TV Star Bethany Joy Lenz On Lessons Learned Escaping A Cult & Narcissistic Abuse: “I Had To Forgive Myself”

[00:00:00]

[00:00:00] LM: Joy, welcome to the podcast. I’m so excited to have you here.

[00:00:03] BJL: When you’re untangling narcissistic abuse, you think it’s you. I’m the one that’s the problem. Maybe I’m the narcissist. Maybe I’m the one that’s actually been creating all of these problems and I’m fooling everyone and myself. My therapist at the time told me, are we ready to call it a cult?

[00:00:18] LM: So when does it switch from just like a beautiful communal experience to something that’s, you know, It’s going to be different in every

[00:00:24] BJL: environment, whether you’re in an abusive relationship and you’re being love bombed, and then you start to see the cracks, whether this is your family dynamic, a toxic work environment, or a spiritual group like mine was that gets classified as a cult.

[00:00:37] That’s why it’s so important to be vigilant. Is your belief system devaluing other people? Or is it still giving them the dignity of their humanity?

[00:00:44] LM: Hello, friends, and welcome to the Liz Moody podcast, where every week we are sharing real science, real stories, and realistic tools that actually level up every part of your life.

[00:00:55] I’m your host, Liz Moody, and I’m a best selling author and longtime journalist. Let’s [00:01:00] dive in. Joy, welcome to the podcast. I’m so excited to have you here. I was just telling you how absolutely stunning your book is. I just, it’s such a well told, well written, beautiful story.

[00:01:10] BJL: I really appreciate that. Thank you.

[00:01:11] And thanks for taking the time to read it and have me on the show. I’m thrilled to be here.

[00:01:15] LM: Let’s just start off with what inspired you to start telling? the story. I know it can be really hard. There can be a lot of shame, a lot of different emotions wrapped up in sharing these harder experiences that we go through.

[00:01:26] So can you take us back to the first time you started talking about that? I started talking

[00:01:30] BJL: about it really just in my close personal friend circles. And the more accepted, I felt by my closest friends that I, you know, the new relationships I was developing, the less scary it became. And I think that’s probably true for any type of shame.

[00:01:46] If you find one or two people you can say it out loud to and get it out of your body, maybe it’s your therapist first, and then maybe it’s a few friends. And then once you see the reaction on the other end of it, being like, you know, [00:02:00] Hey, I wasn’t in a cult, but I was in a relationship that felt a lot like that or hey I wasn’t in a cult but I was I grew up in a family that felt a lot like that.

[00:02:08] I started to feel this normalization of My trauma and it made me feel less alone. And it also made me feel like I was Oh, I actually may have something to offer other people who have experienced a version of shame that I could relate to and make them feel less alone. But it was a long process. I think it probably took over the course of 10 years to slowly let it out and release the emotions around it.

[00:02:34] And then I got to the point where it kind of became a, a punchline, you know, like, well, I was in a cult for 10 years, so ha ha ha. You know, and then people would laugh and they’d go, wait, what, really? And then it was a fun little party trick. And, you know, it usually rolled into some pretty meaningful conversations, which was nice.

[00:02:50] LM: Well, and I love the part in your book where you’re like, I was almost justifying that it was a cult to people at points where I was like, well, no, they took 2 million from me and blah, blah. [00:03:00] And I think it’s such an interesting thing we do sometimes on a societal level is make people justify that their hard experiences were indeed hard experiences.

[00:03:09] BJL: So true. Oh, yeah. I was talking about this with Dr. Ramani, who, if you guys aren’t following Dr. Ramani Durvasula, she’s so, so brilliant. And she knows so much about narcissism’s PhD. She did a Live Talk LA with me on this topic. And it’s really interesting the ways that people will unintentionally devalue your traumatic experience.

[00:03:31] There’s usually two ways they like to do it. It’s you’re being a little dramatic. I think it probably wasn’t so bad. Like there’s real problems in the world. I’m sorry that your marriage didn’t work out and you didn’t like your church. Like I’m sorry, maybe you got some money stolen, but there’s real problems in the world.

[00:03:46] And then there’s the, wow, you really just believed. some random shit this guy told you and then it destroyed your life. You’re really not very smart, are you? And [00:04:00] the interesting thing about that is that it’s a self defeating argument because you are, by saying this to the person in trauma, you’re asking them to believe your perspective of their experience.

[00:04:12] over their own experience, which is what you just condemned them for doing in the first place. That’s how they got into the situation.

[00:04:22] LM: How did you not let that impact you when you were coming out and you’re telling your story and people are like, that you tell the story in the book of a woman who’s like, I wouldn’t be dumb enough to get into that type of situation.

[00:04:32] And throughout the last 10 years of your life, you’ve been trying to piece together how to trust yourself, how to know yourself. So how did you not have that push you backward?

[00:04:42] BJL: I guess I used it as motivation. It hurts, at first, to have people minimize my experience or just flat out think, not believe it or think I’m stupid, which is terrifying to me because one of the things I’ve kind of prided myself on was my intellectual [00:05:00] prowess and my vocabulary and my ability to dissect things and critically think.

[00:05:04] And that’s what made me a good writer and a good actor and all of these things. And so to then be put in this category of like pretty dumb was devastating for my ego. But maybe one of the best things that could have happened to me, because it definitely was humbling. And I think vacillating between those two, probably, the more I experienced that, the more I became settled with my own experience, and the less I needed other people’s approval, which was the issue from the very beginning, right?

[00:05:32] Like, my longing for community, I needed other people’s opinion, other people to tell me how to live. In a way, it kind of worked for me to put me in a position of being like, I don’t need either of you. I don’t need you to tell me I’m smart and I don’t need you to tell me that I am telling the truth. I know what I went through.

[00:05:45] I know what my experience is. I have seen other people be helped by my relating to them the way that I’ve been helped by other people relating to me. So I’m going to live in my experience. and grow from there.

[00:05:57] LM: Is there anything you’d say to [00:06:00] somebody who might be listening who’s still craving all of that outside validation, all of that outside approval of what their story is or should be?

[00:06:08] BJL: That’s a great question. There’s a lot of layers to that. And I think the pat answer is look inside yourself. You’re the only one that matters. But the truth is, we’re all flawed. So if I’m looking to myself to be the end all be all of everything, eventually I come to the end of myself. It’s, it’s existentially unsatisfying.

[00:06:27] We’re all looking to find our identity in something. And I would say if the place where you’ve, you look to mirror back your value is not mirroring back a value to you that is good and beautiful and loved, you’re looking in the wrong place. And I would encourage you to continue your search. until you find a deeply satisfying place where your identity will be mirrored back to you.[00:07:00]

[00:07:00] in a way that is all encompassing, all loving, and all encompassing of the love that you deserve.

[00:07:07] LM: I think it’s really helpful, and I think it’s really beautiful. And I also like that you say the pat answer is to look inside yourself, but I’ve heard you say in other interviews that one of the things you really liked about this group of people was that you felt like they could show you these blind spots that you might not be aware of inside of your own self.

[00:07:24] And so I do think there’s almost a longing for external perspective, and I like that you acknowledge that.

[00:07:30] BJL: Yeah, don’t you find that? Like, even though it was put in front of me, that I entered into a situation where that was put in front of me in an unhealthy way. There’s still a healthy version of community that we all need.

[00:07:45] Like, don’t you find that? Do you feel like you’ve got people in your life that’ll, that’ll tell you the real, the real deal?

[00:07:50] LM: Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And I think that that’s the insidious part of the entire experience that you went through is that they feel like, oh, they’re offering community.

[00:07:58] They’re offering support. [00:08:00] They’re offering this idea of family. You’re an only child. And they’re like, oh, you can have this big family Christmases, all of these things that we all really crave. And there’s almost a moment where I’m reading it and I’m just like, Well, this sounds great. This sounds great.

[00:08:12] This sounds great. And I can see how you can go down that path. And I’m almost curious, like, when does it switch? And you’ve done so much research on cults and these dynamics, but when does it switch from just like a beautiful communal experience to something that’s Great

[00:08:28] BJL: question again! And the answer is, I don’t know.

[00:08:32] It’s going to be different in every environment. Whether you’re in an abusive relationship and you’re being love bombed and then you start to see the cracks, whether this is your family dynamic, a toxic work environment, or a spiritual group like mine was that gets classified as a cult. That’s why it’s so important to be vigilant with what you’re worshiping.

[00:08:49] Like, we’re all worshiping something. We’re all, whatever is consuming our mind, our time, whatever we think about the most, that’s what we’ve put as the biggest priority in our life. And, you know, going [00:09:00] back to the identity thing that I was talking about before, you just, you better make sure that it’s giving back to you what you need and what you deserve.

[00:09:09] LM: You talk about this moment where you went to LA, it was after One Tree Hill ended, and You sort of had the realization that what everybody had been telling you for years and years that you were in a cult was correct. What switched it for you in that moment? What made it something you could hear then?

[00:09:26] BJL: Yeah, my therapist at the time told me, she was the one that said, after a couple weeks, she said, are we ready to call it a cult? And I was very upset with her. And then, and then I thought about it, and I realized that she was right. And I think the realization came because being away from it, even for a month or so, the profile and being removed for a few weeks, I saw the way that the control had started to work its way in.

[00:09:59] When you’re [00:10:00] untangling narcissistic abuse, you think it’s you. I’m the one that’s the problem. Maybe I’m the narcissist. Maybe I’m the one that’s actually been creating all of these problems and I’m fooling everyone and myself. I’m so messed up. I’m so overcomplicated. If I could only get out of my own way.

[00:10:16] All of these lies that when you have other people to help you untangle, whether a community of friends or a therapist. which is what I had. The narratives that I told myself about, I can’t trust my own instinct. I can’t trust my gut. I am too independent. I’m too selfish. Realizing that there is a healthy critique of oneself that can be manipulated and turned into an unhealthy self flogging.

[00:10:48] And I had entered into the unhealthy phase of that. I’m trying to think of like the very specific like concrete, I know I’m giving you kind of broad spectrum answers, but the concrete stuff was really like [00:11:00] the money made a huge difference. That was one of the big red flags.

[00:11:04] LM: Finding out that they had taken

[00:11:06] BJL: this money essentially from your bank account?

[00:11:08] Yes. Yes. And seeing how it had been siphoned off. Realizing that I had been lied to. Realizing that the people who were telling me they loved me were also stealing from me behind my back. And talking about me behind my back in negative ways and intentionally. separating me from friendships, from my family, isolating me.

[00:11:31] When you start to add all of those up, eventually one plus one plus one plus one equals four. Just takes a while to get there.

[00:11:39] LM: Did you have this moment? I picture like a movie scene and then there’s this scene montage of all of the times that your castmates and all the people on set were like, you’re in a cult and your parents and all these things and you’re like, no, no, no, it’s not a cult.

[00:11:51] It’s just like flash, flash, flash, flash. Like, did you go like, oh my God,

[00:11:56] BJL: they were all right. It’s like the 90s sitcom version of my [00:12:00] life when I realized everyone was right.

[00:12:04] LM: There were so many people saying it to you from your parents and then you had class or you had castmates who were concerned, your management team was concerned.

[00:12:11] Yep.

[00:12:12] BJL: Look, part of my personality, I’m a rip the band aid off kind of girl. I’ve always been that way. Just give me the blunt pain right now. So, as humiliating and, uncomfortable and humbling as it was to realize that. And yes, every time I would see a person that I knew had warned me or told me or somebody who I’d cut out of my life because I didn’t trust them.

[00:12:35] And yes, all those flashbacks, the 90s sitcom flashbacks are like in my brain. But for me and my personality, it was just, better for me to just start saying it and admitting it and just get, just rip the band aid off. Don’t, I don’t need to sit in the shame of it. Let’s just move on to the next phase of life.

[00:12:51] I’m not sitting here anymore. So that probably worked for me as well.

[00:12:56] LM: Did you call any of them? Were you like, Hey, Tyler Hilton? I, it turns out you [00:13:00] were right. I was in a cult.

[00:13:02] BJL: No, my, you know, in the end of the book, I talk about running into a friend who had joined the group earlier when she recognized what was going on.

[00:13:10] She got out early enough and we lost touch and I ran back into her in LA and it was the back pocket party trick of like, Hey, I’m not in a cult anymore. You know, I always got a pretty good reaction out of that. So I think I saved it up. And when we would have conventions, it was, It was fun when the table got quiet to just sort of drop that in the middle of the table and let everybody react to it.

[00:13:31] I think it helped alleviate the shame, too, just by watching everyone laugh and feel relieved. And it helped me to see the relief on people’s faces, too. It was like, Oh. You two love me. Okay, good.

[00:13:42] LM: Well, it’s interesting because we’re laughing about it now, but you talk about in the book how much it isolated you from your entire cast, from everybody else in your community, and this is by design.

[00:13:52] Like, this is how cults work, is they isolate you. Was there any? I don’t know, like, I [00:14:00] wanted to be your guys friend, but I couldn’t, or were you navigating rebuilding these relationships that you didn’t feel like you were allowed to have previously?

[00:14:08] BJL: You’re right. This is how narcissists work. This is how that kind of that abusive system works.

[00:14:13] It isolates you. Intentionally so that you can’t get anyone else’s opinion. And if somebody else tells you you’re in an abusive situation, you don’t believe them. And so I did feel a deep sense of loss over the last 10 years or the prior 10 years to my awakening, if you call it that, I. really felt like I had missed out on so much.

[00:14:38] I knew I had missed out on so much. All of the cast dinners, just the camaraderie and the feeling like you’re showing up for each other. I was not only isolated in my situation, but we were also intentionally being isolated and our relationships were triangulated on set because of some of the power dynamics at play on the one tree hill set, which have all been talked [00:15:00] about before.

[00:15:00] So we were really encouraged. To not fraternize with each other implicitly and explicitly in various ways. And it makes me really sad, but it’s also one of the great redemption moments. The fact that One Tree Hill continues to have a life that The fans are re watching it on their streaming services and they still show up for conventions and we all get to come together and play and see each other in Wilmington and go have all those dinners that we never got to have before.

[00:15:41] And we’ve got moms showing their now 13, 14 year old daughters the show. And so I’ve got new, young, fresh faces coming up to me in the airport saying hi and it’s a real. miracle. Like it’s a really an amazing thing, the life that this show continues to have. And so I’m [00:16:00] grateful for that.

[00:16:00] LM: How has it been to be like, this is my whole self to these people, like when you went and did the podcast drama queens, and you’re showing your co stars, I imagine this is like, It’s much more 360 version of you because you had to keep so many parts of that to yourself and to the family.

[00:16:18] Do you feel like you’re trying to like prove, no, I am really friendly or what is the dynamic there?

[00:16:24] BJL: Yeah. There were times I really felt that trying to navigate through the overcompensation of trying to prove. I don’t think the same way that I used to back then. I was trying to prove that I’m normal. And now, I think I probably was trying to prove when I first got out and started Drama Queens and started doing all the conventions and stuff.

[00:16:44] I was probably still trying to prove that I was, you know, The new version of normal and now I’m like, you know what like I’m old enough time is ticking I’m really comfortable in my skin. I’m probably never gonna be neurotypical normal I’m a weirdo like I see [00:17:00] the world in a really funny philosophical, heady, creative, out of the box, strange way.

[00:17:09] And I’m not apologizing for it as much now as I used to.

[00:17:14] LM: Well, and that was sort of what drew you to this group in the first place, right? It was, it was these very intellectual discussions. It was very philosophical. That was the energy.

[00:17:22] BJL: Yeah, it was. It felt, it felt really good, especially for somebody who came out of.

[00:17:28] That sort of modern, western, evangelical, charismatic Christian environment, there’s a general, in America anyway, a general lack of thought. involved in many of those communities, in my experience. And it’s a lot of just doing what you’re told. Here’s the checklist. Here’s what you do to live a good life and make God happy with you.

[00:17:52] You know, credit to both of my parents who are very smart, but especially my dad who used to, Like, [00:18:00] we would ride to work in his old truck, which had no AC and no heat. He had in between the seats this game, this card game called Mind Trap, and it was full of riddles. And we would sit and just, on the way to school, like read a riddle and try and figure it out, critically think, like walk through the steps of all the problems.

[00:18:18] Or he would bring up something that was in the news, or something that the pastor had said in church, and what do you think about that? And we would have a real discussion about it. So he laid the groundwork for that. critical thinking. And I was drawn into that element of the group in the beginning. And of course, it kind of hit my Achilles heel of my deep childhood wound need.

[00:18:42] And that took precedence. But by the time I got out of it, I realized I’m still me. I’m still interested in all those things. I just opened the wrong door and went down the hallway too far.

[00:18:52] LM: Can you explain to somebody who might not understand, like, they’re trying to get you in there with this philosophical conversations, these deep [00:19:00] thoughts, these late nights discussing things and asking you to critically think, but then obviously a hallmark of this is And I think that’s a really important part of this type of situation is they’re telling you, here’s what you have to do, here’s the rules you have to follow, they’re controlling your career, they’re controlling your relationship.

[00:19:12] So how do those two things that feel like opposites sit side by side?

[00:19:16] BJL: Yeah, I write about this in the book and I try to set as good an example as I could in the book by showing how someone might use a really cerebral conversation to gain your respect and you feel like, oh, especially as a 20 year old.

[00:19:31] Like, it’s different now, I’m older now, I feel like I can. My bullshit detector is way better and I can tell when somebody’s just using big words and when someone actually has a really great point. But back then as a 20 year old, I’m like, Oh, this, you know, 45 year old man is having this really intellectual conversation with me.

[00:19:48] I must be really smart if I’m like engaged in this conversation. And so then. They gain your respect, they gain your loyalty in a way. I wanted more of that. I wanted to be seen [00:20:00] as really smart. Once he hooked me with that, then the next step was to teach me how to self regulate according to his perspective.

[00:20:15] So one example is when I’m being me and I’m singing and in the, we have like a worship time in the group, like a meditation worship time. And I’m singing and just really enjoying that. Cause I’m a singer. And he pulls me aside. The, this is the leader of the group pulls me aside. He’s like, you know, Oh, you’re such a beautiful voice.

[00:20:32] And you’re like, Oh, thank you. And then he said, you know, but you’re, It’s a little distracting. It’s too much. Can you, can you just like mellow out a little? And I’m thinking, Oh my God, of course I’m in the way. That’s so silly. And so now I’m thinking to myself, this good thing about me is. taking up space from other people and I don’t, that’s the last thing I want to do.

[00:20:55] I don’t want to interfere. I want to be welcomed into this community and here I am being [00:21:00] selfish again. So now I’m on high alert for my own selfishness, my own need for attention. All he had to do was plant the seed and my brain took care of everything else because I didn’t have anybody else giving me good advice and I wasn’t old enough to know the difference.

[00:21:17] Does that make sense? It does make sense. And there’s so many

[00:21:20] LM: other things that were just like, they seem, again, healthy. They’re like, oh, you need to be able to draw boundaries with people in your lives. Boundaries are really, really important. And then it’s like, well, not with us though. And we’re going to read your journal out loud to you, which was the most goose bumpy scene I thought in the entire, like when they’re just like, you’re going to read your journal out loud and we’re going to all respond to it.

[00:21:40] It’s so tricky. Cause they take these things that are good boundaries. Good. We all want boundaries. And then they push it and push it and push it.

[00:21:47] BJL: Yeah, I mean, I’ve brought my journal into a therapist’s office before that seems yeah, I’ve done that too, right? Yeah, the advice the little advice the little things that are in a healthy context [00:22:00] fine in an unhealthy context It’s abusive and it’s really hard to know the difference.

[00:22:05] That’s why I have been saying like it’s so much easier to get sucked into a situation like this, whether it’s individual or group, it’s so much easier than a lot of people think it is.

[00:22:17] LM: Is there anything that you feel like we should be looking out for in our lives, whether it’s about a cult or a narcissistic relationship or a narcissistic boss that we might be overlooking?

[00:22:29] BJL: Yeah, the us versus them narrative is a really big flag for me. I still will go visit. You know, I’m on my own continual spiritual journey and I’ll go visit sometimes. And man, it’s one of the biggest red flags when I walk in and there’s somebody on the stage talking about, you know, all those other churches, they blah, blah, blah.

[00:22:53] But we. And I’m like, I’m out. Nope. Hard pass. I hear it a lot. And [00:23:00] it’s not just churches. I hear it in all kinds of rhetoric. It’s on Instagram. It’s in social groups. It’s in political groups. It’s everywhere where there’s this us versus them. You have to pay attention to whether someone is using their discernment and wisdom and acknowledging something that they think is a problem.

[00:23:19] in another person or in another belief system, which I think is okay and important. We have to use our brains. We have to think. We have to examine. Or when someone is devaluing another human being based on the acknowledgement of something that that person may or may not be. believe at that moment. I think there’s a huge difference and it’s easiest for us, I think, just like anthropologically, we like to categorize ourselves.

[00:23:51] It’s easier. It’s a very animal thing to do. And that’s where the lizard brain’s got to come in. You gotta, you gotta use your critical thinking. You have to [00:24:00] notice when you’re caveman, your inner caveman’s taking over and being like, no, you, I am devaluing you as a human because You believe something that I don’t, that I think is wrong, or that I think is harmful.

[00:24:15] Obviously, like, read between the lines. Everybody knows what I’m talking about. This is our society, and it’s on both sides, and it’s really scary. And I think that’s the biggest thing you have to look out for, is what is the belief system that you’re engaging with? And it doesn’t have to be a religious belief system.

[00:24:34] Is your belief system devaluing other people? Or is it still giving them the dignity of their humanity, acknowledging that there are problems to solve?

[00:24:45] LM: That’s so, so powerful. What is your relationship with religion and with God now? It’s just that. It’s, it’s authentic. I

[00:24:53] BJL: feel more comfortable just letting it all hang out.

[00:24:58] I haven’t [00:25:00] achieved any sort of level of enlightenment. I don’t think. I just am more comfortable being a bit of a mess and acknowledging that that’s just part of being a human. I forgive myself a lot more. I forgive other people a lot more. I’m still stubborn. I still get stuck in my body and don’t want to acknowledge if I’ve been selfish or inconsiderate or, you know, Too harsh or too cold or unempathetic or unsympathetic and all the things that I can be prone to do.

[00:25:32] And then I’ll have a moment where it hits me and I realize it and then I feel bad, which is what we all do. I think we feel the sense of remorse over something we did. And I’m trying to really commit to not doubling down to make myself feel better. but to trust that I can feel the bad feelings and it’s not going to destroy me.

[00:25:56] I can allow myself to feel guilt and [00:26:00] remorse and acknowledge that I did something that maybe was hurtful or I hate using the word bad or wrong, words bad or wrong, but maybe not the best choice I could have made. And trust that I can apologize. Hopefully other people will forgive me. If they don’t, that’s their burden to bear because I’m doing my part.

[00:26:26] And then trust that something beautiful will come out of it. But it’s hard. It’s like, it’s like trying to ride a new wave because it’s so, it’s so much easier. not in the long run, but in the moment to double down and be like, I mean, I don’t know if you find this, maybe it’s just me. I’m neurotic. In the moment when you feel like I did something wrong, there’s like, you have this tension of, do I just double down and keep going and be like, no, no, I, it’s okay.

[00:26:50] I deserve to feel this way or I should this. And that person, blah, blah, blah. It’s a lot. You’re describing

[00:26:55] LM: many fights I have with my husband. Okay. Yeah. Like I have the little voice in my head that’s like, no, [00:27:00] Liz, you’re actually wrong. Perhaps you should apologize now. And then I’m like, whoa, but, but I have an explanation

[00:27:06] BJL: that I can share.

[00:27:07] You’re like, now is the moment. Now is the moment. And then sometimes you’re like, okay, well, I’m sorry. You felt that I was. I’m sorry. You can’t see anything clearly. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. It must be hard to be you. No. So I’m just, I’m trying. Yeah, I’m trying to ride the new wave of like getting it out. It feels good to apologize.

[00:27:27] It feels good to get past it. It’s hard though. I’m, I’m fucking stubborn. I really am.

[00:27:32] LM: Do you have any advice for apologizing? Asking for a personal perspective?

[00:27:37] BJL: I am not good at this. But I will tell you when I do it, it feels really good. And that is being really vulnerable in the moment because I don’t feel safe.

[00:27:50] Otherwise, I wouldn’t be arguing. There’s another level of trust that I am still really trying to access, particularly in romantic [00:28:00] relationships, but actually even in relationships with some friends and my parents or people that are really close, like what they think really matters to me. I still don’t like to cry in front of people.

[00:28:10] If I just trust that even if they can’t accept my contrition, that my value isn’t dependent on them. My value is in God and the God of my understanding. That God has shown up again and again, as I said, to prove to me that there’s a safety net. And so the more I practice vulnerability, the more that sort of invisible safety net shows up and becomes more real and more tactile.

[00:28:47] And I can sort of feel it and feel like it’s there. So if I get vulnerable in a moment when I’m angry and I actually say, I’m scared instead of angry. [00:29:00] It’s scary, but it’s usually 99 percent of the time I am met with compassion from the other person. And it does feel really good. So that’s my advice that I need to take my own dose of.

[00:29:15] LM: Did you have to forgive God at any point for everything you went through? Or do you feel like that was always a strong relationship for you?

[00:29:25] BJL: Oh, what a beautiful question. What I did was I forgave myself because the realization was that God hadn’t done something wrong. I had wrong misconceptions about how the deal worked.

[00:29:39] I thought the deal was I do A, B, and C, and you give me X, Y, and Z. Isn’t that the deal? And it’s not the deal. When I accepted that there’s nothing I can do to make God love me more or less, I just get to show up and be. and move and trust. There’s [00:30:00] nothing for me to forgive. He didn’t do anything wrong. I just have to forgive myself for trying to put him in a box.

[00:30:06] I say him, it, they, who knows? That’s what the identifying factor is. But I’m trying to put God in a box like it’s a genie. Like if I do all these things, then I get what I want. And then really I’m just my own God. So I had to forgive myself and I had to let God be God.

[00:30:25] LM: Was it hard to? learn how to be in a healthy romantic relationship after everything that you went through?

[00:30:33] BJL: For sure. Yeah, really hard.

[00:30:36] LM: What was that journey like for you coming out of everything?

[00:30:39] BJL: I’ve had several longer relationships since getting out and one was better than the next. You know, the first one was really rough and I had so much trauma and so many triggers and I didn’t know up from down and I was just in a bad place.

[00:30:56] The next, I think, also, I was [00:31:00] better, I had continued my therapy, and I was still really trying to learn a lot about myself in new ways, in healthy ways, and rewire my brain, rewire my instincts, all these things that I had been training myself for 10 years to live life a certain way, and then I had to retrain myself.

[00:31:19] That was really hard. And then I hit a point where I really was sick of therapy. I was so sick of focusing on myself because I was 10 years of focusing on me and all the bad things about me and how I’m supposed to make my life better. And then another probably five, six years after that of me, me, me, how do I make my life better?

[00:31:42] How do I change? How do I grow? It’s kind of like, I was eventually like, ew, I’m just so sick of me. I’m so tired of focusing on myself. So I stopped therapy. Which I think was really good because it really then just made me focus on other people and trying to be of service and just my [00:32:00] relationship with God.

[00:32:00] Like, you know what? You’ll all be quiet. Let me just see what I am actually feeling. And I needed that, and it was good. But I still cringe a little. It’s probably time for me to go back to therapy. I still cringe a little when I go into the office, though.

[00:32:15] LM: Well, isn’t that always how it is, though? The pendulum swings, and then the real trick is figuring out how to make it balance in the middle.

[00:32:22] And so it’s like, This type of focus, this type of focus, like how can we find a healthy self focus that is also focused on others and leaves room for that? I

[00:32:31] BJL: guess you’re right. Yeah, it’s an ongoing process. It’s never going to be perfect. It’s tough. It’s tough to, it’s tough to rewire after trauma and you have to allow yourself to be messy about it.

[00:32:41] I think that’s actually That might be one of the biggest things because usually in this kind of, with narcissistic abuse, there has been so much self focus and so much stripping of your identity and your ability to understand your own instincts and the gaslighting about what you’re capable of and who you are.

[00:32:59] You do [00:33:00] need some kind of structure to help you, but then you also have to be able to free wheel it a little bit and just like trust yourself, take the training wheels off and see how you do.

[00:33:09] LM: Has anything else been. particularly helpful to you on your healing journey? Either like specific tools or modalities or conversations that you’ve had or mindset shifts, really anything.

[00:33:20] BJL: I would reiterate the time alone, like not being in therapy, not, I wouldn’t recommend this for somebody coming out immediately. I think when you come out of trauma like this, I think you do need some very strong, clear, healthy voices in your life. But I do, as I said, I think there’s a time when you have to take the training wheels off and that mindset shift of being okay to just trust.

[00:33:44] my instinct, trust my ability to communicate and be communicated with from that greater spirit out there was really valuable. I’m trying to think if there were books that I read that really, like I loved Codependent No [00:34:00] More from Melody Beadle. Connecting with people, being honest with people, I found that I became almost militant about brutal honesty in my life.

[00:34:10] It’s very hard for me to tolerate when people are dancing around things and not just saying the thing because my body goes, what are you doing? You’re making something up. You’re handling me. I don’t want to be handled. Just tell me the thing. Being able to let people in your life know it’s really important for you to communicate to me in a very clear, direct manner.

[00:34:33] I will have a hard time if you are trying to preserve me. or yourself while you’re communicating with me. We’ll get much farther if you just say the hard thing immediately. I’ve been through so much, and I’m saying this as a collective voice for people who have experienced narcissistic abuse. You kind of go, I’ve been through the hardest shit.

[00:34:55] Like anything you say to me could never touch as bad as the things that were said and [00:35:00] done to me. So please trust me. I can handle it. Just say the thing, whatever it is.

[00:35:06] LM: I love that because it is like you are saying, I am so much stronger than you might be perceiving me as. I am so much stronger.

[00:35:14] BJL: Yes.

[00:35:15] LM: Yeah, I think that’s really powerful.

[00:35:16] I have a random question. You thanked Nicholas Sparks in your acknowledgements, and I know that you adapted his musical, The Notebook, and put on a whole thing, but you were like, this is one of the people who was helpful for me on my journey. Are you friends with him? Oh, he’s a great friend. We’ve

[00:35:31] BJL: had many wonderful conversations.

[00:35:33] Also an incredibly smart man, obviously. Great to have these sort of philosophical conversations with and bounce ideas off of and. and challenge ideas about life and faith and humanity and society and the way that we have this sort of narrow tunnel vision of our current life and if you you study history, he’s very well studied in history and economics and knows so much about, the world [00:36:00] from a bird’s eye view.

[00:36:01] Really interesting guy to talk to and has been a very good friend on many, many occasions when I was struggling or having a hard time. And he’s a dad, you know, he loves all his kids. He’s got so much life experience and an artist. Yes. I love him.

[00:36:18] LM: And you got to know him when you flew down to ask him for permission to adapt The Notebook.

[00:36:23] Is that how you got to know him?

[00:36:24] BJL: Yeah, I was like, I have an idea. Let’s make The Notebook a musical on Broadway. And he was like, that’s interesting. What’s your idea? And so I had already written the script on spec and gave it to him. I had a couple of songs. My friend Ron Agnello, who is now Bruce Springsteen’s producer, came in and we wrote this great like bluegrassy swing music score.

[00:36:46] I mean, I think it’s so beautiful. It’s very sort of Rodgers and Hammerstein meets bluegrass. And Nick was really encouraging. And we, you know, put up a workshop. And then as the years went on, I mean, I think that’s one of those things, like it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it [00:37:00] to in terms of like, obviously somebody else got the rights.

[00:37:02] And, and there was, that was also complicated because the studio was involved. It wasn’t just him. That’s a much longer story that I don’t know is for everyone to know, but it’s what I’ve written about it. is really what I’ll say, and that’s what’s in the book. But the testament of friendship, of being able to maintain a friendship, even though there were things that were really close to both of our hearts that we just didn’t land in the same place on, and we’re still able to see the value in the other person as a friend.

[00:37:31] Those are the kind of people I want in my life. I don’t know about you.

[00:37:34] LM: Yeah. No, that’s 100 percent the kind of people I want in my life. Yeah. I love that. Do you want to tell us a little bit in your own words about your beautiful book? Thank you. Dinner for Vampires is,

[00:37:43] BJL: as you can see, this enormous poster that was given to me by Barnes and Nobles covering up the heavy light through my window.

[00:37:50] It’s a great cover.

[00:37:50] LM: I feel like I would display it largely in my house. I’ll find a quirky hallway for it.

[00:37:55] BJL: It is about a decade that I [00:38:00] spent in narcissistic abuse in a group environment, high demand group, also known as a cult. And while I was also on a television series called One Tree Hill, and it details my journey in and my journey out of this high demand group.

[00:38:18] I hope I did it with. a bit of levity and a sense of humor and a way for you, reader, to feel like you can relate in more ways than you expected and that you also, if you do relate, will find hope on the other end of it.

[00:38:37] LM: I completely agree as somebody who has read it and I really appreciate you sharing your story there and sharing your story here and just being so honest and vulnerable.

[00:38:46] Thank you so much. It’s great talking with you. Thanks for asking such really interesting questions. That is all for this episode of the Liz Moody podcast. If you are new to the podcast, welcome. I am so glad that you’re here. Make sure that you are following the podcast on [00:39:00] whatever platform that you like to listen on.

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[00:39:19] And trust me, you do not want to miss what we have coming up soon. I will be delivering some incredible science, interviews, and advice every single Monday and every single Wednesday for you. Okay, I love you and I will see you for the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. Oh, just one more thing. It’s the legal language.

[00:39:38] This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist, or a professional. For any other qualified professional.