JANILEE: Welcome Friends, this is VILIFIED. Each week we endeavor to, we talk about life and healing, using a question as a starting point. And today, the question is, “Why VILIFIED?”

LARISSA: It's such a good question.  So, Janilee, actually you're the one who came up with the title, right?

JANILEE: *nods*

LARISSA: Like, I'm not mistaking my memory here, but I love it because it really captures the feeling you have when you're dealing with emotionally immature, narcissistic individuals who really cannot get out of their own victim mentality, and  it encapsulates who you become to them and.  That role that they see you playing in that game of chess that you don't really want to be playing anymore. You're like, “Dude, I already walked away from the chessboard. Why are we still playing this?” And there they are, still moving pieces around.

JANILEE: It's still your turn.  

LARISSA: Exactly. And that can be 4, 10, 30 years later. They could still be doing this. You're like, “Dude, thought you would have grown up by now, but guess not.”

JANILEE: Well, and even in the introduction to the podcast at the corner of “I'm living my life” and “Someone Else Isn't Happy About it”, and what I was going for when I came up with that is like, it encapsulates this moment, this place in time where you are trying to walk away from this chessboard. You are trying to move on with your life, and you are surrounded by people who are trying to keep you stuck in place, who are either scared of growth or refuse to grow. And they just want to stay stagnant. They don't want to change. They want everything to stay the same. And a lot of that actually comes from wanting to protect themselves.  In the last episode that came out, Larissa, I was reading to you the next to normal, and there's one of my favorite quotes that I think it was today. Yeah, I posted on the socials, and it's

“Give me pain if that's what's real. It's the price [we] pay to feel.”

But people who are emotionally immature, people who are not willing to move forward in life, they're not going to try because they're scared of that pain. And staying in place in their mind reduces the risk of pain, but in reality it just provides a different type of pain.

LARISSA: And I'll never forget having a conversation with one of the people in my life who really fit this description and have really vilified me, for lack of a better term. And her sitting there saying, I can't cry because I'm afraid I'll never stop. And me sitting there going, eventually your body will make you stop. You have to go through the tough things and you have to just keep going. I mean, the other option seems miserable. Why would anyone choose that when you could heal and grow and no longer suffer like this? But it's not always something that a person's brain can understand. And that sucks.  I know. Lately I've been grappling with topics and dealing with my own mental health, and I can see where people think it's easier to just.  Forget that the emotions are there. I mean, I've definitely tried to do that with anger or certain emotions just because they were never emotions that I was allowed to express or have or feel or show or the only way I was allowed to was by crying until I looked like I was going to break. And none of that's healthy. But staying in that mentality, healthy, it's not helping. Sorry. Helping and healthy at the same time. I think I kind of created a new word there. It's okay. I'm like it is healthy. And I'm pretty sure it's not helpful in the moment, but it is more long term.  Sometimes you have to compartmentalize in work, you can't be breaking down, so you have to compartmentalize. And then you can go home or turn off the computer and whatever and fall apart. But  you still have to give yourself that chance to feel it. Otherwise you're stagnant. Well, yes, otherwise you're stagnant. And that's the thing, is people don't give themselves the chance to feel it, period.  And part of the reason that I wanted to do this episode a little bit later on instead of the very first episode, hey, welcome to Vilified. This is why we're called Vilified is because a lot of the reasoning, it pulls on a lot of things that we've talked about already. So, for instance, the devil versus the heaven, you don't.  There is, again, referencing next to normal. There's a lyric in there where they say you should stay with the devil, you know, but when life needs a change and the one devil won't, you fly to the devil, you don't. And I like that because it's not the hell, you know, versus the heaven. You don't. You got two devils, two different hells. Which one are you going to choose?  Exactly. And I also like it because when it comes to healing and growth so this is something I struggled with for a really long time. I don't think anyone knows except for you, Larissa, because I at you a lot. That noise, by the way, was word vomiting. I don't know where it came from, but I've been doing a lot of that too. I get it. Yeah. When it comes to this podcast, though, it's something I had conceptualized and thought about for years, and I kind of wanted to combine like three different elements.  Basically, when I was able to give advice to friends and feel really good about it, feel like I made a difference, I wanted to put that in podcast form somehow. I don't know how, just to get it out to as many people as I can. But when I did give advice to friends, a lot of it was interspersed with a lot of the knowledge that I'd gained from being really nerdy and the things that I'd learned from growing. And it was hard for me to find a balance between the two of those. And this is the third thing I wanted to make sure we had, is that it was more an experiential  experience. I wanted it to be something that people could emotionally relate to, while maybe it tickles their intellectual fan, like the. Fancy. That's the word. Yes, it tickles their intellectual fancy and it's a hard balance to strike. And that's partly why the podcast is kind of divided between conversations and the just generally episode. And once I was like, yeah, I'm going to need a co host to help with this, I had to find the right co host. I had to find someone that I could have conversations with. Yeah, Larissa definitely fits that role just fine. Like, very, very good. But part of it was I had to have conversations with someone who was going to be able to both listen and give advice and not be like, oh, I'm higher and mightier than you, and I know everything. No, I had to be someone who was like, yeah, no, life sucks. I still don't know what I'm doing. But here's some advice coming at it from that same perspective that I was originally coming at it from. And one thing I did realize when kind of putting all of these together is that we kind of need all of those things to heal.  We need to experience the emotions, and we need to have friends who give advice, and we need to have the knowledge. And so I'm sitting here listening to you, Larissa, talking about the people who remain stagnant. They're the people who refuse to think. They're the people who refuse to accept new knowledge. It's not that they're not feeling emotions. It's not that they don't if they actually stopped and thought about it, yeah, if I changed what I did, life might change for the better. That's not the issue. The issue is they're just going to feel and they're not going to think. And then there's the opposite problem of people who are going to think but refuse to feel. And then an entirely third problem where people are going to think and feel but think they can do it on their own because they don't need anyone else. And I have tried all three of those. Doesn't work. Not one of them works. You have to have all three. There's been times where I'm like, okay, obviously I am the common denominator here. Obviously I'm the only constant in my life. I'm the problem. And people are like, well, yes and no, sweetheart.  So what do I need to change? It's not just about that. And I'm all but I need this. I need this change. I can't stay stagnant. I don't know. Maybe I'm just not built for it or wired for it. I think it depends on what you choose, and there is a certain element to which genetics and family situation and culture and all of that plays a role. But I think at the end of the day, the biggest problem, the biggest thing is.  Do you want to? And, I mean, like, I'm thinking of no, yeah, it makes sense. Lorison I have a mutual friend, and she gave me the sticker for my water bottle, but it says, Survive out of spite. And it has a flower growing between the cracks in a sidewalk, and you get a lot of those kinds of memes where it's just like, oh, bloom where you're planted this, then the other. Even if the circumstance dances are hard,  and this is part of the problem with I feel like everything in life is those can be really uplifting and motivational, but they can also be really demeaning. It depends on your mind, your viewpoint. When you look at things, is it going to be like, oh, yeah, well, you should have just bloomed, even though that you were grown between two cracks in the sidewalk? No  it's a miracle that you have, despite all of the but at the same time, you can have people who are sitting there in the grass and they're like, I don't want to grow. Yes.  And it all comes down to the person. It all comes down to this individual person. That is who you are. And that's the person that I try to reach when I kind of plan out these episodes. And the person that Larissa gives advice to, it's the individual, it's the person. It's the one factor that no science, no statistics, no therapy, no anything can predict it's that human will. Well, and I mean, surviving against all odds is a huge miracle that anyone does it really, honestly. I mean, I'm thinking back to all of the things that were done to try and make me fail over the last four years, or even more, probably. I mean, it really is just a miracle that we made it, that we are where we are and that we're doing what we're doing, that we're surviving, that we have come as far as we have. And everybody's like that's. You and I'm like, no. Things fell into place. Yes. I chose to not stay stagnant, but at the same time, there were so many things flying at me all the time.  That I couldn't get past where I remember walking around going, if one more thing falls apart, I'm just going to fall on the floor and cry because I can't do it anymore if one more thing goes down. Yeah. And if you had and I did. So this is something that someone and I wish I could remember who, so I could properly cite who it was, but someone basically said, look, you have like, you've been through a lot. And I'm like, yeah, but people were there and they were helping me and I couldn't have gone through without them. And they're like, look, sure, but they didn't pick you up off the floor after you did fall to the floor and cry.  I think this kind of relates back to this feeling of you have to do it all alone. No,  you can't to do it alone, but when you've been chronically vilified, when you've been doing your best and it's never enough, when you're stuck in that corner,  it is your fault. And there is this trauma response of, I want to take if I take blame for everything, then I have control over things, then I can change things and I can single handedly make this better. Exactly. And that's a healing fantasy and it's not true and it doesn't happen, but it is what we feel. And so we're combating those thoughts in our mind while also realizing that, yes, you had people help you along the way, but just because people help you doesn't mean you have to accept the help. It doesn't mean that you have to choose to take this opportunity to grow. It doesn't mean that you have to become a better person. It doesn't mean that you have to choose to view people as people instead of what you can get from them.  So true.  I'm just thinking about it. All of the sweet, tender mercies is the way that I've looked at them  that were sprinkled throughout everything that I went through, escaping the situation that I'm probably never going to fully get to escape. I'm just looking at the reality of it. How do I describe it? The sweet, tender mercies. I don't know what I would have done without them, because that's what kept me going on trusting the next situation. I've always been somebody who's like, I have to do it on my own. I have to fix this. It's all on me. And I will totally tear myself apart until I do it. And this forced me to realize that I could not do it on my own, that trying to do it on my own was not going to get me anywhere. And that it really does take a village to do anything. Not just raise a child, not just survive, not just thrive. Because, I mean, there's a difference between surviving something and thriving in something, and it's that growing in that crack.  Go ahead. Sorry, just a little point. Surviving is prerequisite to thriving. So if you feel like all you're doing is surviving, it doesn't mean that you're failing because you're not thriving. That's the first step. Yeah, you're 70% there. The other 30% is thriving later on,  but I just wanted to make that point. No, I appreciate it, because I completely glossed over that. That would not have been helpful,  but so it's.  It's, looking at it and going, okay, well, if somebody hadn't let me their car, I wouldn't have been able to take my kid up to see the doctor. If nobody had taken this situation on, I wouldn't have the friends that I have if if somebody hadn't stopped and been a good Samaritan when my car broke down in the Walgreens parking lot, like drive through, you know, I wouldn't have the friendships I have now. And  it's accepting that those small moments, you can't ever control them. Control is just an illusion,  and controlling a situation  is never going to work. Well, yeah, like you said, control is an illusion, so attempting to control it's never going to work. Have you ever heard of the Spears of Influence? Yes, I've seen it. It's like a Ven diagram. Yeah. It's by Stephen R. Covey and from his book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I had to read it in college, and it did not help me because I was in a very abusive place, and I was like, I'm doing all these things, and I am not successful.  But when you have full autonomy, there's this idea of if you focus on the things that you actually can control, your sphere of influence will grow. But if you focus on the things that you can't control, what you actually have control over, which is your sphere of influence, it will shrink. Yeah. And it's just this idea of, you know, it it all comes down to focus and something that we mention a lot because it's a huge game changer for me always, and I still have them are perspective shifts. Because just having a shift in your perspective where not a thing changes.  But you can view the situation differently. It actually holds immense power. It really does. I mean, there are times where you'll ask me a question and I'm like, oh, light bulb. When I finally process it, because it doesn't always happen right away. There are delays sometimes in my brain, some on recording, though,  and sometimes they happen, like middle of the night, I wake up and I'm like, yeah,  middle of the night empathies. But I wonder how people manage like people who use drugs, like crystal meth or something like that, that keeps them awake for days, how they manage to function. And then I realized that a lot of times they think they're functioning, but that's an illusion. It's that control thing where I'd love to be able to control the amount of sleep I need, but not inside my ability to control.  Yeah, there are some things that no one has control over, and  there are things that, over time, humans have gotten better at controlling, like when a person dies. But there are some things that no one can ever have control over. And and there's those things for humanity as a whole, but there's also those things for us individually. And next week's episode of Spoiler Alert, it is going to be on.  It. Sorry. My brain just blinked because I just realized I haven't explained this. We're down to one episode a week, and every once in a while it'll be a Just Janly episode, but most of the time it'll just be this experiential conversation until we need a Just Janly episode. Now that I've explained that, next week's episode, it's going to be on how we deal with emotionally immature people, because a lot of the times, that's something that we can't control. These people that put us in this place, these people that are trying to make us play this game, and we can't say, you're very good at a game that I don't want to play, so I'm done here, and walk away. We can't say that, and we have to continue to interact with them, and so that's going to be an episode on its own. But sometimes we can't control the people who are in our lives, and sometimes we can. But also just feel like this is a pretty good segue based on what you were saying. Larissa. One thing that we do have control over is accepting help. Yeah, and I feel like it's easier to justify accepting help when it's a really big thing that we can't do on our own.  Because we don't have the supplies like a car to take our child to the doctor. Right. But  it's very interesting. I did a little experiment. Yes. The people in my life, I experiment with you constantly in an attempt to understand life and how things work and all of that crazy stuff. The first time I was in a household where I was loved, I'm telling you, man, it was the weirdest thing. I was like, really? You're still going to love me if I do a dumb thing? I'm going to do a dumb thing and test that out.  I'm not going to trust anyone. Are you kidding me? No, I'm testing this out for myself.  And so in that way, though, I found it very interesting that it's really hard for me. It's easier now, but it used to be really hard for me to accept little things. Like a really good example. I had to drive for 3 hours  this past weekend. And right as I'm settling in for this long hard drive, someone asked me, hey, I just went to the store and I got an extra bottle of sparkling water. Do you want it for your trip? It and I had just emptied my water bottle into the backseat of my car so my dog could drink it. And I was like about to say no, just out of habit because I can get myself a bottle of water if I need to. But instead I stopped myself and I was like, yes, I would really appreciate that. Thank you. And accepting a bottle of water.  Or accepting, hey, I'm heading into the kitchen. Can I clear your plate for you? Those kinds of things, like these little things that no one has ever offered to do for us before, right? Or if they did offer, it was because they had an ulterior motive. It was never going to hold it over our head for the rest of forever and we're just going to be waiting for that shoe to drop. I mean, that was honestly, I feel like 90% of my experience living in a place where I was loved was waiting for the other shoe to drop and it just never came because the things that were done were just purely out of love and it's terrifying and exhausting and it just puts you on high alert. But now I can accept that bottle of water and be like, I am so grateful this person cares about me. And as I'm leaving, I have five people text me when you get home safe, please. And there's just these little things where it's so obvious that it's out of love. It's not so that they can keep track of where I am, so they can track my car and make sure that I don't drive more than X number of miles per day. Yes, my parents did that to me, so it's not a control thing. And this is, I think, another interesting perspective shift.  Just kind of like going off script here for a minute. Not that there's really a script moving on. Yeah, there's really no script.  An outline of notes that I use to kind of keep us and make sure we cover certain things, keep us on track, which, by the way, I post those on Patreon if you ever want to see them go support us on Patreon. But I didn't write this down in the outline, but I think it's an interesting comparison here because the things that people do to control us are also the things people do to love us.  Oh,  yeah. See, and here's the thing. It's like people didn't want to control where I went. If I made a stop and got a burger or I decided that I didn't want to go where I said I was going and I wanted to stay a night at a random place, they wouldn't care. They would just be like, okay, just be safe. But  it's also this thing where, oh, well, it's normal for me to want to know where you are 24/7, because that means love. Yeah, but what do you do with that, exactly? Do you try and get me to change my decision? Do you try and get me to  make amends for doing something I said I didn't do because I changed my mind? Do you criminalize changing minds and punish that? Are you? You look like you got something to say. No, it just brought up so many different things that have happened with me. One of them was so my great grandfather died and left me some property. And after all of the.  Questionable things that had happened because of it being taken certain ways and things that were done in in different ways. There was a certain amount of money left for me to go to college, and I remember being told  in high school, like my freshman year of high school, we will let you spend some of that money on a car,  but you have to sign a it would be in my name. I would maintain it. They'd spend the money on the insurance from my account, and they would spend the money for the gas from my account. But I had to go to certain classes. I had to maintain a certain GPA. I had to do the things that they wanted me to do. And if I failed in any one of those things, they were going to take my car.  And the day I realized, you don't have any right to take this vehicle from me because it's in my name, because it's mine, I left. I was not 18, but I didn't sleep at home for a while because it was that bad, and  it was no, we're going to control you using this. That's your inheritance through coercive means. And because you're young and you don't know any better, we're going to make a contract that's not notarized that's not enforceable anywhere in any place of employment, in any situation out there in the world, and you're not even old enough to sign it. Let's just put that out there, too. But we're going to enforce this, and we're going to hold this over your head for four years. This is another one of those weird parallels between you and me. I also was forced to sign contracts.  My mother would write out, here are all of the rules that you have to abide by just to live in the house, but she would have blanks where it was. If you don't do this rule, then you get this consequence. And I would have to fill out those blanks, and then I would take that contract back to her, and she would say, that's not good enough. That's not as a hard enough punishment. I don't think that would actually work, so you need to make it worse. And then when the time came that I inevitably didn't wake up with my alarm because I was an effing teenager,  you chose this. Remember? You chose the consequence. Yes, I had to approve it, but you chose this consequence so you can't get mad at me for enforcing this contract. Yeah, see, we didn't have tracks before then. Like, for my teenage you're on 180 milligrams of extended release riddle in a day. Try and wake up on time in the morning. Crud. We didn't have contracts for that. I had to use my babysitting money to pay for a cab every day that I missed the bus.  To teach me personal responsibility and accountability. Yeah, I just got really good at  the skills you learned to survive. I was like, I'm spending $25 to go to school. I find it really interesting, too, because if we look at this and this is something that I ran into very often, is  people will be like, well, why don't you like your mom? When I started, I was very tight lift about everything for a long time. But when people did start to ask why I was cut, basically they needed proof that it was a good decision for me to cut up my mom instead of just trusting me in my decision. And I found it very hard to explain, because what am I supposed to say? My mom makes me do chores? Or what are you supposed to say? Like, I don't get a car if I don't get good grades? I mean, that is not an abnormal thing to do. And there is a certain extent to which, specifically, parents are supposed to guide their children in a specific way right. Rather than, it's like, one strike and you're out, or even if it's three strikes and you're out. There's a difference between it being trans actional versus  actual nurturing and caring. Exactly. And that's that control piece, and it creates a situation in which a person doesn't want to trust other people.  Because they're afraid of what the cost is. And that's intentional. It's so common. Yeah. And that's so common to see. I mean, I remember there's so many situations from my childhood where I'm going, yep, this was one of those. Check the box, check the box, check the box. I'm just those situations in which I eventually stopped even trying to tell people why I don't have relationships with certain people. I just don't. And I just don't bring it up because, A, the other people have gone and said horrible lies and blah, blah, blah, diagnosed me with psychiatric conditions that I've never been diagnosed with, stuff like that. So it would be your word against their word. It would be my word against their word. And I'm going to let my choices and my actions and my happiness speak louder than my words, and I'm going to let my piece be more important than their familial obligation that they're putting on me.  And I don't know if that's the right way to look at things. I don't know. I could totally be screwed up. Are you kidding me? I was just about to say way to go for bringing it full circle because  that right there,  it's the core of what I wanted with this podcast is to understand that you can live a life that is good for you while I'll still be the villain in other people's stories. Yeah, you don't have to. The way that I've had to really look at it because I spent so much of my life trying to be that perfect person, be that kid that be that person that everybody loved, I'm not going to be anyone's cup of tea. Not going to be most people's cup of tea. And that's okay. I can be a few people's cup of tea and be happy with that. That's my tribe. That's the people that I want to be around are the people that like me for me, not who like me for what I do for them, not who like me because it's an obligation.  Not who are going to sit back and wait for me to fail and then tell me they told me so. Not for the ones that are actively trying to  bring me down, because that's still sort of happening, sadly.  Here's a fun contrast. Whenever I hang out with people or talk to people on the phone and I get Janly, I just get very much me. I'm just 100% super weird throw out a random fact about the tense or timpany you have in your ear that prevents you from going deaf from the sound of your own chewing. I mean, all of these things,  I just go full Janilee and full nerd, and the only response the other person has is to just smile and look at me and say, I miss hanging out with you  because it's never happened. And that's partly how you can figure out those who care about you, rather than these constant memories of.  It. So here's a fun example. And I know I've mentioned this before, but I could not sing for 2 seconds without my mom yelling at me to shut up. And Loris and I, when we sometimes hang on the phone for a couple hours and we run out of things to talk about, I start singing. And then I'm always like, oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was singing. And she's like, no, I like it when you sing.  So does my kid. Her kid asleep once. That's all I need. I'm a success in life,  but it's the people who genuinely care about you, and they show it by seeing the things that are so uniquely you and loving it and being that that is the person that I enjoy, because we all have similarities. And yes, it's really when I can give advice to friends, but when I can also give advice to friends and sing at them and be goofy with them and send them really funny memes and then go to them when I need help as well. Those are the true relationships, where it's deep and it's meaningful and there's emotional maturity on both sides.  Exactly. And it's huge when you're able to get to that point and find people like that. But you have to be willing to be picky and you have to be willing and able to be alone. That's something that I feel like it's another one of those weird dichotomies of you can't do it on your own, but you have to be okay being on your own. Because if you are in a situation like I was like Larissa was like, a lot of people are where the only people in your life are emotionally immature, narcissists,  you ain't going to find a single person worth having a long term relationship with. You're not. And if you do, you're going to say, yeah, you're weird. And it's going to take them like two and a half years of consistent effort to convince you that they don't want anything out of you.  That may or may not be a specific example based on my past,  but I understand it. And then once you do have an emotionally aware person, it's like, okay, really weird, but maybe other people are okay. And then you meet people who are not entirely emotionally mature or who are not entirely emotionally immature. You find people who are in the middle because not all bad people do 100% bad things and not all good people do 100% good things. And there's this tendency in media, and we talked recently about finding emotions in art. So be aware of this when you're consuming art that I think anyone needs a reminder. But villains are very often painted in black and white. They're very often two dimensional characters. And they aren't. They are so much they're 3D. They are every color in the rainbow. Well, in media, in stories, they often are. And their only motivation is to be evil, right? And even if you find like a backstory about why they were evil, that doesn't change that their only motivation is to be evil. But I find for me, the best art, the best stories are ones where there isn't a clear villain. Which is partly why when we did explore art  and finding emotions in art,  I pulled out of my back pocket a really good example of a play where you want to cast people as ins, but it depends on the situation and what's happening and who did what that you want to cast as the villain. And the thing is, you can't do that  in real life. You cannot do that because even when it comes to the narcissists and the emotionally immature people in your life.  I don't think that  they are ever really seen as villains by the people who have escaped. And they may be for a time. And if they are a villain, that's totally fine. Like 100%. For years, I was like, absolutely not. Hate my mom, blah, blah, blah. But over time, I got to the point where people get pissed at my mom, and I'm like, yeah, I know. It's okay. You can get pissed at her. And like, why aren't you pissed? I'm like because I've been there.  Exactly. I've already gone through that emotional arc, and I've gotten to the point where I understand why she did what she did  while simultaneously knowing that it's not okay, it's not acceptable, and it's not something I'm going to allow in my life. And so eventually, people who are willing to change, people who are willing to grow and not just stay stagnant, they can see everyone, even the villains in their life as three dimensional people. But that doesn't mean that the people who see us as villains are ever going to see us as three dimensional people, because that would require them seeing themselves as three dimensional people. And they're not going to they're unable to see themselves outside of black and white there in that all or nothing thinking and.  Unfortunately,  I think when a person  finally does break out of that  we were talking about this the other day, actually.  It can be so damaging to that person's psyche  that their pride gets in the way of them healing that if that makes sense. It's that Percy Weasley from Harry Potter because I don't have a better example where he was convinced that following Umbrage and it's a good magic was the right thing to do and he never even at the very end of book seven I think it is apologizes. I have not finished book eight, and they all disappeared from my belongings. So I don't know what happened to my first edition sets,  but there's another one that was written seven books in the original series by J. K. Rowling. Okay. See, I haven't even tried it. I know, but it's terrible. It's okay. So I don't even know I don't know. There's something in there where he's come back around to the family. Okay.  Just don't want to put that off. I mean, we see at the end of book seven that he kind of comes fully when he comes through to fight. He has this one moment, but at the same time, his pride is still getting in the way there. And also his pride kept him in a very shaky place for a long time. I mean, even at the end of book seven is like, hey, how did you know? How did you wake up to the fact that you're such an idiot? One of the twins asks him, and he's like, it's been coming on for a while now. But it's so hard because they're looking for defectors, and I think that's true as well when it comes to leaving. And we've talked about how hard it is to leave a narcissist reality before they're going to do everything they can to keep you in place. But even if you do come around to realizing that maybe you have a little too much pride, you one of my favorite quotes is, it's easier to swallow a bag of doorknobs than it is to take a bite of humble pie? Yeah.  Because it's just hard.  And there's a difference between humble pie and I know I'm the worst person ever, baby. Yeah. Those two are so not all the time. The second one is not even actually admitting anything ever, because I hear it.  I can hear certain voices saying it.  Yep. Every time, I was like, hey.  And I am trying to make a more conscious effort to be a little more less tight lipped about things, but it is still hard, and I still want to tread on things I've gone through. And people in my past with respect, tread lightly, not tread on them with respect.  Anyway.  Yeah. But there is very often times when I would be like, hey, you did this thing that hurt me. I know I'm a terrible mother. That's not what I said. And it results to this black and white thinking, right? Where you're good or you're bad, you're the villain or the hero, you're the king or the peasant. Right. It's this black and white dichotomy. It's one or the other. There is no nuance. There is no in between. You can't be a good person who does bad things. You can't be a great person who still has room for improvement. You are good or you are bad. And so often, that thinking just becomes who we are. So I actually did a little research. Just a little, not very much, because the whole whole point of this episode is to talk about.  This podcast and why it's called a vilified and why it exists and the people it's for. But I was curious about the word vilify,  and so I looked up the etymology of it, and the very root of the word is a Latin word, villas, which means of low value.  And and I love that, because what is of low value to some people is not low value to other people. Fun fact, I don't really like chocolate cake. Chocolate cake low value to me.  A lot of people think chocolate cake has high value.  Does that make me right? Does it make them wrong? Or does it make us different? Yeah, both can exist in the same situation. It's that yeah. If we take up the etymology just a little bit further along the progression, we get the word vile. Now, this was interesting because you have of low value, but then when it became vile, it became extremely unpleasant, but also morally bad and wicked. And so this is the first time where it has like.  An emotion or a value or a social status that's been thrust into the definition, where it's not just something that's unpleasant to me, it's something that is morally bad and wicked and it must disappear because to me it is morally bad.  Larissa's face. Sorry. No,  I'm just picturing certain things that and then there's one more step, because we get from vile to vilify, and to vilify is to speak or write about in an abusively, disparaging manner. And I find it interesting as well, because this is a definition that doesn't have an emotion or status, but it's based on the word vile, where there is an emotion or status. And the other distinction is that vile is just something that's unpleasant, but vilify is something you go after, it's something that you become obsessed with, it's something that you won't let go. It's something that you must take down. It almost becomes part of your personality to be the anti hero that is my personality, to oppose this person. Which means if this person likes this thing, then I don't like that thing. Who cares what the thing is? It would be like if I would say, Hi, nice to meet you, my name is Janilee. Do you like chocolate cake? And they said yes. I'd be like, you're a terrible person. You're going to help peace out.  It's when you don't have yeah. Or  it's refusing to do something that you know is important to the other to a person, because a third party says this is important and therefore it must. That is what happened. A third party? Yes. When it's someone else that you're adopting their personality, there, you know, their narcissistic reality that you're choosing to live in. Yes, it's a third party, but can also be me judging people based on whether or not they like chocolate cake.  That is absolutely no indication of character. But if I choose to only judge people based on that, then I'm vilifying chocolate cake for the same reason. I find it interesting. There's this term used with people in my life where if my mom just particularly does not like them, there's a lot of people my mom doesn't know about because I try and protect people from my past. But if my mom knows about them and she just doesn't like them, she basically treats them the same way that she treats me. And we've come up with this term blacklisted. And so I'm always like, hey, you've been blacklisted. Wear it like a badge of honor. Right. Because to me, it means the world. You've pissed her off enough that  you're blacklisted. Do you know how much that means to me? That is huge. And it comes down to what is vile. It depends on what side you are on. Well, and it's not just what side, but it's the information that you're processing and how you're looking at it. Because you can take the term flying monkey, which is basically anybody who's.  Being utilized by the abusive individual to play games or pawns in the life of the other person or pawns. Pawns is another great usually says flying monkeys. I usually say pawns. Same thing.  Yeah, I think I might have grown up more with  the Wicked Witch of the west and the wizard of Oz stuff than you did. That might be where I don't know. It wasn't really allowed to watch TV  and see we were allowed to watch certain things.  There wasn't a lot of oversight, though,  about whether or not we were doing what we were supposed to with it. So we were only supposed to see certain things. Supposed to.  There's a lot of things that people don't know about, but yeah,  let it be. What's the point anymore? But when you have these flying monkeys or these ponds, and they are so entrenched in this thinking that they aren't able to.  And they've only heard the one side. For example,  everything that they hear is going to be jaded, and it's going to be sliced different because of what this pawn or flying monkey or  original abuser, I don't know, has said.  And the best example I have is I had not known that a letter had been written about me. And people were contacting me, and they're like, what is wrong with this person? Mama, I don't know what you're talking about.  One person was like, what's going on? For everyone, this letter was the first exposure I ever had to Larissa. Before I even met her. I read this letter.  It took me two years to even get a copy of the letter because it was that vile, and it was that horrible what was written, and it was that awful. It was not pretty, and it's, like, three pages long or something, and it's still out there on the Internet. People can get it. And I'm just like, okay, fine. Have your opinions. But opinions are, like, buttholes. Everybody has one.  This letter, people came to me, and they're like, some people came to me and said, you think this person would have grown up by now. And I'm all, yeah, well, it is what it is. I'm just working with it.  Even before I knew this was before the letter, I was still making a conscious effort to still not talk smack, I guess, because there's plenty I could say. There is so many things. Like, I could lay some people's there and really.  Yeah, I could destroy some lives. Don't want to. Don't really care to. Don't want to put in the energy that it's going to take to do that. So what's the point? Type thing. Whereas this letter really was an attempt to do that. It was she doesn't realize the pain she's causing, so  let's make sure she fails. And it had been sent to, I believe it's over 200 people in my family.  And so I'm at an event, and I'm talking to some of my family who I don't know have this letter that I don't know about this letter, and I'm explaining a situation that I'm going through without blaming anyone. And they give me this look, and it was two specific individuals,  and I sat there like, I will forget that look. And then somebody brought up the letter, and I realized that everything I was saying was being jaded because of the flying monkeys, because they took this letter. That is not fact, is not honest, is not true.  Is completely one sided and completely manipulative in its statements. I mean, it literally follows a format in each paragraph. It's quite impressive. So here's the fun thing. When I read the letter, I was told that it was written about our mutual it was given to me by Larissa and my mutual friend, and I was told that it was about some person, and I read it. And because I've been through what I've been through and I've dealt with a lot of emotionally immature people and a lot of narcissists, I was able to pick it out, like, to read the letter and to predict what the next paragraph was going to say with flawless accuracy because it was just so textbook and it didn't color my opinion of Larissa at all. I was like, cool. She has terrible people who are out to get her. Me too. And that's where I'm talking about the whole vilified thing, is it's only the people who have woken up to.  The entrenched system that not necessarily haven't allowed in my situation. The people who have seen this letter and have been woken up to are not emotionally immature. I don't know how I'm trying to say what I'm saying. See, here's the thing I feel like it comes down to and I feel like a lot of the people, like most of the people who listen to the podcast are probably people who are pretty emotionally aware and know that something's off and are trying to fix it. But that's not everyone in life. To refer back to Harry Potter again. Umbrage, not a Death Eater. And as Harry was told, the world is not split into good people and Death Eaters. There are people who are morally ambiguous and in that middle. And a lot of times, again, that is going to depend on what your own moral opinions are. To vilify someone, though, is when you take your moral opinions and you use that to judge a person when it has nothing to do with that person's character. And so I'm thinking about like, say that you were to encounter people who had read the letter and maybe they have a look on their face of she's not acting the way I was told she was going to act.  And this is weird, because I expected her to act like a crazy witch, because that's what I'm supposed to do, and I'm supposed to not like a bad person, but she's not acting like she's just really good at putting on a face. And the wondering starts, and the wondering eventually can become understanding the situation for what it is, or understanding enough of the situation to know that you don't care and you're not going to take a side,  or maybe you're going to try and bridge both of the sides.  There's a lot of different things to do. And again, it goes back to this whole, you're with me or you're against me. It's black or it's white. It's not the whole entire world is gray. Everything is nuanced, and everything is different. And when we do, especially like for me, when I have had to set those black and white boundaries, it is not for lack of trying to set a boundary in the gray area, but having that boundary refuse to be respected to where I have to make it black and white for myself, for my growth, for my progress, for me. Two and a half years of trying to set different boundaries at different points in time none of them ever respected. And it's not necessarily because it was, oh, how much can I get away with? Because I'm all conniving often. It can very much be. I don't understand what you mean. Why do you need a boundary in the gray area? I live in black and white, and I try and explain the gray area and how everyone's nuanced, and this is where the boundary is, and they refuse to try. And so I feel like a lot of times it's not so much that people are either for you or against you, or they're not just on your side or on your abuser side. And it's very hard for me. Anyone that is even remotely friendly with my mom, I pushed out of my life because I needed that black and white line. But it doesn't mean that people who talk to my mom aren't aware. It doesn't mean that they're being convinced, and it doesn't mean that they don't have the right to hear my mom's side of the story. Exactly. It doesn't mean that they don't have the right to make up their own minds and their own decisions. The whole point of vilified is not, okay, we're on your side, and we're not on anyone else's side. The point of vilified is you feel vilified, you feel attacked. I wrote down here there's, like, three things specific that you have to do to vilify someone. It's derogatory.  It's disrespectful and it's critical. Yeah. And if someone is saying those things to you, you can't change that.  But I want people to understand that there's a perspective shift where it doesn't mean that you are the problem. Even if you are the common denominator in your life, this doesn't make you the problem, it makes you a human being. Them, just like the rest of us. Just try to survive and heal and grow. Exactly. Yeah.  One other thing that I feel like you've been saying, and I just want to say it flat out, because this is how I work it's, that whole dictionary. Remember how I can say respect and it means one thing, but if you have a different dictionary, it means another thing. People who are only given your narcissist dictionary are only going to understand the narcissist language. And if they want to understand your side of the story, it is your choice if you give them a dictionary or not. And if you choose to give them a dictionary, they might go turn around and give that dictionary to the narcissist, who's then going to try and rip it apart. And that's a risk you have to take, and we all have to take, because.  Love and loss. They come with risks. Yeah, well, and so does happiness. You can't have happiness without some sadness.  You won't appreciate it enough.  There's a whole book on it. I can't remember what it's called right now.  It won awards. I read it in my childhood. Do  you'd think I'd remember? But go figure  it out and we'll put it in the show notes. There you go. But so I was actually going to ask, what do they mean by critical with the three points? Because  you can look at something and critically think about something that's not the same as critical, though.  Does that make sense? Well, yeah, I totally understand your question. I didn't look into the word critical, so I don't have notes to reference. But from what I the meaning I got while I was looking into the etymology is to look at something critically. It just means to take emotions out of it. To be critical of someone is to apply a negative emotion. And that's a weird word that I'm definitely going to be looking up the etymology of after this episode when we're done recording.  But it basically is when you're critical of something, it's never good enough. It never is flawless. It always has a flaw that's worth picking at. Yeah. You're never going to be enough good enough when you are not for that person.  Not for that person. No. And that's not love. And that's that dictionary definition of what is actual real love. And I think I've told this story before, but the first time I felt love, it terrified me because I didn't know what it was. And it was scary and it was foreign, and I had to be open to a new experience.  I've had sprinklings of it where people showed me love and it was completely foreign until I finally got away from everything, enough to start understanding what it really was.  And then you often are waiting for that other shoe to drop. Yeah, I'm still struggling. I'm still waiting for it. I'm still waiting for that. Still waiting for me to be like, yeah, that's it, Larissa. We're over.  Yeah. No more friendship. Yeah.  No, that would be very sad. That would make this podcast very difficult to do. That's true. I guess. I suppose I have to be your friend.  I know. It's such a burden. Okay, so here's a fun thing. I'm glad that everyone can hear Larissa laughing because I often will do this. And I even did it to Larissa the other day where I'm talking to her and she said, Hold on, and to talk to her daughter. And I was like, that's it, larissa. Our friendship is over. And she started laughing, and I was like, the fact that I say our friendship is over and you laugh, that means that you are safe and you feel secure enough in the relationship to know to make that assumption that I'm just joking, which, by the way, I'm totally joking for people who don't know us well enough.  Yes, you are. And I know in order for you to feel that safe, it has to have come from a pattern of behavior. It has to have come from consistency. I could have said it to you after our second time talking, and you would have completely and totally believed me. You would have taken it at face value and been like, all right, I guess I'm not going to be her friend.  Even when people play jokes, it has to be in a secure enough relationship where  you're secure in your place, in it.  Definitely sorry. Making the screen, like, wiggle. It's all good. Bob Led  so essentially, why vilified? Because that's what it feels like. I went through like a couple of different, longer titles that was like, I'm the villain in someone else's story or something like that. And I was like, you know what? All it comes down to is I am vilified. Because it's not that vile, of low value or to deviate from is another fun little thing I didn't mention. But where there's the norm, I deviate from the norm. And so therefore, I'm of low value to the norm. And it all comes down to like, that all exists. But what bothers me is being vilified. It's having these actions taken against me. I also have had similar letters sent out to certain family members where it's like,  tell Janaly to do this. Tell Janie to do this. And  it's a hard situation to be in, especially when the people that you in your new life that you've learned to grow and care about, to see them hurt and brought in and be used as those pawns, as those flying monkeys by the person who won't leave you alone because they are obsessed with vilifying you. And finding peace in that is so hard.  We're going to have another episode in the future. It's going to be about emotional remote controls. Laura feels very excited about it  something I've been going through quite a great deal lately. The idea for the podcast literally was born out of a conversation, not the podcast. Sorry. The idea for the episode was literally birthed from a conversation I had with Larissa. So it's going to be a great episode. But essentially this podcast, I want it to be a place where we can come together, we can feel vilified together, but also know that just like we talked about in episode four, it's just a label. You can view that label positively, negatively, or neutral. Is it going to be a good thing or a bad thing that you've been blacklisted, that you're a villain? How is it going to block your life? And if you are going to choose to have perspective shifts, let me give you some information that can help with those perspective shifts. Let me give you some science that help me understand things differently. And at the end of the day, just know that your worth is not determined on what someone else thinks of you. It feels like it because you've been told it forever, but it's not true. And life is full of experiences and thinking differently, wanting to experience different things, these don't make you bad.  You can experience something and then say, yeah, I regret that I'm never doing that again. Like me every time I eat cantaloupe.  Yeah, that would be but that doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you a human being having experiences. Yeah. It's okay to not have a feeling about, like, to be ambivalent or and ecmatic, for lack of a better term, about  the label you've been given. Like, I felt justified because I saw this this whole letter and went, holy crud. Yes, this is what she does.  Proof in point.  And then I also felt very upset and very hurt. It's okay to feel both at the same time, that black and white, feeling those emotions that you're going to have surrounding what's being done outside of your control to you, your name, yourself. It can be very difficult, and it's okay to be going through it. And whatever feeling you have, I would go as far as to say it's normal. I mean, like last episode or two, couple episodes ago. How do we identify emotions? You have to let emotions complete their emotional arc, which is something has to happen and be real to you. You have a physiological response, and then you have an action that you choose. But you have to go through those emotional arcs for the black and the white, for the good and the bad, and then take your time to figure out what you actually think about something, what you actually think about yourself, what you actually think about what that person said about you. Not only is it okay, which it totally is okay, it's normal and healthy. And not a lot of people understand that this is a good thing to do. They'll just be like, oh, no, like your emotion, gut instinct. Like, you should go with your gut and no, sometimes your gut is very wrong and feeling the emotion and making a decision later. So really smart thing is okay, too.  Yeah. That makes you emotionally intelligent, and that makes you wise. You're wise. You can't change it.  I almost mentioned a new girl reference earlier in the show, but I'm making Larissa watch it for the first time, and I know she hasn't gotten to this episode, and it was a spoiler. I might not be on that one yet. Kept my mouth shut. But this is not a spoiler. And I don't know if she's gotten to this episode, but either way, it's not spoiler. But Nick, he goes, wow, I've never been an inspiration before. Makes a face too much responsibility. I don't like it.  You can't give it back, Lord. You're wise and you can't give it back. No take backs. You're an inspiration. You're amazing and you're wise. And the fact that you are still listening and the fact that you're still trying means more. It means more than you can even understand here and now. Not to be all, I'm from the future and I know more things, but when I did those things on my healing journey, it had a much bigger impact than I ever thought it would.  Definitely have. Anything else you want to add, Larissa, before we wrap up? No, I had an epiphany, but it went away with the squirrel when it ran out of my brain. Well, text me your epiphany later, because I like your epiphanies when you text me that you had an epiphany based on something I said. I'm always like  the best brain. That's a big Bang Theory reference.  But you are you are very smart, and you have a very amazing brain, and I am very grateful for you. Well, as long as I can spiel things at you and you don't get bored with it, I'm down. I like it. Sounds like a plan. Sounds good. Anyway, now that you've listened to this episode, our closing is going to mean so much more to you. But if you're going throughout your life and you feel that you've been vilified by someone, know that you are part of an elite club. My name is Janilee, and I am a villain.

LARISSA: My name is Larissa, and I am a villain.

JANILEE: This is VILIFIED.