The Empty Mirror: When Vampires Reflect The Betrayal Of Abandonment
What Anne Rice and The Interview With The Vampire show us about love denied and how silence should never stop us from using our voice.
This piece is part of the That Sacred Decay Diaries series and pays homage to a legendary character loved by so many across the globe: Lestat De Lioncourt, the Ironic Poster-Child for abandonment… I realised I understood him more than I ever thought I could.
I’ve been a follower of the author Anne Rice for a long time.
I’ve read her books, followed her since her early Facebook days and cherished meeting her too...
She signed my copy of Memnoch The Devil as we whispered about it being her personal favourite too, she smiled her huge awesome smile as we took photos, so witty and so alive. She asked if we could DM when I got home and we did.
An absolute delight of a woman.
What I’ve never done though, is write about her work and how it can shape us.
And now, with Substack to hand and her Interview With The Vampire series on Netflix (which I’ve only just rejoined), it felt like the perfect time for paths to cross once more.
It will be a long one, and for that, I apologise.
My heart needs it more than my algorithm.
In The Interview With The Vampire book series, the Vampire Chronicles, it became apparent very early on that despite the narrative of the first book centering around Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt’s character, if you need the reference), we were all slightly distracted by someone else.
Louis was the one being interviewed, after all, but no…
Instead, avid fans turned their hearts to his soon-to-be partner in crime, Lestat De Lioncourt.
Lestat emanates power, control, mastery, calmness… like an animal far too used to the kill… and totally bored with it, unless creativity is blended in.
But Season One of the TV adaptation brought out much more of his humanness, which I had so hoped would be there, to help add dimension, but also more of that raw Anne Rice symbolism too.
What I didn’t expect, was how my personal upgraded relationship with trauma was going to see all of this Anne Rice magic much more differently this time round.
Safe to say, it helped my heart.
I’d expect nothing less from Anne via Lestat.
Making The Maker
Although the establishment of how Lestat was created vampire has slighted shifted over time and over differing media formats, the essence remains the same — he was abandoned.
Created into a demon and left with no understanding of how the world, and him, now worked.
His maker supposedly threw himself into a fire before Lestat’s very eyes.
How unwanted, to watch that kind of exit.
Often, no matter the interpretation of the abandonment, you’re visited with this story of neglect and isolation being told by a now all-mighty, powerful and controlled animal.
He tells his story not to get straight empathy, but almost to show how his greatness came from nothing or no one else.
The ideal villainous story arc of the lonely, I fear.
The one where they’re willing to watch everyone’s world burn, as no one came to help put out ours.
“The Abandoned Immortal”
The beauty lies where Anne shows us the sanctuary that Lestat finds in Louis.
A dynamic where the lion takes in a stray deer, only for the dependence to swoon, sway and swap.
What hole created by Magnus, Lestat’s Maker, is filled by Louis, after decades and decades of searching.
And believe me, Lestat would have painfully ensured that the space be cured internally first, if ever at all possible.
Lestat would never have outsourced the love, if he didn’t need to.
But isn’t that the same for most of us?
Perhaps not.
From A Great Height
The moment which led me to putting digital pen to paper was re-experiencing Lestat’s response to the knowledge of Louis wanting to leave him.
Instead of talking.
Instead of fixing anything.
Instead of changing himself.
He reveals a twenty-year secret… his ability to fly.
He takes Louis two kilometres into the sky, begs him to understand…
And when he realises it’s a lost cause, he lets go.
Louis hurtles through the sky and lands. Broken.
This is that painful peak of a moment where anyone, fictional or not, realises that if they must be left alone, then they must destroy, rather than accept that painful human gap being forced upon them.
The old “if I’m going down, I’m taking everybody with me” approach to relationships, but with a shiny neglect stance.
It’s happened to a lot of us.
And it nearly swallowed me whole.
Shall I Stay And Shall I Grow?
When it comes to human dynamics, we can see opportunity here…
For Lestat and Louis, where was the conversation, the decided middle ground, the areas for improvement, the trigger lists to avoid, the deadlines for change?
Instead, like many dynamics, there was a character so rooted in their ways, their flexibility never in question. No “how must I adapt and evolve in order for the connection to stay and for me to grow?”… instead they opt for silent dysfunction and harmful, slowly-rotting toxicity.
Anne Rice’s gift is in taking the metaphor and weaving blood, hunger and sex into it. So no wonder for her success. But under the glamour and suspense, always lies the lesson.
Decide who you are, but then so will others.
It is only in our choice of being flexible, our willingness to be wrong and our adaptability (and want) to change, that we can survive. Together.
But not all of us in the real world realise this.
Offer A Hand, Lose The Elbow
I had a friend leave me.
And like Louis, I had made attempts to create a space for love and listening, not at all perfect, but my intention all the same. I communicated the feelings I had of sensing withdrawal and uncommunicated needs.
The rumbling of rupture was imminent, but they offered no connection to fight for the connection, despite it being one of deep sisterhood.
I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I froze, I didn’t know how to talk about my side of it all. For someone usually full of words, I was frozen by fear that they’d leave me if I spoke up.
I, like Louis, needed space. So I asked for it.
And they left me anyway.
The friend, like Lestat, decided instead to try to break me by breaking it all first.
Never wanting to listen, consider, accept, grow or be “the bad person” in it, they couldn’t face their part.
Instead, we flew up into the night sky.
With only one of us able to stay up there.
And it broke me, all the way down.
In This Lifetime, Or The Next
Often, when purposefully dropped and uncaringly broken, these characters swap within us.
Healthy, relative and necessary rage protects us and fills the gap they left behind.
I felt this sudden space, even triggering other times of pain… being left by a previous best friend and maid-of-honour-to-be, an estranged sister cutting me off and a traumatic death in early childhood…
Something I was once assured would never occur, happened - even a pact being made “to die together” so we’d never lose each other.
But we did anyway.
And by their hand.
The most abusive thing you can do to someone with CPTSD from abandonment and neglect is avoidance, rather than fairness for everyone involved.
And so they chose to abandon me.
They embraced their victimhood based on a foundation of self-soothing and constant, surrounded enablement.
And so came the need to learn to fly in my own way. Writing my truth… and seeing them in my words.
Just like both Louis and Lestat had narrated theirs.
Rupture, Repair… Thyself
This continued silence is also captured via Anne’s work later on.
Once Louis is healed, we hear of the years of Lestat attempting to repair the rupture.
But each time only being met with stares and more silence.
I have no doubt the amount of times Lestat would have turned away in complete rage; lost as to what a successful re-entry could ever look like.
Rage > Rupture > Repair > Re-Entry was not in his destiny for a good long while.
And it seems to be a process lacking in many mature adults too.
Lestat would have been merciless from this lack of response; slaughtering hundreds, torturing thousands… even attempting to turn others into vampires, just to fill the space. It would have perhaps been the messiest of times for him.
Just like, I guess, they have been for me.
Years of memories, camaraderie, tough times survived, challenges overcome, successful wins and celebrations… all damaged and worth nothing now.
Because of the violence in their actions and the carelessness in their heart.
My options paralleled Lestat’s now. Should I take it out on others, try to replace them, get revenge?
No.
Instead, I dig deep and I continue to be the loving and truthful person to myself and anyone else in the world.
Your integrity over their denial; it works wonders.
Lestat learnt it too.
Took him a little longer, perhaps, but he’s not exactly in a rush. 💅🏻
(I realise Lestat beating Louis to a pulp and dropping him from the sky is physically violent, but stay with me on the symbolism here).
Aloneness vs. Closeness
I don’t know what would have happened, had Louis not gave in.
Lestat had time on his side, this was never the issue.
It was the aloneless.
It was remembering that no one came to save him.
It was feeling “not enough” for people to stay.
No matter his intellect, his language skills, his musical accuracy, his looks or the vulnerable efforts of what love looks like once he was truly honest.
No human is free from dreading isolation - solitary confinement is the ultimate punishment in most Western prisons, after all.
We cling to unhealthy people just to feel safe.
We accept “less-than” treatment.
We witness bad behaviour and say nothing.
We avoid loneliness and wrap these things up as humans being human; imperfect… and so this grants us permission to stick around bad eggs.
Lestat had tried to find a Louis for himself for a very long time.
And that’s what abandonment and neglect sufferers do…
They realise reparenting only goes so far.
And there will always be a space needed for others to fill… the community in another.
The tribes we call home.
But it’s in finding those with tight grips, no matter how high you soar that’s the salve.
Otherwise, it leaves you feeling the unbearable pain over and over again, which makes you not want to even tip toe off the floor with anyone, ever again, let alone fly.
Gasoline, Anyone?
With my own recent abandonment, I reached out to try to mend bridges, or at the very least, ask to help put out the fire that still felt like it was burning it all down.
The grief continued to scald, at least for me.
Our history, the memories, the hard work, the “pulling up” for one another… it stood for something.
To me, something that deserved honouring, didn’t deserve cruelty.
Many people do not realise that abandonment and neglect is harm caused by inaction. Just because you did nothing, doesn’t mean that does nothing to someone.
And if you’re the one accused of hurting someone in the first place and then you choose to abandon… this says a lot about you.
I’m not sure anyone truly abandoned can ever be capable of abandoning anyone else, so in my most hurt days, I found a straneg comfort in, “only those always held and never neglected, are lucky enough to be able to abandon others”.
But with silent and inactive abuse comes a wave of recovery and with it, the chance of new beginnings.
We all can easily become the Lestat where Louis returns or the Lestat where he doesn’t.
And often, for the latter, the only thing that soothes the inflammation, is creativity.
It’s what helped me most during that crash of grief, to rebuild a new life.
Devil, Angel, Or Just Human?
If you’re a good (not a nice) person, then you have to live in a world where no one is wrong.
We’re just all different.
Because to deny this means that every time you’re hurt, it’s never you that’s playing a part in it - and you always get to be innocent. I don’t think so.
I had a lot of hope that the friend that dropped me, would have realised I was falling before I splattered the pavement.
And they did.
They just preferred their own story of comfort and reasoning over their own action (or inaction).
That doesn’t make them bad, and me good.
And it doesn’t mean that I didn’t do anything wrong.
But, in this instance, it makes me bruised and them avoidant.
Avoidant of the part they played… the part where they can’t play a victim with me anymore.
How pride and ego dance deliciously. 💁🏼♀️
Lestat’s almighty pride and ego never stripped the facts from him. He knew his actions and he knew his nature. Something which so many aren’t capable of seeing - especially when armies of people pleasers and sappy sympathisers gather around them.
Why would you have any motivation to face what you’d done, when you have nothing but ego-strokers around you?
I think this would be my version of hell. And Lestat’s too.
Abandonment 1 - 1 Writing (Not That I’m Keeping Score)
It has probably been through my own healing that I’ve had to allow the overspill of fault reside where it needed to, rather than automatically making myself the villain for it all (believe me, I’ve tried).
What was my constant effort to maintain their nice person facade had to go, in favour of my own survival from being dropped that 2km height, by way of me writing.
But I don’t name names. I name the pain instead.
The intent is never to identify, shame, hurt or get attention.
It’s the only avenue I have to vent and gain closure, when robbed of the opportunity to do it with them.
When abandoned, we have to make a conscious choice of closing the book in the ways we know how.
I don’t write controversially to cause this.
It’s a victim grief I’ve never felt before.
And a victim grief I get to have.
It’s saying, '“drop me if you wish, but I’ll show the world the wounds you made when I landed”.
It’s saying, “go on believing that the world is never part right and part wrong”.
Because that way, you can always be a victim.
I’d rather lead with love.
I’d rather grieve the truth.
I’d rather be alone.
“To be godless is probably the first step to innocence.” - Anne Rice.
I’m not a fool to know that any damage and reasoning for continued silence will be probably blamed on my writing. But isn’t that a sign in itself?
I’ve witnessed people challenge this person’s “reputation” before, losing access also; this being one of their biggest triggers.
And what is the point of triggers? - They point to truth.
I once told them the difference between being a nice person and a good person, and they struggled to be ok with the difference.
The first being performative and manipulative and the latter being honest.
They also struggled when their loud, swearing, dirty-mouthed friend over here turned out to be the kinder one.
They struggled to learn they were being abusive to someone they loved.
They joked during our final call saying, it was “the easiest break up they’d ever had”.
Because the only alternative was for them to look in the mirror.
And some vampires simply aren’t able to do that.
Keeping Your Silence Is A False Hope
Their silence was trying to silence me.
Isn’t that the point?
And I won’t be.
Because my silence was announcing hope for repair far beyond their deserving of it.
Because a gap that is left behind by someone who tries to silence me via neglect, will always be filled with truth, integrity and creation of something beautiful instead.
Call it abandonment alchemy.
And due to the scale of pain they caused, I’m going to continue to see this in thousands of other ways.
Be this article a final nail in the vampire’s coffin, if it must, but I still have plenty more nails.
Not for vengeance, but for my need to process a pain that was promised would never happen. From the reasons, the arguments and the chances that were taken from me.
I will stop writing when I am bored of it all.
And not a moment sooner.
Foresaken Creation
Closure is something you take, not something that someone gifts you.
Deciding, feeling, understanding and then believing in what happened vs. what you deserved is the first step in your healing.
And my healing, is writing, sharing, collaborating, empathising.
Community and creativity.
All the things that person took off the table.
Lestat got so bored of the kill, he had to get creative.
What was in his bones as way of survival, only gave him life when he could express himself too.
But what if creativity was needed to numb his neglect and abandon the abandonment, as much as it was to find purpose?
And what happens when someone kills you in them?
I write, because it’s the only way I make sense of anything so cruel and it reminds me to never do the same to someone else - not that I ever think I possibly could.
But it also allows me rest from being in the pain and instead change the perspective, allowing me to theorise, organise and find my own sense in it all.
And maybe, even one day, a drop of true forgiveness.
To write is to work out, to deliberate, to feel, to cherish, to forgive, to rationalise.
But it’s also to nurture one’s own spirit. To nurse it, to comfort, to shape the pain in ways more palatable...
To be dropped thousands of feet.
Onto cold, hard ground. Alone.
How would you expect me to do anything different, but write?
Lilith
Thank you so much for reading and being here with me on this messy, beautiful journey.
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This is so sad, and also beautiful. I've been thinking about these themes recently too.