Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. This episode contains
Speaker 1: discussion of sexual assault and drug abuse. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: Trying to follow a specific memory to any kind of
Speaker 2: conclusion is like driving toward a semi blinded by its headlights,
Speaker 2: compelled by survival instincts to swerve away. No amount of
Speaker 2: holding the steering wheel and place can keep you on
Speaker 2: the road.
Speaker 3: If part of you.
Speaker 2: However small, wants to survive. Thankfully, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: me that wants to survive.
Speaker 1: That's Brittany Means, writer and editor, an author of the
Speaker 1: recent memoir Hell If We Don't Change Our Ways. Britney's
Speaker 1: is a story of extraordinary resilience and ultimately the triumph
Speaker 1: of an indomitable spirit trapped an impossible circumstances. It's an
Speaker 1: object lesson in the idea that as long as we're
Speaker 1: alive and breathing, anything is possible. I'm Danny Shapiro, and
Speaker 1: this is family Secrets, the secrets that are kept from us,
Speaker 1: the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we
Speaker 1: keep from ourselves. The place that I always begin, and
Speaker 1: in your case, it's particularly complicated and rich. I think
Speaker 1: to talk about is. Tell me about the landscape of
Speaker 1: your childhood and that could mean anything to you. Your
Speaker 1: childhood had a lot of landscapes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well landscape I think of Cornfield literally. But for
Speaker 2: the most part, it was me and my mom. We
Speaker 2: lived in a car a lot of the time. We
Speaker 2: were always on the move, and we stayed if we
Speaker 2: weren't in the car, we were in shelters or with
Speaker 2: friends or with family. You know. We stayed all sorts
Speaker 2: of different places, like a biker community, we stayed on
Speaker 2: an ostrich farm, we stayed with distant family. In Mississippi,
Speaker 2: there's always something new and people.
Speaker 3: Who were new.
Speaker 1: Did it feel like an adventure or what was that
Speaker 1: like for you?
Speaker 2: It didn't feel strange to me that we were moving
Speaker 2: so much because that was what I knew. So I
Speaker 2: didn't really think to ask like when are we stopping
Speaker 2: or where are we going to stay? Because to me,
Speaker 2: like being in the car and always being somewhere new,
Speaker 2: it was just how things were, and the most important
Speaker 2: thing to me was just that I was with my mom,
Speaker 2: So I didn't I didn't really care too much about
Speaker 2: the instability because it didn't feel strange and she was there,
Speaker 2: My mom had me when she was nineteen, so she
Speaker 2: was fairly young when she started parenthood. And my conception
Speaker 2: was the result of a sexual assault. I think she
Speaker 2: was just a very traumatized person from her upbringing and
Speaker 2: from what had happened, and from being a single mother
Speaker 2: and then being in an abusive relationship. And I'm aware
Speaker 2: of all of those things now because I have a perspective.
Speaker 2: But when I was a kid, she was like the
Speaker 2: sun to me, and I loved her more than anything.
Speaker 2: She was like the source of all warmth and happiness
Speaker 2: and affirmation. You know. She could be very energetic and
Speaker 2: verbally loving, and we would like go on trips and
Speaker 2: go play laser tag and put putt and all these
Speaker 2: fun things. And then the next day, or maybe even
Speaker 2: later that same day, she would be like very emotionally
Speaker 2: just regulated. She would sleep for days, she would scream,
Speaker 2: she would have outbursts. So yeah, just in another way,
Speaker 2: not a lot of stability.
Speaker 1: How old were you when you knew that you were
Speaker 1: the result of your mother having been raped?
Speaker 2: I honestly don't really remember a time when I didn't
Speaker 2: know that. I wish I could remember the exact moment
Speaker 2: and how I felt about it, but it feels like
Speaker 2: something I just always knew. When I picture her, the
Speaker 2: first image is you know how I saw her When
Speaker 2: I was a kid. She had like brownish reddish, like
Speaker 2: rusty brown hair, and it was always a little frizzy,
Speaker 2: which is where I got it blue eyes. When I
Speaker 2: was a kid, she had like a gap between her
Speaker 2: two front teeth, and she ended up getting dentures later
Speaker 2: in life, and I remember my uncle actually crying because
Speaker 2: he was like, I loved the gap between her teeth.
Speaker 2: It gave her a personality like fit her very well,
Speaker 2: and she had a very pretty smile. She has like
Speaker 2: dimples and eyes that are really bright.
Speaker 1: One of the moves Brittany and her mom make is
Speaker 1: precipitated by Mark, her mom's ex boyfriend at the time,
Speaker 1: but now they're running away from him. They flee to
Speaker 1: Britney's grandparents' home just off Indiana State Road sixty seven.
Speaker 1: Britney's grandparents are Pentecostal, and life there is extremely different
Speaker 1: from the life Britney is used to.
Speaker 2: The main thing was the contrast. When we first got there,
Speaker 2: my mom and I used to love going to horror movies,
Speaker 2: we watched TV. We really loved like unsolved mysteries and
Speaker 2: watching like the Rose Red series. And then we also
Speaker 2: had no rules. We just kind of did whatever out
Speaker 2: on the road. And when we were with my grandparents,
Speaker 2: they were like, no TV because that's the sin. So
Speaker 2: suddenly this huge thing that we shared together was gone
Speaker 2: and I couldn't even really talk about it without.
Speaker 3: Getting a speech.
Speaker 2: And there were all these rules like about when we
Speaker 2: could come and go and the things that we could
Speaker 2: say and what we had to wear and cutting our hair.
Speaker 2: And it was really hard at first because I was
Speaker 2: so aware of the alternative to that, Like I knew
Speaker 2: there was a world out there with like beautiful, delicious television,
Speaker 2: and then there was this world where I only really
Speaker 2: got to listen to Bible stories.
Speaker 1: And the reason at that point that you were staying
Speaker 1: with your grandparents was because your mom had pretty much
Speaker 1: run out of gas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't have money, and my grandparents would send
Speaker 2: money sometimes, but I think it was the situation was
Speaker 2: that they were like, we're not sending any more money.
Speaker 2: You need to come here and figure things out, and
Speaker 2: so that's what we did. I think that was around
Speaker 2: like kindergarten age. I have a really hard time pinning
Speaker 2: down exact ages, just because we were moving so much,
Speaker 2: and we went back to some places a lot at
Speaker 2: different ages, and so sometimes if I'm comparing a story
Speaker 2: with someone, I'll talk about a memory and they'll be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: you were like nine when that happened. And I'm so
Speaker 2: shocked because I remember being very little in the same place,
Speaker 2: and the memories that I think I remember happening at
Speaker 2: one age happened at another. But I'm pretty sure when
Speaker 2: we were living with my grandparents in the house by
Speaker 2: the highway, it was some time.
Speaker 3: Before I started school.
Speaker 2: My earliest memories of going to church include just feeling well, one,
Speaker 2: really aware of how my mom and I didn't fit in,
Speaker 2: because you know, all the women were in like very
Speaker 2: long jean skirts down to their ankles or like long dresses.
Speaker 2: They all had very long hair, either hanging down their
Speaker 2: back or piled up on their head, and the men
Speaker 2: were in suits, and everyone was very clean and buttoned
Speaker 2: up and smiling and calling each other brother and sister.
Speaker 2: And my mom was wearing blue jeans and like a
Speaker 2: T shirt and had makeup on, and her hair was
Speaker 2: cut pretty short, and I was wearing the dress and
Speaker 2: my grandma.
Speaker 3: Gave me, but I just felt really out of place.
Speaker 2: It felt like way too nice of a place for
Speaker 2: us to be dressed the way we were, and I
Speaker 2: was embarrassed, but I was also kind of irritated because
Speaker 2: I didn't want to be there and I didn't have
Speaker 2: this language then, but now I understand, like I just
Speaker 2: didn't want to be.
Speaker 3: Judged on terms that I didn't care about. And my grandma, I.
Speaker 2: Remember people asking her like is she adopted about me?
Speaker 2: And my grandma telling at least one of her friends like, no,
Speaker 2: she's a rape baby, and you know, people telling my
Speaker 2: mom like, I'm so glad you came back.
Speaker 3: But also I could see the way they.
Speaker 2: Were looking at her, and you know, her pants and
Speaker 2: her hair and the makeup, and yeah, it was it
Speaker 2: was just a lot to take in and try and
Speaker 2: understand at a young age.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you have any memory of what it felt
Speaker 1: like to hear your grandmother describe you that way?
Speaker 2: I don't remember feeling any kind of emotion about it,
Speaker 2: because I already knew the circumstances, So to me, it
Speaker 2: was just a fact.
Speaker 3: I didn't really have.
Speaker 2: The concept that I should be insulted or embarrassed or
Speaker 2: anything like that. So when we first got there, I
Speaker 2: had this feeling like my mom and I were kind
Speaker 2: of in cahoots and that we were both like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this sucks, but we'll get through it. It didn't occur
Speaker 2: to me that everyone else there knew her as someone
Speaker 2: who used to be very involved in the church and
Speaker 2: seeing in the and very you know, like godly and innocent.
Speaker 2: I never met that version of her, so I didn't
Speaker 2: know that that was something she would go back to.
Speaker 3: And then she stood.
Speaker 2: Up to give testimony and basically said she wanted to
Speaker 2: come home, which to her meant like come back to
Speaker 2: the church and feel that community that used to make
Speaker 2: her feel safe and loved before so many things went wrong.
Speaker 2: I think she just wanted to get back to that
Speaker 2: and feel like all of the missteps that she had
Speaker 2: taken and all the things that had happened to her
Speaker 2: could be washed away. I imagine was an irresistible feeling.
Speaker 2: And to me it was a shock because I was like,
Speaker 2: what do you mean you're buying into this? I thought
Speaker 2: we were gonna leave, and yeah, I just felt really
Speaker 2: alone because I didn't have my partner in crime anymore,
Speaker 2: and I also like I didn't connect with this church setting.
Speaker 2: I didn't feel what it seemed like everyone else was feeling.
Speaker 2: So I also had a lot of guilt like why
Speaker 2: can't I go there with her? And again, just a
Speaker 2: lot to try and implement into my way of thinking
Speaker 2: as I was forming a sense of self well.
Speaker 1: And also the message that God sees everything and knows
Speaker 1: everything doesn't help.
Speaker 3: With the guilt, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: For a while, Brittany and her mother live with her grandparents.
Speaker 1: Her mom has been saved and is accepted back into
Speaker 1: the fold. It seems like life may continue to proceed
Speaker 1: this way, a new Pentecostal life. But Mark, the ex
Speaker 1: boyfriend they'd been running away from, he finds her. He
Speaker 1: shows up at the house on Indiana State Road sixty seven,
Speaker 1: and he takes her mother away.
Speaker 2: This is something I didn't actually know about for a
Speaker 2: long time. I learned when I was an adult and
Speaker 2: my mom told me this story. He had found us,
Speaker 2: and he showed up in the middle of the night
Speaker 2: and he had a gun and he threatened to shoot
Speaker 2: my mom if she didn't come with him. He basically
Speaker 2: forced her to come with him, and they didn't take me.
Speaker 2: I don't really know why, because I really wasn't aware
Speaker 2: that all of this was going on. I just knew
Speaker 2: that I woke up and my mom was gone, and
Speaker 2: I was alone in this place I didn't want to be,
Speaker 2: and didn't have the context for why any of that
Speaker 2: happened for.
Speaker 3: A long time.
Speaker 1: I mean, it strikes me that your mom probably was
Speaker 1: trying to be protective of you by not bringing you
Speaker 1: in a situation where she's basically being abducted. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I imagine that to be a kid like so young
Speaker 1: and to just wake up and your mom's gone and
Speaker 1: you don't know why, and nobody's talking, nobody's really filling
Speaker 1: in the blanks for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Brittany is left with her grandparents for a few months
Speaker 1: before Mark and her mom come back for her. During
Speaker 1: these months, she and her grandparents move from the little
Speaker 1: house by the highway into a barn.
Speaker 2: So the barn was an old carriage house. There were
Speaker 2: horse stalls in it. It was an actual barn, had
Speaker 2: a black wood sighting and these two big silhouettes of
Speaker 2: rearing horses that were like bright white. So they stuck
Speaker 2: out against the barn and my grandpa converted it into
Speaker 2: He called it a mansion. It had thirteen bedrooms all together,
Speaker 2: and even put up a sign at the end of
Speaker 2: the driveway that was like, come see the thirteen bedroom mansion,
Speaker 2: and then people would show up and be super confused.
Speaker 2: It was like way out in the middle of the country,
Speaker 2: like surrounded by cornfields on one side and woods on
Speaker 2: the other.
Speaker 3: And then inside the barn itself.
Speaker 2: Like it had this really lush red carpet with all
Speaker 2: kinds of vines and flowers on it. There was like
Speaker 2: a giant chandelier when you came into the dining room
Speaker 2: in front of this huge window, and it had these
Speaker 2: octopus arms.
Speaker 3: That's how I always thought of it.
Speaker 2: It looked like a giant octopus like holding a bunch
Speaker 2: of little moons. And he put all kinds of furniture
Speaker 2: imported from I want to say.
Speaker 3: France, but yeah.
Speaker 2: It was like there was so much nice, expensive stuff
Speaker 2: in it. And then my grandpa really loved cutting corners,
Speaker 2: so then in between these really beautiful elements would be
Speaker 2: pretty cheap linoleum and Christmas trees from like big lots
Speaker 2: that were on sale or.
Speaker 3: Something, and missing arms.
Speaker 2: It was a bizarre place in part because of how
Speaker 2: beautiful and decadent, and the fact that it was converted
Speaker 2: from a barn, and also that my grandparents were hoarders.
Speaker 3: There was I mean, when we very first.
Speaker 2: Got there, I didn't really think that that was going
Speaker 2: on because everything was in boxes and it took forever
Speaker 2: to unpack. So I just assumed that that's what it
Speaker 2: was like when people moved. And then as I got older,
Speaker 2: stuff accrued and this long, beautiful hallway was just so
Speaker 2: full that you had to walk sideways to get through it.
Speaker 1: So your brother been three and a half years younger
Speaker 1: than you, Yeah, and was the product or relationship that
Speaker 1: your mom had with someone other than Mark? Was his
Speaker 1: father someone that you knew when your mother was with him?
Speaker 1: What was the background of that.
Speaker 3: It's basically my uncle's friend.
Speaker 2: So you was just hanging out with all of them
Speaker 2: all the time, and they were young, so they were
Speaker 2: like why not, and their condom broke and they got
Speaker 2: pregnant and the rest of Ben's history.
Speaker 1: Right, So it wasn't the result of a serious relationship.
Speaker 3: No, no, not at all.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Ben comes and goes during Brittany's childhood.
Speaker 1: He lives with his father some of the time and
Speaker 1: other times he spends with Brittany and her mother wherever
Speaker 1: they might be. Another on again, off again presence in
Speaker 1: Brittany's childhood is Mark. He and Britney's mom get back together,
Speaker 1: and Brittany even begins to think of him as her dad.
Speaker 1: But then their lives slide into a very dark place
Speaker 1: when Mark puts Brittany's mother to work as a stripper,
Speaker 1: and while Brittany's mom is out doing this, Mark begins
Speaker 1: to sexually abuse Brittany. In a grim parallel, Brittany and
Speaker 1: her mom are both doing things with their bodies that
Speaker 1: they don't want to be doing. It's a harrowing time,
Speaker 1: and at a certain point, someone reports the family to
Speaker 1: child protective Services.
Speaker 2: I believe it was a family friend, is what they
Speaker 2: guessed at the time, but I don't think we ever
Speaker 2: really got exact confirmation.
Speaker 3: You know, it could have been.
Speaker 2: Someone out of school, It could have been someone near
Speaker 2: one of the motels where we were staying. Really could
Speaker 2: have been anybody.
Speaker 1: So the thing that I was so struck by is
Speaker 1: that your mom and Mark essentially coach you in terms
Speaker 1: of what you should say to child protective services. So
Speaker 1: that certainly implies that your mom knew that there were
Speaker 1: things that you could say that would have you taken
Speaker 1: away from her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mark knew exactly what they were going to ask
Speaker 2: and anticipated how I could answer without sounding like I
Speaker 2: had been coached. And I remember going through that coaching
Speaker 2: and just being like, I don't.
Speaker 3: Want to do this. I'm bored.
Speaker 2: I want to watch TV because I you know, so
Speaker 2: many awful things had been normalized. I wasn't thinking like
Speaker 2: this is going to keep me from getting help. I
Speaker 2: was thinking like, I got to get the answers right
Speaker 2: so that we can stop doing this boring thing.
Speaker 3: And do something fun.
Speaker 1: And you are at this point around how old.
Speaker 2: I'm almost positive this is also before school. I might
Speaker 2: have started kindergarten, but I was homeschooled for some of kindergarten,
Speaker 2: so it's really hard to say.
Speaker 1: You also try to tell other people and really bravely
Speaker 1: try to talk to Mark's sister Dana, and she doesn't
Speaker 1: believe you. No, she did not, So there's there's no
Speaker 1: protection at that stage in your life. I mean, you try,
Speaker 1: and you I would imagine that would have felt like well,
Speaker 1: and there's just no point trying because no one believes me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I remember the conversation pretty vividly, and her
Speaker 2: telling me, like, you shouldn't make things up. And even
Speaker 2: though I knew I wasn't making anything up, and if
Speaker 2: people told me I was lying about something, when I
Speaker 2: was a kid, I would get mad. If I knew
Speaker 2: I wasn't lying about this thing, I wasn't mad. I
Speaker 2: just felt immediate shame, like I had done something wrong.
Speaker 2: And I didn't have this language then, But now I
Speaker 2: think it was that I understood that it wasn't so
Speaker 2: much that she thought I was lying, but that saying
Speaker 2: it out loud to someone was somehow as bad as
Speaker 2: a lie.
Speaker 3: Now I understand. I think she just couldn't or didn't
Speaker 3: want to believe it.
Speaker 2: And it was easier to assume that, like a kid,
Speaker 2: was making something up, because then you don't have to
Speaker 2: do anything.
Speaker 3: You can just scold the kid and walk away.
Speaker 2: Whereas if she had believed me, her whole life would
Speaker 2: have been upended and it would have led to a
Speaker 2: lot of hard conversations. And that's not totally understandable, no problem,
Speaker 2: just more that I can see how someone makes a
Speaker 2: really bad decision. I can understand all of the even
Speaker 2: subconscious things that are happening to lead to them doing
Speaker 2: something that creates ripples for the rest of someone's life.
Speaker 1: Along the way, there are people who reach out to help,
Speaker 1: who try to intervene and offer sanctuary, including Britney's mother's brother,
Speaker 1: her uncle John, but their situation is constantly too much
Speaker 1: for friends or relatives to handle. Britney's mom and Mark
Speaker 1: are on the outs again, so when Brittany is ten
Speaker 1: and Ben is six, they moved back to the barn
Speaker 1: with their grandparents. Brittany a door's Ben and Relish is
Speaker 1: the time they get to spend together, but this time
Speaker 1: there's nothing but fear and worry.
Speaker 2: My brother and I were staying with my grandma. I
Speaker 2: believe my mom was at a doctor's appointment, and he
Speaker 2: went out to play and I was playing on my
Speaker 2: game boy, and my grandma asked me to go check
Speaker 2: on him, and instead of going outside, I just looked
Speaker 2: out the window and I saw him playing. He really
Speaker 2: liked building forts out of stuff, and my grandpa had
Speaker 2: all kinds of materials from his business, so he was
Speaker 2: building a fort. He had like a little plywood roof
Speaker 2: on some saw horses, and then you know, I sat
Speaker 2: back down and I remember my grandma sighing because I
Speaker 2: was being lazy and she wanted me to go outside
Speaker 2: and ask. But rather than tell me, like hey, I
Speaker 2: wanted you to do, this was just.
Speaker 3: Sighing so I would feel bad, which I did.
Speaker 2: But then sometime later I had a friend who lived
Speaker 2: in a little house at the end of the driveway,
Speaker 2: and I went over to see her, and then when
Speaker 2: I came back, he was gone. I assumed that he
Speaker 2: was inside with my grandma, but when I got in,
Speaker 2: she was panicked and she couldn't find him.
Speaker 3: So we looked all over the barn.
Speaker 2: We looked in the backyard, and again there were cornfields
Speaker 2: on one side for miles and then woods on the
Speaker 2: other side for miles. It was just very quickly, like
Speaker 2: this horrifying thing, like did he get lost? Did someone
Speaker 2: take him? And honestly I didn't have any reason to
Speaker 2: think that he had been taken, but that's where my
Speaker 2: brain went because when we were kids, I think, just
Speaker 2: because things were so hectic, we were always hearing, you know,
Speaker 2: don't talk to strangers, don't get anyone's car, kids get
Speaker 2: taken all the time, don't walk for me in the store,
Speaker 2: And that always felt like someone taking you away. Whether
Speaker 2: it was CPS or a stranger or the boogeyman, it
Speaker 2: was like the worst thing that could happen, and so
Speaker 2: my mind went to the worst thing, and I just
Speaker 2: built this story in my head that someone had taken him,
Speaker 2: and that's what happened.
Speaker 3: And I eventually saw an.
Speaker 2: Ambulance down by the highway and ran to it, and
Speaker 2: he was in there, and the police took us to
Speaker 2: the hospital, and my mom showed up, and they did
Speaker 2: all kinds of tests on him, and he ended up
Speaker 2: going back with his dad that night, and I didn't
Speaker 2: see him.
Speaker 3: Again for a while.
Speaker 2: But what had happened was that a man who had
Speaker 2: been kind of infamous in the town called the Reverend,
Speaker 2: had sexually assaulted other young boys in the community, but
Speaker 2: he hadn't ever gone to jail for it. He'd been
Speaker 2: in treatment after committing arson. But he told these boys
Speaker 2: that if they told anyone, he would kill their families,
Speaker 2: and so of course they didn't want to testify against him.
Speaker 2: And then he took my brother.
Speaker 3: He threatened him with.
Speaker 2: The same thing he assaulted him, and they ended up
Speaker 2: finding him and he did end up going to prison.
Speaker 3: It was a big shifting moment.
Speaker 2: In our childhoods, because like things were already hard, but
Speaker 2: then there was this huge evil event and then my
Speaker 2: brother was gone, and then I also got moved away.
Speaker 1: Where did you get moved to? I moved back with Mark,
Speaker 1: so the barn was deemed not suitable for kids, so
Speaker 1: you were moved back to Mark because that would be
Speaker 1: more suitable. And where was your mother?
Speaker 3: I really, I don't know.
Speaker 2: That's also a time that I really have trouble tracking
Speaker 2: because it was in a series of traumas.
Speaker 3: It was like the big trauma.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of older sisters understand this feeling
Speaker 2: like it's it's your job to keep your little siblings safe.
Speaker 2: And even if you punch them in the face sometimes
Speaker 2: or force feed them soy sauce, which I did to
Speaker 2: the end, you still always, when it comes down to it,
Speaker 2: you think like you would do anything to protect them
Speaker 2: from someone who wanted to hurt them. And it was
Speaker 2: like I failed the ultimate test of being a big sister.
Speaker 2: And then and then he was gone and I couldn't
Speaker 2: even talk to him about it or apologize or make
Speaker 2: sure that nothing else happened. And then I was in
Speaker 2: this new place with Mark and Mark's new family, and
Speaker 2: I didn't even really understand that that was upset for
Speaker 2: myself being back with this person who had abused me,
Speaker 2: because I was like completely distraught about Ben and it
Speaker 2: felt like he had died and I would never talk.
Speaker 3: To him again.
Speaker 1: Her grandparents drive to Indianapolis to essentially to rescue you.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so interesting about your story, Brittany, because
Speaker 1: there's so much in it that is, you know, people
Speaker 1: behaving in some of the most difficult ways that human
Speaker 1: beings can. And also, I mean, your grandparents were not easy.
Speaker 1: Would it be fair to say they were trying to
Speaker 1: be protective of you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's exactly it. I think they were
Speaker 2: really complicated people, and they didn't always know exactly what
Speaker 2: would be the healthiest for a kid because of their
Speaker 2: age and their backgrounds and their own traumas. But yeah,
Speaker 2: when it came down to it, they really did want
Speaker 2: to keep us safe. You know, my grandma had guilt
Speaker 2: for a really long time, I think, honestly, probably until
Speaker 2: she passed away about what happened with Ben because she
Speaker 2: was watching us. But it's not like she could get
Speaker 2: up and down the stairs to check on him.
Speaker 3: That's why she asked me.
Speaker 2: And they never wanted any of the things that happened
Speaker 2: to us to happen to us.
Speaker 3: They loved us.
Speaker 1: In a fractured and constantly shifting life, the Barn continues
Speaker 1: to be a strange and gothic home base. Britney wanders far.
Speaker 1: At one point she lives in a biker camp with
Speaker 1: a boyfriend of her mom's, but inevitably she returns. Rural
Speaker 1: Indiana isn't an easy place to be, not for a
Speaker 1: brown girl surrounded by a landscape of whiteness. Nobody in
Speaker 1: high school wants to be different, and so Brittany tries
Speaker 1: to maintain the image of the white girl who at
Speaker 1: the time she wants to be. She avoids the sun,
Speaker 1: she dyes her hair, she tries to blend in.
Speaker 3: Just a very small town.
Speaker 2: And you know, it was the nineties and then early
Speaker 2: two thousands, and yeah, I didn't have basically any exposure.
Speaker 3: To people who looked like me.
Speaker 2: You know, my mom had blue eyes, my brother had
Speaker 2: blonde hair, blue eyes. A lot of my family they
Speaker 2: were you know, blonde, blue eyes, pale. And I knew
Speaker 2: on some level that I was different, and I understood
Speaker 2: why at least the basics of why. But I was
Speaker 2: kind of in denial. At a certain point. I was
Speaker 2: embarrassed of how I looked, and I avoided the sun.
Speaker 2: I saw a magazine in the store and I picked
Speaker 2: it up and there were tips on how to lighten
Speaker 2: your skin if you have dark spots, and translated that too, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to add lemon juice to my bath and
Speaker 2: I would dunk my hair and bleach.
Speaker 3: And the thing is, I'm biracial. My mom's white.
Speaker 2: And it's not like I looked incredibly different, you know.
Speaker 2: I just looked different enough that I was aware of
Speaker 2: it and ashamed of it, and I really wanted.
Speaker 3: To change it.
Speaker 2: And you kids will find any reason to make fun
Speaker 2: of you if you're a little bit different at a
Speaker 2: certain age. And yeah, I had kids who made fun
Speaker 2: of me. I had the nickname.
Speaker 3: Mexico, which is like, at least be creative. You know.
Speaker 2: It was hard and isolating, but everything felt hard and isolating,
Speaker 2: so it was like, why.
Speaker 3: Not this too.
Speaker 1: Eventually, Brittany does see Ben again. He resumes his rhythm
Speaker 1: of going back and forths between his dad and mom,
Speaker 1: but at some point he emphatically wants out. Brittany's sad
Speaker 1: about it, but she understands why Ben wants to leave.
Speaker 1: Their mother has become addicted to drugs. She's always used,
Speaker 1: but it's not until now that her addiction really comes
Speaker 1: to define her. When Ben says he wants to live
Speaker 1: with his dad full time, their mother reacts with horror
Speaker 1: and fury. At this point, young Brittany assumes the role
Speaker 1: of the parent, the mature adult. She polices her mom,
Speaker 1: even confronts her about her addiction.
Speaker 2: She used through most of my child I wasn't really
Speaker 2: aware of it, and it's hard to say how much
Speaker 2: of her behavior can be attributed to drug use and
Speaker 2: how much of it was you know, she was struggling
Speaker 2: with her mental health and with emotional regulation, like my uncle.
Speaker 2: I tried to explain it to me when I was
Speaker 2: younger that my mom had an addiction. Other people had
Speaker 2: tried talking to me about it, but I never wanted
Speaker 2: to listen. I just wouldn't accept that, you know, she
Speaker 2: could do anything wrong. And then when I was in
Speaker 2: middle school, it started to become undeniable.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: If it was just that I was more aware, or
Speaker 2: more self possessed or that she was using something different,
Speaker 2: or struggling more with how much she was using. May
Speaker 2: have been a combination of all of those things. I
Speaker 2: just know that I found some of her paraphernalia, and
Speaker 2: I tried kind of her about it like one time,
Speaker 2: and it basically broke the biggest rule, which is, like
Speaker 2: it was never a spoken rule, but it was an
Speaker 2: unspoken rule, which is, don't acknowledge this thing and don't
Speaker 2: challenge me on it. Just love me back and go
Speaker 2: with me wherever, and be okay when I'm not here.
Speaker 1: To be okay when I'm not here turns out to
Speaker 1: be a prescriptive sort of warning. When Brittany is a
Speaker 1: freshman in high school, she and her mom move into
Speaker 1: another little house by the highway, a property owned by
Speaker 1: her grandfather. One day, her mom leaves without any indication
Speaker 1: of how long she'll be gone or where she's going.
Speaker 1: A week goes by, then another Britney is running out
Speaker 1: of food.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I spent many years in denial about things and
Speaker 2: just kind of avoiding the conversation. And then suddenly I
Speaker 2: was alone in the house, waiting to see if she
Speaker 2: would come back, and feeling like maybe she won't this time.
Speaker 2: And maybe it's because I addressed things and it was
Speaker 2: like being trapped in a bubble of actually acknowledging that
Speaker 2: things were as bad as they were.
Speaker 1: And that led you to call this guy named Clay.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We had dated in middle school through the beginning of
Speaker 2: my freshman year, and we broke up. He wanted to
Speaker 2: date another girl. I was a kid, and I was devastated.
Speaker 2: And then we stayed friends and we would talk on
Speaker 2: the phone sometimes and it was usually just me feeling
Speaker 2: really sad that we weren't still together, but happy that
Speaker 2: he still talked to me. And so it was also
Speaker 2: close to his family because we had dated for I
Speaker 2: think a year. And then when my mom left, I
Speaker 2: called him because it really know what else to do,
Speaker 2: and I told him what was going on, and then
Speaker 2: he told his mom, and his mom came and picked
Speaker 2: me up and said that I could stay with them
Speaker 2: until my mom came back. I was staying with them,
Speaker 2: I want to say it was for two weeks, and
Speaker 2: they realized that my mom had already been gone.
Speaker 3: I told them it was a week.
Speaker 2: I was trying to know Doll the edge a little
Speaker 2: bit of the situation, but it had been two weeks
Speaker 2: by the time I called them, and then it was
Speaker 2: two weeks at their house and they were like, she's
Speaker 2: been gone for almost a month. Does this happen often?
Speaker 2: And the truth was that it did. She was never
Speaker 2: gone for that long. She would leave for like a
Speaker 2: few days sometimes and I might be alone, or I
Speaker 2: would stay with someone else, or she would stay gone
Speaker 2: for longer, maybe a few months if I was with
Speaker 2: my grandparents. But yeah, I told them that it was
Speaker 2: it's fairly regular for her to leave, and so they
Speaker 2: were like, well, that's not a good situation for you,
Speaker 2: and what do you think about staying here indefinitely? Which
Speaker 2: was like a dream come true for me.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets.
Speaker 1: Living with Clay's family, the Smiths, is life altering. Clay's
Speaker 1: older brother Luis has been deployed to Iraq and Brittany
Speaker 1: stays in his room. The Smiths are like guardian angels
Speaker 1: to Brittany. They've offered her the kind of sanctuary that
Speaker 1: has eluded her all her life. But her relationship with
Speaker 1: Clay becomes complicated.
Speaker 2: Because we had dated, we had a history, he had
Speaker 2: a girlfriend, and so my assumption was.
Speaker 3: Just that's done.
Speaker 2: I'm going to try to like not make my heartbrokenness
Speaker 2: to a parent. I just want to be good and
Speaker 2: not make trouble in the house and.
Speaker 3: You know, keep clean.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to feel like I was worthy of
Speaker 2: being in a place that felt so nice. We were
Speaker 2: teenagers and living together, and even though the Smiths had
Speaker 2: told us like you can't, I think the exact phrase
Speaker 2: they use was no hanky panky while you're living under
Speaker 2: the same roof, which is what any responsible person would
Speaker 2: say in that situation. But we were young and we
Speaker 2: had a history, and so we ended up fooling around
Speaker 2: and secret and it turned into well, for a while,
Speaker 2: it was fooling around and me not being sure, like
Speaker 2: why is he still with his girlfriend? And am I
Speaker 2: a bad person? And then even after they broke up,
Speaker 2: it was still a secret because we knew that I
Speaker 2: would have to leave. And then it's hard to say
Speaker 2: that there was any one moment where things turned. But
Speaker 2: he would get very mad at me, and you would
Speaker 2: say really awful things to me. At the time, I
Speaker 2: just thought of it as rough housing, like he would
Speaker 2: hit me on the arm, or hit me on the leg,
Speaker 2: or do this weird crimping thing to my finger that
Speaker 2: hurt really bad. It was always some little thing to
Speaker 2: just hurt me a little bit, and it didn't feel
Speaker 2: I was like, well, he's not hitting me in the face,
Speaker 2: or he's not like pushing me on the ground and
Speaker 2: wailing on me.
Speaker 3: And I had seen that in my life.
Speaker 2: So I didn't think that it was anything exceptionally bad,
Speaker 2: just you know, playing around, and if I would say,
Speaker 2: like stop and get serious, I was ruining the fun.
Speaker 2: It got to be a really bad situation. But I
Speaker 2: didn't feel like I could tell the Smiths because I
Speaker 2: knew that I would have to leave. And it was
Speaker 2: the first time I had had like a clean, stable,
Speaker 2: otherwise loving environment, and I was finally getting good grades,
Speaker 2: I was taking ap classes, and I just didn't want
Speaker 2: to risk all of that, And even if that meant
Speaker 2: living in this terrible situation where I just had no
Speaker 2: self worth. I never knew what version of him I
Speaker 2: was going to get.
Speaker 3: It was hard.
Speaker 1: And then your mom eventually does show up, and you're
Speaker 1: also in this situation where she wants you to come back.
Speaker 1: You do not want to go back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, one of the worst things about that
Speaker 2: time was that I just blocked everything out because I
Speaker 2: was in this all consuming relationship. So I didn't even
Speaker 2: know if my brother, who I loved and had been
Speaker 2: through so much with, was like back with my mom
Speaker 2: or with his dad or just visiting, or like what
Speaker 2: was going on in his life.
Speaker 3: Had tunnel vision.
Speaker 1: Well, you were trying to save yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, Britney's mom signs over a third party
Speaker 1: custody to the Smiths, making it legal. Brittany has another
Speaker 1: very real family. Others continue to try and help her too.
Speaker 1: More guardian angels appear, more hands reach out. Many are
Speaker 1: from trusted and supportive adults.
Speaker 2: At school, you know, I was like a kid from
Speaker 2: a movie who eats lunch in the stairwell crying because
Speaker 2: things were bad and I didn't feel like I fit anywhere,
Speaker 2: and everything was hard. And I had an English teacher,
Speaker 2: mister Wagner, who would let me eat lunch in his classroom,
Speaker 2: and I had my guidance counselor mister Brown. He would
Speaker 2: let me come in and just vent and cry, and
Speaker 2: then he was the one who really pushed the idea
Speaker 2: of college. And until then I just never felt like
Speaker 2: a possibility. So I didn't know why I would bother
Speaker 2: thinking about it. And then I joined the Academic to caathlon,
Speaker 2: and my coach for that one encouraged me to go
Speaker 2: to college and helped me figure out how to write
Speaker 2: things for applications and how to do interviews. And I
Speaker 2: had a creative writing teacher, Kenneth Barrett, who was the
Speaker 2: first person to tell me that I was talented writer
Speaker 2: and that I should take it more seriously. So I
Speaker 2: had all of these people who created space for me
Speaker 2: and made sure that I knew that I could get
Speaker 2: out and that they were there for me through that,
Speaker 2: and I'm endlessly thankful for them.
Speaker 1: The encouragement Brittany receives in school inspires her to really
Speaker 1: focus on getting out, going to college, and starting a
Speaker 1: new life for herself. She cobbles together grants and scholarships,
Speaker 1: she works a bunch of jobs, and soon she's admitted
Speaker 1: to Ball State. Ben too has successfully gone and out
Speaker 1: and gets a full ride to another university. These are
Speaker 1: impressive achievements for anyone, but ones that had previously seemed
Speaker 1: impossible for Brittany and her brother. For some of college,
Speaker 1: Brittany and Clay continue to have a romantic relationship, but
Speaker 1: eventually they end things. She is still very much part
Speaker 1: of the family though, and when she comes back for visits,
Speaker 1: Louise is home from Iraq now and she's able to
Speaker 1: get to know this big brother figure in whose room
Speaker 1: she has lived. Some years later, Brittany is in graduate
Speaker 1: school and she's found her person, a man named Jeff.
Speaker 1: She and Clay have lost touch, but one day Clay
Speaker 1: calls with terrible news Louise has died from a drug
Speaker 1: related overdose. Britney's phone rings again soon, this time from
Speaker 1: missus Smith, Diane, and she's calling about Louise's ashes.
Speaker 2: So the Smiths were in Indiana and at the time,
Speaker 2: I was in Iowa in the graduate program, and Diane
Speaker 2: called me and said, Louis's ashes are in this car
Speaker 2: and it's been impounded and they're going to basically destroy
Speaker 2: the car with the ashes in there.
Speaker 3: And I asked if they would mail them back, and
Speaker 3: they're refusing.
Speaker 2: And this was in San Diego, so I got a
Speaker 2: ticket and I flew there, and luckily I just happened
Speaker 2: to have a friend who lived there and picked me
Speaker 2: up from the airport and drove me straight to the
Speaker 2: impound lot and I went in and kind of I
Speaker 2: felt like tearing the place apart with my bare hands,
Speaker 2: but I just explained and I'm really sorry. I know
Speaker 2: this is an inconvenience and all of this, and eventually
Speaker 2: they let me go in and look around the car
Speaker 2: and I found his ashes.
Speaker 3: And then, you know, because my flight was the next day.
Speaker 2: Oh, it was Thanksgiving also, so like everything was closed,
Speaker 2: and I had a friend who lived there and was
Speaker 2: letting me stay at his place, but he was out
Speaker 2: of town for the holiday, so I was just alone
Speaker 2: on the other side of the country. I had never
Speaker 2: flown before that, I had never been to California with
Speaker 2: these ashes. And then yeah, I brought them back and
Speaker 2: I had them with me in Iowa for a little
Speaker 2: while until I went back for the holiday and I
Speaker 2: took them home, and yeah, it was it was a
Speaker 2: wild trip, and it was like a brief journey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well in a journey of a kind of repair
Speaker 1: in a way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: To the degree that repair was possible.
Speaker 2: I think before I wrote the book, it all felt
Speaker 2: like just something that I was holding all the time,
Speaker 2: and it was overwhelming and it was loud, and I
Speaker 2: couldn't stop thinking about certain things, and I was having
Speaker 2: panic attacks and nightmares, and I wrote the book and
Speaker 2: part to process it, and I went to therapy and
Speaker 2: like actually committed to therapy rather than what I'd done
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, which was lied to the
Speaker 2: therapist because I didn't want I heard like CPS will
Speaker 2: take you away. And so I finally I started going
Speaker 2: to therapy and telling the truth and really committing to
Speaker 2: taking care of myself.
Speaker 3: And I talked a lot to Ben, like we.
Speaker 2: Just like delved through everything that had happened, which the
Speaker 2: more I think about that lately, it's like when you
Speaker 2: go through a lot with someone, it would be completely understandable.
Speaker 2: If I had tried to call him one day and
Speaker 2: say like, hey, you remember that time this awful thing happened.
Speaker 2: If he had responded like, I'm out of that now
Speaker 2: and I don't want to talk about it, I would
Speaker 2: have understood. But the fact that he immediately was like, yeah, let's.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about it.
Speaker 2: How messed up was that I was huge just having
Speaker 2: someone who like understood it intimately and could confirm things
Speaker 2: and deconstruct them with me and affirm like, oh, we're
Speaker 2: both here now, and it's not like perfect but we're
Speaker 2: making it.
Speaker 1: Indeed, they are making it. Brittany is a published author
Speaker 1: living in Albuquerque with her partner Jeff. She gives public
Speaker 1: readings to large audiences, some of which include the very
Speaker 1: teachers from her past that made this journey possible. Ben
Speaker 1: is a family counselor. Britney's relationship with her mom is okay,
Speaker 1: but continues to be fraught when she tells her she's
Speaker 1: going to write this book. Her mom tells her to
Speaker 1: do what she needs to do.
Speaker 2: I feel like I've kind of exercised it in a way.
Speaker 2: It's not like anything will ever be completely easy, or
Speaker 2: like those things didn't happen a that I've written about them,
Speaker 2: But I feel like I'm not so obsessed with thinking
Speaker 2: about these things, and I have way fewer panic attacks.
Speaker 2: I can't say I have none, but mostly I just
Speaker 2: feel like I processed it.
Speaker 3: I did what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2: And now when I have people who will come to
Speaker 2: me and say your book gave me context for things
Speaker 2: happening in my own life or helped me find ways
Speaker 2: to talk about it, that means the world to me,
Speaker 2: because I didn't just write it to process it. It
Speaker 2: was a huge part of why I wrote it, but
Speaker 2: just the idea that it can go beyond me.
Speaker 3: It's like everything.
Speaker 1: Near the end of her memoir, Brittany also includes a
Speaker 1: moving scene in which she shares draft after draft of
Speaker 1: her manuscript with Ben. She hopes and praise that he
Speaker 1: won't feel she has somehow usurped his story by telling
Speaker 1: her own. She writes, is that what I'm doing to you?
Speaker 1: I ask Ben after he reads my latest draft, I'm
Speaker 1: telling your story too. Someone had to tell it, he says.
Speaker 1: I'm glad it's you, and so are we. Here's Brittany
Speaker 1: reading one last passage from her powerful.
Speaker 3: Memoir, The truth is.
Speaker 2: I spent so long imagining a perfect future so I
Speaker 2: could get through a profoundly imperfect present. I'd close my
Speaker 2: eyes and build beautiful houses where nothing could ever go wrong.
Speaker 2: I needed that to hold me up. But now I
Speaker 2: have to let it go. The world will never be
Speaker 2: entirely safe. Troubles will come, loved ones will die, and
Speaker 2: landlords will reject my offer of free eggs in exchange
Speaker 2: for an exception from the terms of my lease. Now
Speaker 2: I'm the clattish adult who controls my life, so I
Speaker 2: have to stop waiting for perfect conditions and trust that
Speaker 2: I can handle what comes. Planting a seed is easy.
Speaker 2: Tending to it so it can grow is the hard part.
Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly Zaccur is
Speaker 1: the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer.
Speaker 1: If you have a family secret you'd like to share,
Speaker 1: please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear
Speaker 1: on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight
Speaker 1: eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also
Speaker 1: find me on Instagram at Danny Ryder. And if you'd
Speaker 1: like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast,
Speaker 1: check out my memoir Inheritance. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.