Watch the full Podcast Video

Read The Full Transcript

Talking with Brittany Means Full Transcript
Ira Sternberg: Welcome to Ira’s Everything Bagel, where I talk with intriguing people about everything – their passions, pursuits, and points of view. There are childhoods that bring sweet memories and there are childhoods best left forgotten. But there are also childhoods that, while they could be better left forgotten, can be best written about by a gifted author. My guest today is award-winning writer Brittany Means. She’s the author of Hell If We Don’t Change Our Ways, a memoir published by Zibby Books and available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all the usual places. For everything about Brittany, go to brittanymeans.com, and you can follow her on Instagram and X, formerly known as Twitter. And Brittany, welcome to the show.
Brittany Means: Hi, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure.
Ira Sternberg: The book is fascinating, and your background is in writing, but your childhood background is not necessarily the best. Give us a little sense of it, would you, for our audience – both our listeners and our viewers?
Brittany Means: Yeah, of course, thanks. So my book is mostly about growing up homeless. My mom and I lived in a car when I was a kid. We moved around a lot. She had an abusive boyfriend, Mark in the book, who was looking for us. He was stalking her, and we stayed with family and friends sometimes, we stayed in shelters. We were mostly trying to stay on the move to keep away from him. One of the places we stayed was with my grandparents, who were deep southern Pentecostals. So the story is about going through all of that and then eventually moving in with a foster family until I left for college. It’s that narrative arc plus the themes of breaking out of the cycle of trauma and learning how to heal as an adult.
Ira Sternberg: Why did you decide, given your history, to write the book?
Brittany Means: I think writing is just how I’ve processed things. Telling stories feels natural. My mom really liked telling stories; she wrote poetry. My grandma wrote stories for me at bedtime; she wrote songs. So I think I came from a storytelling family, and that just made sense to me. That’s how I made sense of things and how I got them out of my head and onto a page, which was really helpful. I also hoped that people would read about my experiences and find language for things in their own life.
Ira Sternberg: Do you see the writing of the book – and again, it’s called Hell If We Don’t Change Our Ways: A Memoir – do you think that the writing of the book acted in place of therapy, that it released a lot of your pent-up, I would say anger, but I don’t want to speculate – anger, hurt, etc. Or is it maybe in tandem with therapy? And if you don’t want to get specific about that, you don’t have to, but I’m just curious in terms of whether you used that cathartic writing as a total substitute or just a resolution of a lot of issues and also helping other people learn from what you went through.
Brittany Means: Yeah, it was definitely in tandem. I had some difficult memories that played in my head a lot, and I obsessed over and had nightmares about, and all of that. Writing was a really great way of expressing it, but I also went to therapy while I was writing it and processed what I was writing. I think if I had just written it, it might not have been as therapeutic. It could have been just as damaging. But yeah, I had good people in my life and good therapy and took on a lot of self-care practices and coping mechanisms. Yeah, I feel like I’m in a much better place now than I was before I wrote it.
Ira Sternberg: Did you share the book with your therapist?
Brittany Means: I’ve gone through a few therapists since I started it. I haven’t…
Ira Sternberg: That alone would be a best-seller if you shared it with all the number of therapists you went to.
Brittany Means: Honestly, probably, yeah.
Ira Sternberg: Only kidding. But what’s interesting is it’s classified as or it’s known as a memoir of self-preservation, which I think is a great way to name it if you had to name it something. Of all the different things you could talk about a memoir about, it is self-preservation. How did you develop a tougher hide than most folks have? How did you go through all of that and still be able to function today? You’re obviously an award-winning writer. Your background – in fact, why don’t you share a little bit first about your background in terms of writing, and then I’ll restate the question. I probably should have asked that first, but occasionally I get things backward. I think I’m dyslexic in my interviewing. But okay, go ahead.
Brittany Means: No, I love your interview style. It’s kind of like how my brain works.
Ira Sternberg: Thanks.
Brittany Means: Yeah, my writing background – like I said, I came from a storytelling family. When I was in elementary school, we had to write a little poem, and I was learning about writing. I wrote a poem that was like, “I don’t have a dad, and I am sad.” I didn’t particularly feel that way, but I liked that I could rhyme. I showed it to my grandma, who used to look at all my homework, and it made her cry. I realized writing can affect people, so I kept doing it. I mostly wrote poetry through high school. Then I took a creative writing class with Kenneth Barrett, who I owe a lot to because he took me aside one day and was like, “You’re a talented writer, and you should pay more attention to your writing and do it more.” It was the first time I thought of myself as being good at anything. Writing was just something I did. That kind of opened a door in my brain and made me want to start pursuing it. In college, I had a creative writing major and took every class I could – fiction, non-fiction, screenwriting. My non-fiction professor pulled me aside and was like, “Brittany, you’re a writer. You need to keep going.” I had these two people – more than them, but those were the two touchstones who really got me going and made me feel like I was actually doing something instead of just putting around in a notebook like I thought I was.
Ira Sternberg: Well, also to the fact that – yeah, we talked about it earlier about writing it, getting your demons out in a way, or some of them at least, and it being therapeutic. But you also have to have, before you even do that – and that’s to my original question which I transposed for you, but you were okay with it so I’m glad – that you have to have a tough skin given your background, not in terms of college but the childhood background that you write about. So you have to have a tough skin, and at the same time, you’re obviously vulnerable and sensitive. How do you have these combinations of traits? Have you ever thought about that?
Brittany Means: Yeah, it’s something I think about a lot because sometimes it feels like survivor’s guilt. There are still a lot of people in my life who are struggling with poverty and addiction and breaking out of their own cycles of trauma. It’s hard for me to say I deserved to get out and make a life for myself more than anyone else because I don’t think I do. I think a lot of people want out as badly as I have and have as much ambition and aspiration and hope, and the cards just don’t fall right for them. I think one aspect of it is I have used escapism a lot in my life, making up fantasies, writing stories, reading books. For me, that’s what my brain latched onto, and it’s what worked for me. I think for some people, the thing that helps them through a hard time is drinking or using drugs or self-harm or being very defensive with other people. I think I’m just lucky that my brain aligned in a way that those weren’t things that worked for me. Yeah, it’s a hard thing to reckon with that I just got lucky.
Ira Sternberg: Well, you used – it seems you used fantasy as a tool, a productive tool. A lot of people can use fantasy in the same way that people use drugs or alcohol in terms of distracting from reality. You may have used it for that too, but you also used it as a tool for obviously self-preservation and to be productive. It seems to work for you, which is great. I want to go back to the question because I always remember the question I ask even if people don’t remember it, which is the part about the tough skin. In other words, you have enough toughness about you that you’re able to survive your childhood, and at the same time, I don’t want to use the word prosper, but certainly being positive about what you’re doing in an adult world today – going to college, winning awards for your writing, getting encouraged by various influential people in your life. How does that happen? Have you ever thought about that, or have you ever wanted to write about your tough skin?
Brittany Means: Yeah, I think a big part of it is the people in my life. My brother Ben, he went through almost all the same stuff that I went through, and having someone there who I could talk to about it and who was willing to actually go back and talk about the hard stuff and grow with me and change with me. My best friend Shirley, who’s in the book, they’re an amazing support. My partner Jeff, I have so many wonderful people in my life. I wish everyone had wonderful supportive people who could be there when you’re just like, “I’m done, I can’t do it anymore.” Then you have someone you love who talks to you or sends you a box of pickles, which my friends just did for me to celebrate the book. I think it’s – I owe being here to the people in my life. I would not have made it if I had just been by myself.
Ira Sternberg: That’s interesting. So it’s a combination of having a tough skin, a determination, but also having people in your life. Very important because that’s why I think some people don’t make it and are having major problems because they don’t have a support system. They can get some support through agencies, institutions, hotlines, etc., but it’s not the same as having an ongoing relationship with people who can be supportive. It’s very easy to get into a relationship or have friends who are toxic or, let’s say, negative rather than toxic, negative, or just can’t help you because they’re struggling with their own stuff. So you are very fortunate in that sense. Let’s get back to the pickles for just a second. Was there juice in the pickles or just pickles without juice when the box came? I’m just curious about that.
Brittany Means: Yeah, there are jars of – there was pickled okra, pickles, and some pickled green beans.
Ira Sternberg: Nice.
Brittany Means: I like pickled stuff, and my friends were like, “We have to send you something, and you’ve already gotten a bouquet of flowers from your publisher, so we know you’ll love pickles.” And they were right.
Ira Sternberg: Well, you were in a lifelong pickle in childhood, but then you got out of it by writing it. So can you share with us a couple of – not necessarily horror stories, but just some interesting examples or vignettes from your life growing up that led you to where you are now and writing this interesting book about your background, your childhood, and what it meant and how it also affects other people too? But I’ll leave the floor to you.
Brittany Means: Wait, sorry, what’s the question?
Ira Sternberg: Okay, the question was, can you share with us some interesting vignettes or samples from your childhood, some scenes, vignettes – I’m talking in literary terms here and I shouldn’t probably, but you’re a writer so I knew you’d understand. Just some examples of what your childhood was like, maybe somebody you interacted with or an incident that happened, something like that, so people get a sense of what your childhood was like without getting too into the horrors of some of it.
Brittany Means: I was thinking today about a part of the book I wrote where my mom, my brother, and I went to Mississippi to stay with some family there. We went to Mississippi, we went to Arkansas, we just kind of took the train, we took Amtrak around the South. It’s one of my favorite memories because we were in the car all the time, and I loved traveling. I loved just being on the move because it was what I was used to. But the train felt like magic. We need a railway system in the US that’s more functional in general. My brother and I spent the whole train ride pretending we were running super fast because you could see outside, so it looked like he could run a million miles an hour. Going between the train cars and daring each other to stand with one foot on each side of the coupler where you can see down below the train. It’s one of those trips that someone asked me, “Why were you in Mississippi?” and it was the first time I’d ever thought to consider that. That was just how things were. We were always somewhere unfamiliar with people we didn’t know who were like, “Oh, I knew you when you were a baby,” or “I love you so much, I’m so glad you came to visit.” We had so many people in and out of our lives that we didn’t really attach or think to question. So I still don’t know really why we were in Mississippi and Arkansas. But we stayed on an ostrich farm where they’re so aggressive, and we didn’t know that. We were so scared of them. There were a bunch of ostrich bones, and the woman who ran the farm let me and my brother keep a femur. I’m really surprised they let us take that on the train.
Ira Sternberg: Yeah, I would challenge that, I would think if I were a conductor. But that’s interesting because that is a metaphor – you’re on an ostrich farm, because unlike the ostrich, you didn’t keep your head in the sand. You actually wrote about your experiences. I’m curious about the finances because you talk about being in the car, and that really was your home. Then of course you were on the train, so clearly there’s some money involved there. There’s some money available for gas for the car, train tickets, groceries, etc. How did your mom work that out?
Brittany Means: She worked jobs here and there, like part-time jobs. She stripped sometimes, and sometimes my grandparents would send money. I remember sitting outside a gas station waiting for the Western Union every now and again. I think she really just scraped by with a lot of gigs and dancing, and my grandparents, when they were willing to send us money. Then when I was a little bit older, she had some cysts removed and had some health issues, and then she was on disability, so there was a little more regular income.
Ira Sternberg: But you’re always on the move though in that sense.
Brittany Means: Yeah.
Ira Sternberg: It sounds like the military where you’re in one base and then you move to another base or you’re deployed somewhere else, and so there’s constantly moving around. The only difference is, at least in the military, you actually have a room or place to stay, and you’re in the car a lot of the time and occasionally a train. Did you ever fly during those days?
Brittany Means: No, I didn’t fly until I was in grad school.
Ira Sternberg: Okay. Was that unusual for you at that point, age-wise, to all of a sudden be on an airplane which you had never been on before?
Brittany Means: Yeah, it was really bizarre. I just never really had the opportunity or the money. I took a trip from Iowa City to San Diego, and the whole time I was just glued to the window.
Ira Sternberg: I bet.
Brittany Means: Yeah, I love looking out while I’m flying. There’s a lot about flying that’s really frustrating at this point in my life, but at that time, the Iowa airport was so small, I was like, “Wow, flying is so nice. Why are people so cranky?”
Ira Sternberg: Oh yes, now I know.
Brittany Means: Now I know.
Ira Sternberg: Were you surprised when the flight attendant came by and offered a soda or some peanuts or something? Because that would be new to you because you’ve never experienced it other than on the train, I suppose.
Brittany Means: Yeah, I was like, “Is this going to be charged to my card?”
Ira Sternberg: Exactly.
Brittany Means: “Do I have to pay for this? What do I do with the trash?” The whole thing was very bizarre.
Ira Sternberg: The transition from your life growing up to the fact that you go to college, how did you handle that transition in the sense that that’s a whole other world? It’s peopled by people – that sounds interesting, peopled by people – or students who come from varied backgrounds, maybe some similar to you but mostly not because they’re in college. That takes a certain amount of discipline and resources to get to college, even a public university or college. Were you at a disadvantage, or did you feel you were at a disadvantage when you were going to college, or did you just fit right in? Or maybe that’s not the term – fit right in – but did you, like a duck takes to water, were you that fascinated by it?
Brittany Means: I loved the school part mostly, like taking all the creative writing classes and the math. I really like math, so I liked my classes.
Ira Sternberg: I was thinking more of the social aspect of college.
Brittany Means: Oh, yeah.
Ira Sternberg: More than the classes themselves.
Brittany Means: Yeah, I think I just grew up weird, and it has made me weird. I’m just a socially strange person.
Ira Sternberg: Was there anxiety or discomfort when you got onto the campus and you started attending regularly? Were you disconnected from your fellow students, or were you able to form friendships or at least acquaintances on campus?
Brittany Means: I struggled a little bit. I spent most of my time just alone, and I think a lot of that was just the social weirdness. I was also in an abusive relationship at the time, so if I talked to anyone, I had to explain it to my boyfriend in the book. I was just stressed all the time about not fitting in, not really knowing how to be around people, and having someone I had to report to. But there were a lot of really wonderful people. My best friend in college was Shirley, who’s in the book. Sarah Hollowell, another amazing writer who also just had a book come out. Jackson, I met my partner Jeff there. I was really lucky that I went into writing because writing is full of weird people who are also socially awkward. They didn’t really care if we went out to eat and I didn’t say anything the whole time because I couldn’t find out how to get into the conversation, but I still wanted to be around them.
Ira Sternberg: You were learning different ways to adapt based on your childhood. It’s not exactly – you weren’t socializing that much sitting in the back of your car as a kid, driving all the time, or you weren’t driving but riding all the time. So yeah, that makes sense. What do you want people to see in your book or take away from your book? Obviously, that differs from each reader, but you as an author probably have some ideas of what you’d like them to take away from reading your book. If it’s more than one or two things, that’s fine. What would you say you would like readers to take away from your book based on your writing it, not so much their reading it? They’ll take away their own experiences once they finish.
Brittany Means: I think one of the main things is I want people to understand the cycle of violence. Because of the way we tell stories and the way plots are, we imagine that there are people in the world who are just trying to do good and they get hurt, and then there are people who hurt them. I wanted to really illustrate the way we all just start out as vulnerable people who want the best for our lives and the people in our lives. Sometimes things happen to us, and we develop around those defensive mechanisms, and we get reactive and we hurt other people, and then those people carry on those same things and hurt other people. I think I want people to come away with understanding that hurt people hurt people. We are all capable of doing that. If we start thinking of people who abuse kids or hurt their family members or act like patriarchal tyrants as uniquely evil, then we lose the ability to see when we might be falling into those same patterns.
Ira Sternberg: Do you think that the larger world can have an impact on those kinds of people? What I mean by that is you were in an abusive relationship, but clearly, when you’re out in the wider world, including the college campus, you see how other people relate, you see how other people think and act. Would that influence you, and do you think it would influence other people who are in similar situations? Because I’m always amazed – I guess to my point, I’m always amazed that people that grow up in certain areas where they repeat those patterns that you talked about, they have access to media, and media shows a wider world. Then if they get out of their neighborhood and go to other worlds, so to speak, they are exposed to all kinds of ways of living, so they can see that maybe theirs is not the healthiest.
Brittany Means: Yeah.
Ira Sternberg: I guess what I’m asking is why isn’t that more of an issue where the wider world doesn’t have an impact on these cycles and these patterns of behavior?
Brittany Means: I think a lot of it is, at least in an abusive relationship, a lot of the pattern of abuse is about isolation. Anyone who is a support becomes an enemy, or anyone who makes you doubt your relationship or think about what’s wrong in a relationship. If I spent too much time with a certain friend and was talking to them too much, my ex would say, “I think they’re a bad influence,” or “You’re ignoring me for them.” That kind of thing makes you feel like – for me, it made me feel like I was in my own small little world and that the rules were different there. Even though I could understand when people were like, “He shouldn’t yell at you,” or “Your partner should never make you feel scared,” it felt like those things applied to other people because I was in my own private universe where everything was set to what he had slowly cornered me into. It was similar with my mom. We had a really us-against-the-world relationship because she told me everyone’s our enemy and we only have each other. So when I looked at other people and the models of healthy relationships on TV or out in public, they just didn’t feel like they could apply to me.
Ira Sternberg: But eventually it did.
Brittany Means: Yeah.
Ira Sternberg: Hopefully you’re more the rule than the exception. I’m afraid that you’re more the exception than the rule in those cases, but that’s, I think, to the point of your book. You want people to read the book and get a sense that you can break through and live a normal, healthy life and have normal, healthy relationships. You provide the path, the road, the guide, I guess the map, to how to do that in your own case, but it can still be applied to the larger population of people that may have suffered similar situations. Have you thought about forming a network of people that suffered what you suffered in your childhood and maybe through interaction helping some of these other people?
Brittany Means: I’ve attended a NAMI group in the past, and I like that kind of thing. I’ve bonded with people here and there who have had abusive relationships or complicated relationships with their parents. I find it feels really good to be around other people and be able to talk with people who understand the complexities of it. I haven’t done too much work in terms of forming a group or anything, but I like the groups that I’ve been to, and I really like having people in my life who understand.
Ira Sternberg: Well, I think that you set a good example, obviously, by writing a book. One last quick question is, what do you look to the future for in terms of more books, for example? Obviously, you’re going to always write, but are you looking to write more books along similar lines or a whole different approach? What does your future look like for you? Because you’re a young woman, so you have plenty of time to create a lot of material.
Brittany Means: I’m working on my second book right now, which is more about health and mental health and how it manifests in religious communities. I’m also working on a TV script with one of my best friends, Rachel. It’s about vampires. I’m really excited about that. I would love to do more in TV.
Ira Sternberg: Great. Well, vampires are a very neglected part of the population, so I think you’re writing a script about it. I think that’s a great way to leave it. My guest has been award-winning writer Brittany Means. She’s the author of Hell If We Don’t Change Our Ways: A Memoir, published by Zibby Books. It’s available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all the usual places. For everything about Brittany – that’s with two Ts – go to brittanymeans.com, and you can follow her on Instagram and X, formerly known as Twitter. Brittany, thanks for being on the show.
Brittany Means: Yeah, thank you so much.
Ira Sternberg: And join us every Thursday for a new schmear on Ira’s Everything Bagel.
[Music]