Vaulted Ceiling | Brit's Story
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True Story Media. This episode contains a description of childhood sexual assault. If you should need any help or assistance, there are resources in the show notes.

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About a year after my sister died, I realized that I needed help in managing my grief. I was concerned about how I was handling that loss and how it would affect my daughter. I got a referral for a therapist and the first voicemail I left him was, I think I need therapy. Something's wrong with me. I don't have any emotions. I'm Brittany Yard. You probably think this story is about you.

But this story is mine. He called me back and scheduled our first session. I walked into that session hesitant. I wasn't great at therapy. My therapist did a really good job of making me feel like I wasn't doing it wrong. So I started going every Wednesday. I'd sneak away at lunch and walk up his stairs and

sit in his office and watch the traffic go by as I fought opening up, but knew that that's what I desperately wanted to do. I spent the next year mainly talking about my sister and that loss, trying to figure out how to go on with my life. It took that whole year for me to really get to a place where I felt comfortable sharing. I knew that in order to

make therapy effective. I needed to address all of the things that had happened to me that I boxed up and just ignored for years. I can't remember why that day I decided to share with him the story of my sexual assault at 13. I remember that I was calm and I didn't cry

I didn't have a hard time telling the story. As soon as I started, I just wanted to get it out. It was the first time that I had ever said it out loud. I moved to Seattle in January of that year. I came into the middle of eighth grade and I made friends quickly. I had moved around and changed schools my whole life, so I was used to that. Within a few months, I had found my group. In April,

I made plans to stay at one of my friend's houses for the first time. She had been a confidante of mine. She lived in the neighborhood. Their house was the typical craftsman, Queen Anne-style house. Big front porch.

And it's nestled into this neighborhood that was not far from our school, not far from where my dad and I were living. It had that homey feel. Her mom was single and rented out rooms in her house. We ended up sitting on her porch with one of the men that was renting one of the rooms.

He was probably in his early, mid-twenties. We smoked some pot on the patio, had a couple beers. He was friendly. It seemed like she was comfortable with him. It didn't seem weird to me that somebody that lived in her mom's house was just hanging out with us. My mom had lots of friends that I would hang out with. None of them had ever made me uncomfortable or felt dangerous. I was used to partying with adults. I don't know how much...

pot I smoked. I think I only had one or two beers. I didn't feel incapacitated in any way. Up until that point in my life, my interactions with boys had been fairly normal. At no point did I feel uncomfortable in that situation. We were laughing, you're rebelling a little.

It's really hard to separate hindsight from the moment there because hindsight gives me an entirely different perspective of that situation. We were two 13-year-old girls pushing a few limits. I can't remember his name. I remember his hair. I remember he was tall, a kind face, nice smile. It's like a blurry image.

easy personality, not overly charming, but just sort of relaxed and, you know, I'm going to smoke a joint and chill here and have a beer. He was very unintimidating. I don't know how long we were on the porch. A lot of that memory is fuzzy. At some point, my friend and I went to bed in her room. She had two twin beds. They were against the wall, perpendicular to each other.

The ceilings were vaulted with a dormer that had a window that let light in from the street. I went to bed light-hearted with this thought that I've made friends. I'm comfortable in this new life that I have in Seattle. I don't know how long we talked staring at the ceiling. When I started to fall asleep, the door opened and I remember light coming in and he stood at the foot of my bed for a moment.

And then the next thing I remember is being pinned down. His full body weight on top of me. I remember his smell and the hair. So much hair. Just curly hair. And I remember not making a noise. I didn't want to bring attention to what was happening because I didn't fully understand what it was that was going on. I had no voice.

He didn't cover my mouth, just kept me immobile with his body. And then he raped me. This vaulted ceiling that I was staring at became my focal point. I knew enough to know that it was wrong, but not enough to have the courage to say no or to scream or to call out for my friend. I just stared at the light reflecting into the room. My friend was only three feet away,

But moving or screaming felt impossible. Then he got up, opened the door, and left. I don't think I made a sound that entire time. And I know I didn't sleep that night. I knew for no reason that he had said directly, but I knew that it wasn't something I could talk about. I felt like it had to be a secret. I waited until my friend got up in the morning, told her that I...

had gotten my period and I was going to go home. I never talked to her about it, but I went home and it was when I realized that even in this safe house, even with my dad who had always protected me and was doing all of the things that he needed to do to be there for me, he couldn't protect me from everything.

I didn't really understand what part I played in it. Had I done something wrong? Had I led him on? Had I made him feel that this was what was supposed to happen? I didn't understand it was wrong, but I couldn't comprehend that it was right. It's when hindsight and memories collide. Was I flirting? Was I overly friendly because I liked the attention?

The kindness that he showed to me was very confusing. I felt shame. I felt guilt. I felt like this was my fault. There are questions that circle in my mind over and over. Did she know what was going to happen to me that night? Had it happened to her before? Or was it just me in her room looking up at that ceiling?

But the parts of that story that haunt me have kept me from reaching out to my old friend. Before this happened, the library had always been my sanctuary. I would lose myself there for hours, devouring books about everything. It was my escape. I remember reading Judy Blume's book forever. And like every other 13-year-old girl, I was trying to understand what it meant to grow up to become a sexual being.

But what happened to me wasn't anything like the stories I was reading. There was no story in those books that could have prepared me for what happened. Told no one for 14 years. After I told my therapist this story, he told me that it wasn't my fault. It could never be my fault. But that was the first time I had ever understood that it could be true. I started feeling lighter.

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We met in my dad's office, which was in his house. I probably made it worse because I was struggling with the courage to just say it. I don't remember what my dad said. I don't know if he said any words. Everything that I felt in that moment was in his eyes. I could see everything.

his pain and his understanding and acceptance. But I don't know if he actually said anything. Once I told them the story and saw my dad's reaction and realized that I had spent those 14 years feeling shame for no reason, I didn't just feel absolved from the shame of the sexual assault.

I also felt like he finally understood why my teenage years were so hard. I think my dad saw me as my whole self. And over the last 20 years, I've shared this story so many times now, and I've learned that this experience is far too common. One in nine girls and one in 20 boys will experience sexual violence by the time they are 18.

Two-thirds of cases go unreported. These stats come from RAINN. R-A-I-N-N. I know so many people that have gone through similar things, and I don't want them to feel the way I did. Because this happened to me right at the beginning of puberty, and when you start exploring your sexuality,

It shifted for me how I viewed men and relationships and sex. I had talked through all of this with my therapist in my 20s, and I started to understand the effect it had on my life. But it wasn't until I got divorced for the second time in my 40s and had spent that year single that I really understood the impact of

of how staring at a ceiling that night at 13 altered who I was as a sexual person. When I started dating Kanan, who first season listeners will remember kicked off this whole journey for me, I had wanted to have a sexual relationship that allowed me to explore my sexuality free from fear. I wanted to feel comfortable with my partner so that I could attach emotion to sex.

What an incredibly interesting lesson that was to learn. Sharing my story and relating with so many people allowed me to realize that everything that I was experiencing was normal and part of

figuring out who we are. It gave me the grace to realize that I am in control of the things that I want and the way that I want to express myself and who I want to connect with. And that power is so incredibly huge, but to find it in my 40s is kind of sad. And

Though I felt connected to my husbands and I loved them and I loved deeply, it gave me the ability to recognize where that disconnect had been and how I could make sure in the future I didn't do that again because it wasn't on purpose.

It was that I was required to detach my emotions the first time that I had sex. And it never shifted for me. It always felt like it was an act and not an experience. Prior to that moment of me staring at that ceiling, when things had happened in my life where my safety was

my sister's safety, or my well-being were questioned, I fought. It was the first time that I had ever froze. It wouldn't be the last. At 14, months after the assault, I was sitting on the front porch of my dad's house. I saw someone riding his bicycle up my street a few houses away.

As soon as I saw his hair, I knew it was him. He saw me, our eyes met, and he did this nod. And I watched him continue up the street and turn. I remember thinking, do I knock him off his bike? Do I go get my dad and then have to tell him what happened? Do I nod back? I had all these thoughts of different things that I could do, but I couldn't move.

So I did nothing. I sat there paralyzed. I don't think of myself as being someone that freezes. I think of myself as being someone that would fight. There have been so many times when I pass a bike and I think to myself, would I recognize him now? The next two chapters belong to Cash. There was some anticipation that something was happening.

And we just watched. We saw all these like swats and policemen going in and out of the apartment. I just remember someone saying, oh, your mom's in the back of that police car. And I just saw the outline of somebody. You can support the show by joining us on Apple Podcasts or Patreon.

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