing up with parents who are applauded by
the world but invalidated and antagonized her at home. Juliet
knows all too well the parallels between narcissists and vampires,
who often use charm to seduce before feeding off others

(00:49):
for their own gain, making them equally dangerous and devastating
to deal with. From Red Table Talk Podcasts and iHeartMedia,
I I'm Doctor Rominy and this is Navigating Narcissism. This
podcast should not be used as a substitute for medical

(01:10):
or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek independent
medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare professional
with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue, or
health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This episode

(01:30):
discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people. The
views and opinions expressed are solely those of the podcast
author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not
represent the opinions of Red Table Talk Productions, iHeartMedia, or
their employees. Today, we're going to hear from Juliet Landau.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
So, Juliet, you know, I.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Consider you, you know, not only an amazing filmmaker, but
I could to do you a friend. So it's really
really so wonderful to have you here because you're going
to give such a unique perspective and yet such a
universal perspective on all of this.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
So thank you, Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
I am so excited to be here, and I consider
you a very close friend and it's been amazing getting
to know you, and I can't wait for this conversation.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Juliette.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
So many people know you from your role on Buffy
the Vampire Slayer. You played a vampire.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Some people have seen your film.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
More people are about to see your film, I'm happy
to say, but you know, some people have seen your film.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
What we're going to be.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Talking about today is that you're a real case of
life imitating art imitating life kind of thing, because how
these themes got captured in your movie.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
It's not just you who's been in a.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Story about a vampire and made a film about a vampire.
This has lived experience for you, and I think that
your story was very much fueled by this personal story.
And I think what's amazing is you've been doing film
festival screenings about this all over the place, and this
film would spur four hour discussions afterwards. I've been on

(03:01):
some of them, so I know. So I want to
start your story from the beginning, Juliet, and let's go
back to your own story. Can you tell us a
little bit about your childhood and elements of your family dynamics.

Speaker 4 (03:14):
Yeah, absolutely, Well, I was raised by two narcissistic parents.
My husband, Dever Weeks, was actually also raised by two
narcissistic parents, and it's part of the reason in what
you were talking about with the film, we wanted to
make a movie that we hadn't seen before that really
tackled the repercussions of growing up in this environment. How

(03:38):
it affects every aspect really of your being, and if
you don't address it, you're really primed to make destructive
choice after destructive choice in essence is a cautionary tale,
and it's really about that the feeling of how it
gets into your very being and your very fibers, and
you end up in a circumstance where you're so off

(04:02):
balance a lot of the time that you'd have no
sense of your own self, your life within securities. And
I grew up in an environment where there was very
much all of the tactics that go on in terms
of suppression, scapegoating, gas lighting, all of those things, and
so you start to really not trust any of your

(04:25):
own input of I mean, if people are telling you that
they love you, but they're doing behavior that is the
antithesis of that, that is toxic behavior, and as a child,
you can't actually process that and think, oh, this is them,
it's their shortcoming. They're not able to do these things.
You know, you think it's all you. You have to think.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
You develop.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
I think a lot of safety mechanisms to get through
it that I would say later in life have not
served me well. And that's one of the things that
we've been wanting to talk about.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
So you say, growing up like this, you get a
distorted message of what love is, what caring is? What
was the message you got in childhood of what love is?

Speaker 4 (05:05):
I didn't actually understand what love was at all until
I met my husband, and when I experienced what it
is like when you really have someone's back and they
have yours, and you want one another to thrive and
excel and do well and expand and grow.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
That was literally earth shattering to me.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
I thought that love was a very painful feeling and
an unsafe feeling, and it wasn't until I experienced the
complete opposite of it that it really became so paramountally
clear to me.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
I guess the question the next question for me then
would be how did your parents' narcissism show up in
your childhood? I think it shows up universally similar for
a lot of people, but there obviously is going to
be a difference in every story. How did it show
up in yours?

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Well?

Speaker 4 (05:54):
I think the thing for my experience was it was
like this razor's edge where I became very perfectionistic, thinking
that perhaps I'd receive love for doing well, and yet
I wasn't allowed to shine or outshine my parents in
any way. So it was this razor's edge where you

(06:17):
had to be good enough since you were reflecting on them,
but not good enough to actually be your true fulsome
self because that was a threat. I mean, it's interesting
because even in getting ready for this interview, and obviously
in the movie that we've made, it's all such contrary
action to actually talk about this stuff, to actually voice

(06:37):
the truth.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
You said something though so beautifully. Actually no one has
said yet on this podcast about a narcissistic childhood which
I really appreciate, which is you had to be good
enough because if you weren't then that didn't reflect well
on them. But if you were too good, then you
had to be brought down so you didn't outshine them.
That's such an important dynamic, and I think that obviously

(07:00):
in a small child that may not be as a
pronounced because a small child couldn't really outshine their parents,
but they certainly could get a lot of attention or
something like that. And certainly as you get older. I
think of a narcissistic mother and her emerging adolescent's daughter.
Obviously that youthfulness that that mother can't go backwards in time.
There's a resentment that can really grow up. Or a

(07:22):
son who may be showing prowess in a way that
the father once had that you have to find that
absolute middle ground, and nobody's really sort of spoken of
that as clearly, So I really appreciate you framing it
that way.

Speaker 4 (07:33):
I also think that there's something, you know, all children,
all people, have an inherent sort of if you're not
a person of these kinds of characteristics, if you're not
a narcissistic person, there's actually an inherent sort of light
and truthfulness in children. And I think that that in
itself is threatening to people like this because they sort

(07:55):
of work in the darkness, you know, they work in
the shop, and they work very methodically. It's you know,
it's such a rigged game because and especially as a child,
you have no idea about what rules you're playing. But
it was a methodical kind of thing, like whatever you're
given a compliment, you're also given a slap.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Like everything is.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
Literally about keeping that structure of you being beneath them
in some sort of way. So I think that children
inherently have a sort of joy and openness, a light,
and I think that's threatening.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
It absolutely can be. And I think that what you said,
you get the compliment with the slap. You know, in
essence that conditioning for a child that you could be
told something good and it would hurt you. Can you
imagine now you go into adulthood, if somebody compliments you,
you're going to be more likely to WinCE and pull
away than you would be to lean into it. And
this is where many survivors of parental narcissistic abuse will

(08:53):
find themselves almost sort of stuck in this mediocrity that's
definitely under what they could have been because that program
fear of again, the slap that comes with success. Their
body holds that fear and so they live with that fear.
And it sounds like that that was something that really
plagued you until you found And one of the metaphors
of your film was that love was the only thing

(09:15):
that could conquer evil until you found true love, that
you finally were able to push back on these patterns
within yourself.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
I personally feel like for me, my life bloomed hugely,
as did my husband's when we decided to have no
contact with our families. And I understand that that's not
an option for everyone. Some people have children with this
kind of person, and even if they're separated or divorced,
they can't disengaged, or it's a family member that they
don't want to or can't distance from.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
But you know, we.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
Should be able to talk about this as a healthy
and viable option as well and not be sort of
told how dare you for doing that? And I do
know that for both of us, our lives just grew
and grew, you know, And in that way, it's sort
of that old parable about the wolves, like which one
you're feeding the positive stuff or the negative. I personally

(10:08):
feel like going toward evil or trying to engage with
people like this malignant narcissists is not healthy or worth
the time. If you are able to completely stay away
from it, It's been for both of us undeniably a
healthier thing.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
So interesting how you put it, And I don't disagree
with you, Juliette, that no contact is often viewed I
don't know. I don't want to say suspiciously, but with
a little bit of side eye. You know, this idea
of somehow familial estrangement is this terrible thing that must
always be addressed. Yeah, I hear the disclaimer. I make
it all the time about most people can't go no contact,

(10:48):
but I will be frank with you. I remember seeing
some data. There's a group I work with in Israel
that has sort of looked at some of the data
around narcissistic abuse, and one thing they found was that
when people going through narcissistic abuse, we're asked to say
what works best to help them heal. Psychotherapy came out
number one, but number two is no contact.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
So it works.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
I'm telling you as a therapist who's worked with so
many people who've gone through this, no contact absolutely works
because in a since it's almost like you think of
it as a toxin, and let's say a toxin, if
you breathe it in, it'll make you sick. Obviously, not
breathing it in is going to be good for you.
So I do think that people have to feel supported

(11:34):
when they decide I am going to go no contact.
Ay is a therapist deeply supportive of it. I think
where some people struggle is like they'll sometimes say I
slipped and I contacted, And I always want to remove
the shame from that because things happen, right, family members
get sick, funerals happen. Whatever I said, this isn't sobriety.
It's not like you're getting dinged for having contact, but

(11:55):
when you have that contact, to have the radical acceptance,
realistic expectations, all of that, but to go no contact
it does work. Now, there is an element of your
story that I think you know, some listeners may know,
many may not, is that you grew up in a
famous family and that changed the game quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
I mean, that changed the rules. What's your take on that.

Speaker 4 (12:17):
It almost is like a magnifying lens with what everybody
that grows up in a narcissistic family dynamic experiences. There's
a disparity between what is publicly presented and what goes
on behind closed doors. So I think the difference really

(12:38):
is that the net of that is wider, So the
projection that's going out into the world is a.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
Wider group of people that.

Speaker 4 (12:48):
Are seeing what my parents wanted to be projected and
versus the private life. So I think that the difference
is that people have a relationship potentially to my parents
because they like them on a TV show or they
like them in a movie. And I think one of

(13:11):
the things that's important for us to remember is that
things can coexist. So you can be a fan of
someone's work and also know that they're not a good
human being, and so one that you know isn't necessarily
related to the other. Many people love Norman Mahler's books
he stabbed his wife at a party. Both things coexist.

(13:32):
You can think that the book is of interest and
know that the man was not a person. So I
think that's really the difference. Other than that, I think
all of the experience in the sort of tactics are
very very much the same. And I do love that
word you used earlier, of radical acceptance, because I just

(13:53):
think that's those words. I think it's such a real thing.
Looking at the truth is exceedingly painful. I mean, I
feel like you, I went, we both my husband, I know,
went through a mourning process really for the childhood that
you never had. But it's so much better to look

(14:14):
with radical acceptance and truth of what the reality was
to be able to move on from it than obscuring
the truth.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
You know, absolutely, And I would say, you know the
way you grew up again famous parents, iconically famous parents,
that you in essence experienced what I'm going to call
societal gas slighting, and if anything, and be shamed for
having had your experience.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Well, this has got to be a Juliette problem because.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
They're, like you said, all these things that people project
onto them, onto their characters, all of that that I
would say, many many people forget. Even what you had
was very unique. But even if your your father's the
pastor and the local parish and every beloved pastor, the
beloved little coach, see the principal at the school, whatever

(15:02):
it is in a small town, everyone saying what a
great person. You're so lucky this person and this great
teacher of the years, your mom or you know that
pastors your dad and that person that child. Then it
multiplies what you were talking about before in terms of
those survival behaviors, like this has got to be my
fault because everybody loves them, and they're famous, and people

(15:26):
pay all this money to see their movies, and you know,
I mean, I remember when I originally learned of your
story and we talked more, I.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Thought, how does somebody survive this?

Speaker 1 (15:36):
You had this story where nobody would have believed you
because they had to have a They had to have
a they had to be able to hold these icons
up to what they needed them to be. So it
was easier to criticize you, Juliette, than it was to say, wow,
maybe these people were just really cruel to their child
and did tremendous harm to her. So I think that

(15:56):
there's a unique form of gaslighting you experience that most
of us would never understand it on the scale you
experienced it.

Speaker 4 (16:02):
I think it's interesting what you were talking about, because
I was thinking right when you were saying that about
the pastor or some people in the church. And I
think what's interesting with all of those scenarios is that
people develop, like part of how they develop their public
persona is really i think, equally.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
To hide the private behaviors.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
That are going on and to like it's almost like
this this balance of the scale, so you know, they
go out of their way to be exceedingly nice to
people that they don't have close intimate relationships with and sort.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Of further that public narrative.

Speaker 4 (16:42):
And you know, it's interesting because I agree with you
that there's such a thing where it's like also that
that sort of societal pressure of like how dare you
talk about this? And luckily that's changing. The thing that
I found really interesting when we started screening the film
is how many people actually came forward to me and

(17:06):
said that they two things happened. One is either someone said,
you know, oh, I had a wonderful experience where I
met your dad in a supermarket. He talked to me
for four hours, and I was like, that's I'm wonderful.
I'm so glad you had that great experience with him.
You know, he was furthering that sort of perception, you know,
in that engagement, and I truly was glad that they

(17:29):
had a wonderful encounter with either my mother or my father.
What I found, though, is that how many people have
said that they actually suspected that, Like many people that
had worked with my parents came forward and said to me,
like I sort of knew that this was their natures,
and I've had some experiences with them that that furthered that.

(17:52):
I also remember that a family friend I said something about,
you know, it wasn't it something about initially be before
he saw the film, I'm not sure this will be
your cup of tea, and whether you know, what was
on the inside was very different than the outside, he said,
whoever said the outside of.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
Your family looks so great?

Speaker 4 (18:10):
So it was actually interesting in opening up the discussion.
What got reflected back at me wasn't as much as
I expected to be.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
Only what you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
You know what, though, that in its fashion then is
a strange form of blessing, because I do think many
people grow up in these homes come out of them,
and nobody ever says that to them. And then you
had both sides of the scale. You had not only
sort of this nightmarish experience of probably of what you
were going through and thinking, well, no one's going to
believe me. They're famous, they're powerful, but then as time

(18:45):
went on, people actually shedding some light on it, and
that helps.

Speaker 4 (18:49):
Yeah, And you know what, further to that point, I
think one of the things for my husband, Devyl and
I there was something about each of us witnessing the
other's family and corroborating what we saw. I mean, I
remember with dev he kept telling me story after story

(19:09):
after story about his father that were really heinous, disturbing,
awful stories, toxic, terrible stories. And every time he'd tell
me a story, he would say, but he's so sweet. Oh,
and then he'd tell me another terrible story and he said,
but he's so sweet. And I actually met his dad

(19:30):
and we went for a walk in the park and
he started telling me yet another horrendous story. And he said,
he's so sweet. And I said, you know all the
stories that you've told me, And in meeting him, I
don't see a sweet man. Do you have some stories
that are sweet? And he's stopped and he was thinking,

(19:50):
and he was thinking and he said, I I don't.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
The trauma bonded language gets so embedded in to how
we speak about invalidating people in our lives that it
becomes reflexive. Juliette, describing her husband's tendency to always end
horrific stories about his father with but he's sweet, is
actually pretty common. It's that small child that never quite

(20:19):
goes out of us, and that had to keep justifying
bad parental behavior for survival reasons. However, it also results
in us maintaining a distorted representation in our mind. The
cognitive dissonance makes this so difficult because so many inconsistent
things pile up. I have a father. My father was cruel.

(20:43):
Sometimes he did nice things. When we can see it clearly,
it can feel uncomfortable, but at least it's more honest.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
And I think that moment for him was a real
like wait a minute, he's not sweet, I'm justifying and
the same thing. I remember we had a holiday. I
looked over at dev and the expression on his face
was how I felt growing up like he looked so
I used to do this thing I called clicking out,
and he looked completely numb, overwhelmed, miserable. I saw his

(21:16):
face and I was like, oh my god, that's like
a mirror of how I felt my whole childhood. And
again it was that corroboration of an outside witness.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
And I think.

Speaker 4 (21:27):
Because we were already starting the work of looking at
what our backgrounds were and sort of experiencing this connection
that we'd never had before.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
What Juliet is calling clicking out, this sort of numbed
and overwhelmed expression many people in antagonistic and narcissistic relationships
have is almost like a low grade dissociation where a
person has to almost distance from themselves and from situation

(22:00):
because it is so psychologically taxing. For people who can't
escape these relationships, this clicking out can mean clicking out
of their lives, being distracted, not being present, and being detached.

Speaker 4 (22:17):
We'd had other relationships, but we never had that real
true love and support because we were not picking people
of that ilk. We were primed to pick other people
for a while that were similar to our environments that
we were raised in. And I think that the validation
of that with one another, and it's one of the

(22:37):
things that we've had with the movie. The movie is
called A Place among the Dead and we have this
amazing community that has built up around the film called
they've named themselves the Place among the dead Heads, like
the Grateful Dead. So many people have said the movie
has changed their lives, which is humbling, and they have
literally we are watching this group of people, which is

(22:59):
probably now about two hundred hardcore a Place among the Deadheads,
whose lives are blooming and expanding. One gal was actually
emailing today who's literally like moved out of her toxic
house with her parents, gotten a job in the field
she always wanted to, just got a promotion, has been
seeing a therapist that is amazing and understands this like

(23:21):
it's and just seeing this community people are creating art
and their music and sharing them sharing it and each time,
like to just see the growth that's happening has been
so amazing. I think part of it is that validation
of other people going I get this, I see it.
And you know, the thing about narcissistic abuse and psychological

(23:42):
abuse is it's not physically manifested. So that's one of
the things is that when other people are like, no, no,
I understand this and I see it, because sometimes people
find it easier to understand physical bruises than they do
the emotional toll that gets taken.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yes, because that idea of corroboration, of validation, I mean,
that's the idea of somebody got into good therapy. That's
somebody saying, yeah, this is really happening, this is not you.
And just simply even that moment of validation is where
I've seen the beginning of real healing from any clients.
At what point, Juliette, did you have this, I don't know,
this awareness, this framework that your parents were narcissistic. When

(24:22):
did that come to you and how did that come
to you?

Speaker 4 (24:25):
Well? I didn't for a long long time. And I
think what happened is I think it was right just
before developing the idea to do the movie, and we
were sort of talking about that we had come to
a place.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
In ourselves truly where.

Speaker 4 (24:42):
We weren't really thinking about our families of origin anymore much.
We had built our own family with each other and
with our friends. And that's one other thing I wanted
to mention is, as you know, started becoming aware of this,
you know, you start noticing other people in your life
that ultimately won swell with of us had no contact
with our with our families. It was, you know, some

(25:04):
of the people that we had thought were friends, we realized, oh,
this is the same dynamics. It's literally that same thing
is going on. So there was a certain sort of Okay,
those aren't the people I want we want to surround
ourselves with. So you know, we've now created this incredible
group of friends. And we had a therapist that once said,

(25:24):
you know, blood isn't always thicker than water.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
Sometimes it's just stickier.

Speaker 4 (25:29):
Great.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
I had never heard this adage of blood not always
being thicker than water and sometimes it's just stickier. I mean,
that was some fire from their therapist. We make a lot,
often too many allowances for bad behaviors within family systems,
and familial enablers can double down on toxic patterns in

(25:54):
a family. This stickiness of this blood makes setting boundaries
all but impossible. And I cannot wait to share this
new take on the Blood is Thicker than Water with
the survivors that I work with.

Speaker 4 (26:09):
And so I think that at that moment when we
started really looking at it in therapy, we had an
incredible therapist and he really did understand all of this,
and he had given us a book called People of
the Lie by M. Scott Peck, and the movie is
largely based on that book. The case studies and his

(26:31):
definition of evil malignant narcissism so profound and so powerful,
and I related so strongly to so many of the
case studies in there, and was like, that's me, that's
my experience, that's my experience. And so I think that
moment of that, and I read a book called The
Fantasy Bond that he had suggested as well, which is

(26:52):
all about the idea that you can't think it's your parents,
so you basically take it all on yourself. And the
other thing about growing up and this kind of vironment
is that it's rife with fear and anxiety. Because I
know you talk about this, but at the root of
all narcissistic people is a lot of insecurity and also
they have a constant fear of exposure to the outside world,

(27:16):
but also to themselves because they're busy sort of obfuscating
the truth from themselves of who they truly are. So
you grow up in such a sort of fearful environment
and you take a lot of that stuff in. So
I think it was probably a few years before we
started sort of developing the idea for the movie, was
in reading those books and talking with our therapists and

(27:39):
it just being like, Aha, yes, this is exactly what
we grew up in. I mean, it's like when I've
read a number of your books, Dr Romini, and there's
so much of it.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
Where you're just like check check, check, check check.

Speaker 4 (27:54):
You know everything that you say in terms of looking
out for and everything, and you're just like, yes, I've
experienced that.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yes, I've experienced that. Yes, I experienced that.

Speaker 4 (28:00):
You know, and I think that that's why you know
the books and that you've written in this that you're
doing like it's so helpful, and the videos that you
put out on YouTube, and we've done it through art
and entertainment. There's so many people that have either said, oh,
I knew this was going on in my life and
it's so amazing to see it and experience in.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
This in this visceral way.

Speaker 4 (28:22):
But there's so many people who said, oh my god,
my life clicked the gal I was talking about earlier,
when our dead had that I was corresponding.

Speaker 3 (28:29):
With today earlier today.

Speaker 4 (28:33):
She literally is like I had no idea and then
I saw the movie and my life went boom, Like
it clicked into place. And it couldn't be more thankful,
because I think I would have ended up, you know,
committing suicide literally like she was in such a toxic,
toxic environment.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
Well, it's interesting to me you figured it out later
in your life. I mean later in your life relatively speaking,
meaning that was only in the last few years until then,
until you had that framework, What did you think what
was happening with you and your parents and that relationship, Like,
how did you make sense of it?

Speaker 4 (29:06):
I thought, first of all that my mother was my
best friend, and I really always knew in myself in
terms of I knew something wasn't right as a kid.
If I even think of my childhood, I never can
think of it without this pervasive sense of really depression

(29:29):
and nauseousness. I knew I was not in a safe environment.
I knew it, but I had to keep that truth
for myself. It was way too scary to look at.
And I think it really was having for me having
like a partner, not being feeling so alone in the

(29:49):
world where I felt the safety to really take off
the blinders and look at it. But in myself, I
really I knew it. I was tap dancing away from it.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
And if that makes sense, Oh.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
It absolutely does make sense.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
And I think that you know, even as you put it,
you felt it like you thought about my childhood. It
felt depression. It's interesting to me you felt nausea, because
to me, that's almost like being in such a toxic
environment made you sick. My conversation with Juliet will continue
after this break. So you grew up like this, You

(30:27):
felt it almost in your body that something wasn't right,
But you came through adolescens and you actually went into
the entertainment industry, which is one of the most validating
industries a person could go into, especially as a performer.
How did how you grew up affect the early evolution
not only of your career but even of your adult relationships.

Speaker 4 (30:50):
Well, I think it affected a lot of things in
that for a long time I was not picking healthy
people to be in relationship with.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
One of the things that we look at in the
film is that.

Speaker 4 (31:02):
Idea of you know, replaying the unwinnable parent or the
past trauma in life, and how we do that over
and over and over, hoping for a different outcome. But
in fact, when you do that, you don't get a
different outcome. It actually just gets worse and worse and worse.
We've been exploring that idea in our movie, and I

(31:23):
think it speak because we had the experience of doing that.
It's interesting because yes, the entertainment industry is obviously has
a lot of rejection, is invalidating, as you say, and
obviously is also rife with narcissism. And now it's an
exciting thing I'm doing sort of contrary.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
Action to what I was raised to do.

Speaker 4 (31:48):
So even sitting here and having this conversation with you
so publicly about this making a movie, I mean, you know,
neither dev nor we were told we couldn't really do anything.
So the fact that we had one hundred and fifty people,
you know, crew working for us, and we helmed a
movie and I directed it and co wrote it, co
produced it, I'm starring in it. We got incredible actors

(32:10):
to come on board. Gary Oldman, Ron Pearlman, Robert Patrick,
Lance Henrickson, best selling author Anne Rice appearing for the
only time in a scripted movie, all these people that
in of itself is contrary action, and then the actual
subject matter of it to actually go like take that
subject matter head on and say, you know, it's worth it.

(32:33):
This mission is sort of bigger than me and my story,
and I want to do it.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah, I mean, I think I love that concept of
contrary action. I think one of the challenges or when
it comes to contrary action, I'm going to do the
opposite of what I was told I could or couldn't do,
is that a lot of people feel like an imposter.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Did you ever feel like that when you were absolutely?

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yeah, so I'm absolutely That's the challenge, and that's another
contrary action.

Speaker 4 (32:56):
Right. We make these agreements with our parents, and these
are spoken, and some of them are tacitly unspoken, but
these agreements really become the thoughts in our minds and
the mantras that we live by, which inform our choices
and can lead to destruction. And in the movie, my

(33:18):
character is making destructive choice after destructive choice. Hopefully I'm
not doing that in life anymore. But as we've been
talking about, I was for a really long time, and
I was ignoring all the red flags and doggedly sort
of going forward and listening to those thoughts and those voices.
And the whole point is that, you know, as adults,
we can break those agreements. I think it's important also

(33:41):
to think about the fact that these poisonous seeds can
be planted, you know, obviously by parents and family members,
but also in love relationships or at school by teachers
and peers, and you know, once they're planted, they just
fester and fester and grow. So it's really about that contrary,

(34:02):
you know, action and changing some of that thinking that
goes on, which obviously always will rear its.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
Head absolutely, and I think, you know, a lot of
what you're talking about has been framed. If we look
at doctor Kristen Nef's work on self compassion, she calls
it the inner critic, you know, and it goes beyond.
I mean, the inner critic is a pretty beastly vampire
like quality, and a person who is surviving from narcissistic abuse,
especially childhood narcissistic abuse, But one thing that Nef and

(34:30):
others who have done work on this idea of the
inner critic point out is that once we can recognize
that our inner critic isn't just there to torment us,
but actually exists to keep us safe, we may be
able to say, Okay, inner critic, I see what you're
doing on thanks, let's dial that back.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
And you know, but it was really for the child
to feel like when it comes out of childhood. It
was this idea that if I'm the bad one, then
they're not the bad one. And when you can see
the inner critic for what it was trying to do
for you, all of a sudden, we can become not
only compassionate towards our inner critic, but compassionate to ourselves,
which is such a crucial element of healing from narcissistic abuse.

(35:13):
You had played a vampire in a very successful television show,
Drusilla in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In doing that, you
kind of obviously were very immersed in the vampire world.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
That's where there was a lot.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
Of time spent in that In playing that role, did
that give you any insight did you connect the dots
basically by playing Drusilla and Buffy. Did you ever connect
the dots between vampires and what was happening in my
family and did all of that ever come through for you.
I'm just curious because it seems like that was the

(35:46):
birth of an idea that became a place among the dead.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
That's why I'm asking.

Speaker 4 (35:51):
Yeah, it's interesting because I don't think it did at
the time. I mean, it's funny because even with how I.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
Was, I sort of approached the character of Scilla.

Speaker 4 (36:00):
I never thought of her really as a vampire as such,
in that she was a very multifaceted character and she
had a lot of trauma in her background, but also
had like this epic love story that went on for
two hundred years, and so there was so much dimension
to her that my main.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
Thrust was to how to flesh her out.

Speaker 4 (36:23):
In a way that was human, so that you would
relate to her and sort of pull for her, even
though she is the villain, but because she was written
and created and had three hundred and sixty degrees, where
sometimes a villain can be very one dimensional. So I
don't think I thought of it in a cognizant way.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
So I want to talk about your film Place among
the Dead, which is a vampire film. It is a yeah,
it's a vampire film. I want to say that maybe
in the horror genre, but it's also very much a
narcissistic abuse film, which of course that's part I was like, Oh,
I see it, I see it, I see it. So
one of the sort of technique's tools, if you will

(37:04):
you used in the film was these internalized voices like
you said that running tape that people have in real time,
and some of the things that you're your character. This
woman who is trying to save others and trying to
save others is putting herself in harm's way. These internalized
voices of her parents are things like we need you.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
To be a mess.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
I need you to be confused, there is something wrong
with you. You are unlovable. Never outshine us, your to blame,
and those lines, when I pulled those out of the film,
like my goodness, that is the ideation of the vast
majority of survivors, even if this didn't happen to them
in childhood, even if this happened to them in an

(37:49):
adult relationship for the first time. And so let's talk
about the film. A Place among the dead, and also
even take a step back, is that you know your
whole you've spent some time in the vampire genre and
you know, you were on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You
were in that vampirey world for a while. And then

(38:10):
use that metaphor, but it was so apt and then
combining it with this idea of that running self talk
that's not even our voice, it's theirs. And I think
that that was what was so powerful about your film
because we often think like, oh, I'm just talking to
myself badly. I'm like, nah, I think it's them talking

(38:31):
to you and it's just playing in your head. So
talk to me about where the film came from, how
you came up with ideas like that, your vampire Journey
as it were.

Speaker 4 (38:41):
Absolutely what you said resonates so much. In the opening
part of the voiceover. It actually starts with the parents
whispering the thoughts, all of them like what you mentioned,
and then there's a point where the character's voice picks
them up and so you're exactly, isn't you know they've
been help like planted in there and it's in her voice.

(39:03):
The movie is a genre bending art film, and you know,
we wanted to use genre for a number of reasons.
First of all, we wanted to make an entertaining movie,
and I really wanted to lull the audience into a
sense of safety, using a genre that they love and
tropes that they feel comfortable with to talk about unsafe

(39:27):
and uncomfortable ideas.

Speaker 3 (39:29):
The whole movie is scripted.

Speaker 4 (39:31):
But I blur the lines of reality. So all of
the known cast play alter ego versions of themselves, and
every single one has a tie to vampire material. So
I play Jules, and obviously I was on Buffy and Angel,
and Gary Oldman was in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Ron
Pearlman was in Blade two, and Anne Rice wrote the

(39:53):
Vampire Chronicles Interview with the Vampire and such, and so
it was a way to bring in all of our histories.
And truly, I felt like the vampire is the perfect
metaphor for the ultimate narcissist. It's a being which drains
all for its own needs. Vampires mesmerize and have people
in their thrall narcissists are often exceedingly charismatic. You have

(40:18):
to invite vampires in when we're talking about narcissists in
the family you don't invite those people in, but you
do invite others of that ilk once you've been primed
to or if you get into a love relationship and
you're not even from this background, you invite that person
into your life. Vampires do not change, They stay exactly
the same.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Narcissists do not change.

Speaker 4 (40:40):
Vampires cannot see themselves their own self reflection in a mirror.
Narcissists have zero capacity to self reflect. And it goes
on and on and on, and really, in the movie,
what we're exploring is the whole spectrum, so from the systematic,
consistent nothing of spirit, light, liveliness all the way to

(41:05):
the heinous snuffing of life. And the Darcel character in
the movie, he personifies the most diabolical, the darkest end
of that spectrum. In fact, Darcel means darkness in French,
and in the movie you're never quite sure is he
a vampire or is he a serial killer who emulates

(41:26):
a vampire. It doesn't matter because the traits are so
much the same. And what we're exploring we talked a
little bit about this earlier, is that idea how we
often just replay the unwinnable parent or the past trauma
in our lives, and we keep wanting desperately this other
outcome that we're gonna win this time, and in fact,

(41:48):
when we do that, we don't. It just gets worse
and worse and worse, and we put ourselves in harm's
way in more and more dangerous situations.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
You know, I never even thought about all the other
metaphors you are sharing about how vampires parallel narcissists. A
big one though, and when I watched the film a
second time third time I got was the idea that
the vampire is forever young and they attempt to steal
youth right, their victims are always young. And I forgot

(42:20):
that element of it because that also is that piece
of when we think of the narcissistic vanity, how important
and their quest for eternal youth and however they can
get that, whether that's by changing their appearance or how
they dress, how they present to the world, the age
of a partner, whatever it may be, they try to
stay young. And that idea to me, of stealing youth

(42:43):
in essence is stealing innocence. They take people and they
distort what love and goodness and kindness are into relationship
and the people who come out of narcissistic relationships will say,
I don't think my conception of love is ever quite
going to be the same. I don't think it'll ever
quite be so innocent or trusting. So that theft of
the vampire of youth and they're sort of their commitment

(43:06):
to youth was a piece I didn't get until this
most recent viewing.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
And it also that thing you're saying, that thing of
literally being sucked dry, literally, you know, in these kinds
of relationships, and the other element of it that I
think why to use this particular genre is also to
show how harrowing this experience truly is, how destabilizing it is,
how we really use a device, because you're inside Jules's

(43:31):
POV for a lot of the film, and we want
the viewer to experience what it's like, how disorienting it
is when and confusing when you're inngaged in this kind
of relationship.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
Not only is she losing herself, she's becoming more and
more sort of dysregulated, and other people around her are saying,
what is wrong with you? And I thought that was
an interesting thing too, is that the sense of for
many survivors as they as they'll feel there sometimes their
own mental health is deteriorating while they stay in these
relationships where they think about these relationships, other people around

(44:04):
them will say, okay, you need to slow your role,
like what is wrong with you? Instead of because I
think the direness of it is something that people don't
see it. They don't see, they don't see the metaphor
of the Darcel, of the terrifying person. And one of
my takeaways from watching that character was it also felt
like Darcel the vampire killer was actually at an unconscious level.

(44:28):
And I think you used imagery to create that a
composite of both of your parents.

Speaker 4 (44:34):
Because it is that thing of like where you are repeating,
you're repeating, and you're going toward someone that does not
have your best interest at heart, and you're.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
Doggedly going toward it.

Speaker 4 (44:45):
And so absolutely, you know. It's interesting because one of
the things when we were hiring our crew, I think
there was like one hundred and fifty one hundred and
fifty three people that we were hiring, and Devin I
literally after we met each person, we said to our elves,
to each other, do we like this person because they
feel like they're going to be collaborative and creative and wonderful,

(45:09):
or do they feel sickly familiar and so we like them?
And we actually didn't hire a few people We were like, no,
I think that's sickly familiar. And we didn't have a
bad apple in the bunch, Like we.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
Did the best job with that.

Speaker 4 (45:23):
But it literally took concerted efforts saying wait a minute,
is this because it feels that awful but familiarity, And
so you know, we really employed that and in vetting people,
and it's something that I think to this day we
sort of continue in any kind of business or personal
relationship as well.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
I wish this is something that everyone could take away,
because what you're describing is really discernment. Is this, Do
I feel safe and heard and respected and seen by
this person? Or is my draw to this person the
sort of sick familiar. And the other thing to pay
attention to is do I feel any drive to sort
of fond to this person or submit to this person

(46:07):
even if they're you know, they they're lower than you
on any kind of hierarchy you'd say, is there some
like do I feel like I'm trying to win them over?
And I think once you feel that that is when
a survivor really is going to be like, ah, you knows,
there's something happening here, and it's ancient and it's not
about this this conversation. There is another couple of other things.

(46:28):
It's some themes that came out in your film that
so captured the experience of survivors. One is in the
very beginning of the film, and you're talking about narcissistic
parents and you're narcissistic parents. You were talking about how
your father and mother would refuse to see you and
that there would be no reflection of you in this case.

(46:49):
You're saying in his eyes that you're talking about your father,
and I think that captured such an important theme. And
another thing you brought up is this idea of your
character saying I'm so tired, and that really struck me
because I have to say, universally, that is what so
many survivors says, that I am so tired, and it's
not tired. I need to go to bed. You know,

(47:12):
it's not tired. I need to take a nap. It's
not tired. I need to go on vacation. It is
so tired. It is existential tired and you really capture
that because that's such a universal survivor experience. But there
was one line you gave which I thought was so important.
You said, in my desire to be loved, I am

(47:34):
willing to be sacrificed. Talk to me about that line,
because I have to say there was a real I
stopped the film, went back and say, I want to
make sure I heard that right. It was so powerful
and profound, and it's so captured the experience of survivors
who often then feel shame for wanting to be loved
and then sacrificing themselves and saying, well, maybe this is

(47:55):
my fault. So can you break that down? Because I
thought it was such an important line in the film.

Speaker 4 (48:01):
The first thing I was going to say is it's
interesting because that was an actual poem with no reflection
of me in that part.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
It was his eyes, but it was about both parents.

Speaker 4 (48:11):
It is that thing of your soul having been sapped
so much and having been sort of suppressed for such
a period of time, and you giving yourself up and
subjugating any of your needs to take care of other
people's needs, and feeling like, you know, a completely wilted

(48:32):
flower because you haven't nourished yourself at all or had
any nourishing.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
When did you come into awareness that this was the case.

Speaker 4 (48:40):
It's interesting we've been talking about that idea of like
when do those thoughts come up? I mean they come
up obviously when when you're stressed out and things aren't
going well. They come up when things are going really
really well because you.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
Think you don't deserve it.

Speaker 4 (48:53):
You know, we've been talking about like, oh, these these
anxiety provoking thoughts, this false stelf, like they rear their head,
these thoughts at all different times where you've been sort
of conditioned to if you're feeling open and joyous, that
that's a very unsafe place to be.

Speaker 3 (49:11):
And so I think.

Speaker 4 (49:12):
That very young, I knew that I had to do
whatever I could to take care of other people. And
you know, you live in a sort of vigilance as well,
and so you're not only downloading like all the fear
that goes with that they have, you're also your own

(49:33):
fear of like needing to be taken care of as
well and feeling unsafe.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
So you're in sort of this.

Speaker 4 (49:39):
Constant stressed situation fight or flight to some degree.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
The exhaustion of survivors of these toxic relationships is known
to anyone who has been in one, and Juliette makes
the point really well here that you are going back
and forth between anxiety and depression. It may not even
be at a level that others notice, but life in
these relationships, especially growing up like this, is a vacillation

(50:08):
between disappointment, fear, helplessness, hope, confusion, and worry over time
that takes a toll on a person's psyche and leaves
them not just tired, but existentially exhausted.

Speaker 4 (50:23):
And I think you're ebbing, like when I've talked about
my childhood feeling a sense of depression, You're ebbing between
anxiety and depression basically, which is why it's so tiring.
That's sort of where you are and in those two
states most of the time. So I think pretty young
I knew that. I don't think I knew it as

(50:44):
clearly as the line states it, but I think I
knew it, and very early on was like, I need
to subjugate my own needs, and I am willing to
do anything to potentially get you know, get this, like
even a crumb of love.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
We will be right back with this conversation with Juliette.
So one thing you talk about is going no contact.
At what point did you have that recognition of, in
order to preserve myself, I've got to put them behind me.

(51:24):
How did you come to that realization and then how
did you execute it?

Speaker 4 (51:30):
I guess it's been about fifteen years, almost maybe thirteen years,
and so that's probably when I became very very clear
about what was going on, and I really felt like
I had given enough time. Dev always says we've already
had served to life sentences, and so I felt like

(51:51):
I've I had given enough, and I wanted to surround
myself with people who were truly loving and nurturing, and
where there was a two way street where I was
really loving and giving to them and they were really
loving and giving to me. And so once I see something,
I can't unsee it. So once I saw it, I

(52:11):
really did not want to ever engage again, and I
haven't and I literally didn't even on my dad's deathbed.
And this may be controversial to many people. I did
not go and I really felt people said, oh, you're
going to regret it. I actually don't regret it. I
feel like for me, it was the right decision.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
It would have been a lie.

Speaker 4 (52:35):
It would have been a lie to what our relationship
truly was. And I felt like he made his choices
in his life, and he made his bed, and it
was for him to lie in that bed, and it
wasn't really for me to be there one way or
the other, because I felt that the price would again
I would pay a price for it, and I didn't

(52:57):
want to pay a price for it.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
It would have been a lie.

Speaker 4 (52:59):
So for me, it was the right decision not to go.
And I have not regretted that, you know, in terms
of forgiveness. For me, it really was about, like my
experience with my parents, I wasn't going to get resolution
or peace with them ever, Like that's never going to happen.
And once I realized who they My mother's alive, so

(53:20):
who they are, who they were, that was never going
to happen. The resolution actually had to come in myself
and in my own behavior and my own way that
I want to navigate the world and the things that
I want to do and be and give and experience.
And so I feel like, you know, we have this

(53:43):
idea and if you see someone on their deathbedd they
all of a sudden say even the most wonderful thing
they've said.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
You know what, for thirty five forty five years.

Speaker 4 (53:54):
They've behaved one way, and then they have one moment
where they say something else, like what because they're afraid
of dying?

Speaker 3 (54:00):
Like what does that really mean? I don't think it
means anything.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
So for me, I feel like we have this idea
about forgiveness, and I know you talk about that too,
which in a way is sort of that it allows
bad behavior. There's certain things that aren't forgivable. So I
think that the peace comes within your own self and
in the change that you can affect in your own
life and in other lives.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
No, I mean again, you know I've spoken widely about
this of the risks of forgiveness and narcissistic relationships, the
acknowledgment that it's a personal decision, but if a person's
making that decision because they think it's going to change something,
and many times feel this real grief that their forgiveness
has really only resulted in a replaying of the behavior.
When you decided to go no contact, both parents are

(54:47):
obviously living at the time. Did you tell them you
were going to do it or did you just sort
of fade away?

Speaker 4 (54:53):
Well, I also went to contact with my sister as well,
and she has made very different choices and is very
similar to my parents, And so I did tell my
sister that I wanted to surround myself with people who
were loving and caring. I think I sort of faded
away and then just stopped. I mean literally was just

(55:16):
I don't I mean it was literally for a long time,
like just delete. I wouldn't even listen or messages or anything.
Just literally delete, move on to something Like I literally
felt like I have given this so much time in
my life, and now that I'm conscious of it, I
don't want to give it even a second more So
I literally would just be you know, like no, delete,

(55:37):
move on to something that's actually sort of going to
be positive and nurturing to someone else or to me.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
I mean again, it's not easy to do, which is
why a lot of people don't do it, But it
sounds like once you did it, it had a huge
influence on you.

Speaker 4 (55:50):
Huge, I mean everything. Literally the word bloomed comes to
mind because and I think dev felt the same way
that there was. I think, in first of all acknowledging
that even if you try not to. When you're engaging
with people like this, there it reignites.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
A feutal hope that it's going to be different, or.

Speaker 4 (56:16):
It's going to change, or you're finally going to get validated,
or you're going to be loved or like all of
it sort of opens up that old abyss and then
you know everybody. It's interesting because when we talked with
the dead Heads and the people that have gone no contact,
and then if they have contact again, they literally end
up it's like what you said earlier, detoxing, like it

(56:36):
takes a while to sort of They're like, oh, I
was feeling like myself, I kind of understood who myself was,
and all of a sudden, I'm feeling really off kilter
again and really insecure and really confused. And you know,
it's taken weeks for me to sort of get or
months or however long it takes. You know, from exposures,
obviously there's tactics, but I find that, you know, these

(57:00):
people are very good at getting in.

Speaker 3 (57:03):
Through the cracks.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Even if you don't go no contact, but have a
period of time where there is no contact with a
very antagonistic or toxic person, many people report that they
start feeling better, functioning better. I've had many people say
that health problems improved really fast, their hair started to

(57:26):
grow back, they were sleeping better, working better, and felt
more connected to other people, and it would all happen fast.
The unfortunate flip side of this is that after a
long break from a toxic relationship and then having to
be with that person again, even if you practice radical
acceptance and maintain realistic expectations, people will report that they

(57:49):
feel drained and sick and lethargic once they do need
to be with them again. Before you got to know
contact with your family, did you attempt to try other strategies.
Did you say, Okay, let me try it this way,
let me try it that way, or how did you
come to that?

Speaker 2 (58:04):
Because I know a lot of.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
People they grapple with it for a while. They say, Okay,
maybe I just won't go to the holidays, maybe I
just won't talk to them as often. Maybe all this,
maybe all that. It's sort of it's a process. How
did you get to that point? Did you just go
from zero to sixty and say a cold turkey or
was this a process where you were trying to use
other strategies.

Speaker 4 (58:24):
I think I had used other strategies for a while,
and then there was a moment where once I really
saw and understood who they were, I knew there was
nothing there for me, and I knew that all it

(58:46):
would be was me literally sort of serving them and
their needs. You know. Once I sort of accepted everything,
it was almost like a breakup that I've had, you know,
previous with relationship breakup where once you kind of see
and you go, this is not a healthy interaction, this
is not a good match. I'm not a person who

(59:09):
would ever like once breaking up, go like, oh we
ended up back in bed together or whatever, because once
I sort of get it, it may take me a
while to get it, but once I get it, I
was like, yeah, this is not And I think there
became a point where literally, you know that feeling that
we were talking about, that sort of revulsion feeling, and

(59:31):
I know you've talked about that when you sort of
like you're like, oh, I've met someone at a thing,
and I right away like the hair goes on my
back of my neck, like I know that they're this
kind of person. And I sort of moved away from
that even at a party.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
I know you had said that once to me, literally the.

Speaker 4 (59:46):
Idea of engaging for me literally makes me feel a
sense of revulsion and again kind of nauseousness, like I
just don't want to do it, like it literally feels
in my body like something where it's like this is
not a healthy thing for me to do.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
So you did it, and again, many people have shared
what you've shared, and you saw the parallel process because
it sounds like dev got your husband. Dev got there too,
so you were able to have that shared experience.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Again, I have to tell you I am.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Actually not a horror or a vampire person, because I
have my own anxieties and fears for my own history.
But I actually enjoyed the movie each time I watched
it because I think it became more layered and more interesting,
telling to me of sort of the abject terror that
in many ways a person who's.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Gone through narcissistic abuse goes through.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
So I really feel privileged that I've not only had
the opportunity to watch it a few times, but even
speak with groups alongside you about it. So as we're
closing up here, Julia, any any final thoughts, where can
how can people support you? In your film.

Speaker 4 (01:00:53):
Oh absolutely, Well, my website is Juliet Landau dot com
and we're in the throws. We've had multiple offers on
the film, and we just have are finishing out our
festival run, which has been extraordinary. We just won our
thirty seventh major awards, sweeping the twenty one festivals we
submitted to and played. I think we have twelve Best

(01:01:17):
Feature of the Festival, nine Best Actress for me, six
Best Director. It goes on and on, like all major awards,
and so it's been just an unbelievable and humbling and
incredible experience that we're really honored to have been on.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
I really think it gives so much more context, and
I think for people who are survivors who can say, oh,
I see, especially the running voices and how we remain
we remain in these voices and in our head, in
these relationships for a very long time. So the film
fostered in empathy in a very creative way that I

(01:01:55):
am very grateful that you've sort of contributed to the
sort of canon of how we think about narcissism and
narcissistic abuse.

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Here are my takeaways from my conversation with Juliet First,
juliet talks about this idea of contrary action as a
tool that has helped her manage her healing from narcissistic relationships.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
It's a tool that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Has often suggested in managing anxiety. It's basically doing the
thing that we are afraid to do or we're told
we couldn't do. It's almost an act of abandon It
can feel like a folly, and it can be scary
to do these things. But many people in toxic, antagonistic,
or narcissistic relationships clip their own wings and believe the

(01:02:43):
negative talk that these relationships fill us up with. You'll
never amount to anything. Who do you think you are?
You aren't smart enough to do that? Who would ever
listen to you? Contrary action may feel like a ridiculously
of faith, like jumping into the ocean in January, but
when you do it, you never know what you may

(01:03:06):
find out about your limitless capacities. In my next takeaway,
Juliette talks about the destructive choices she noticed herself making.
Many survivors struggle with this. They want to take responsibility
for their choices and recognize that they cannot blame another
person for the choices they made. And I get that,

(01:03:27):
and I understand that. But unpacking consistently self sabotaging harmful
and destructive choices and connecting the dots, it can be
helpful to recognize how often these choices reflect an internalization
of a lifetime of invalidation, a working through of old patterns,

(01:03:48):
and a living into the limiting narratives placed on us. Yes,
we do need to take responsibility for our choices, but
you also have to take the weed out by its roots,
and that means understanding the roots so we can understand
our choices. And in my next takeaway, she shared how

(01:04:10):
she was so careful about vetting the people that she
and her husband hired on their project that they would
actually ask themselves, does this person feel comfortable because they
are nice and solid or because they represent that old, familiar,
toxic chaos. And in being very careful and checking in
with each other, she reflects on building a team which

(01:04:32):
worked well together and was very functional, whether it is
how we choose someone we will have on our team,
a partner or a friend. After a person has survived
narcissistic abuse, it becomes important to check in with yourself
and with a trusted other. Being discerning is essential giving

(01:04:52):
yourself a minute and paying attention to whether you are
attracted to toxic familiarity or whether you are recognizing healthy
qualities including compassion, respect, integrity, kindness, and self awareness. And
in my last takeaway, Juliet said that no contact ended

(01:05:14):
up being the strategy that worked best for her. However,
this is not an option open to most people or
that even feels comfortable for many people. There are so
many reasons people cannot do no contact co parenting, caregiving responsibilities, culture, religion,

(01:05:34):
practical factors, or you just don't want to. Healing and
growth are possible even if you can't or don't want
to go no contact. It's important to recognize that what
works for one person won't necessarily work for another, and
also that you may go no contact in some former
relationships but not in others and have to learn other

(01:05:58):
techniques such as bad injuries, acceptance, disengagement, and rely on
tools such as therapy and support in relationships in which
you remain low contact or even if you have regular contact.
One size does not fit all when it comes to healing.

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