Your Secret, Your Superpower: Lauren Brill on Healing from Trauma After Sexual Assault

Today's incredible guest, this amazing woman, is none other than Lauren Brill.

Today, she's going to take you on a journey through the events of that night, of the event, that she would keep secret for so very long.

Until one day she would finally reveal her secret.

And my golly, it set her free in the most profound of ways.

This is episode 282.

This is the story of Lauren.

What's up, my friend, and welcome to Grit Race of Insurance.

I'm your host, Kevin Below.

Twenty years ago, I awoke from a life-saving surgery only to find that I was left completely blind.

And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself.

And if you're on this podcast, I want to share this insight with you.

Because, friends, if you are still searching for your purpose, still trying to understand why, or still left searching for that next right path to take, well, consider this to be your step-by-step, to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

Before we go diving into today's interview, I do want to give you a quick announcement for something new that I've decided to try out here on the podcast.

I'm always in a pursuit to make this podcast mean more to you, to make it leave an impact on your life.

And therefore, I thought of including a new section on the podcast for prayer requests.

I believe strongly in the power of prayer.

Faith is a huge part of my life.

My relationship with my creator, Jesus Christ, is monumental.

And in that, I know that that's probably the case for many of my listeners.

And if you have something laying on your heart that you've been praying about and that you would love the opportunity to have people from all over the world helping you in praying for that person, for that thing, well, I want you to send me that prayer request, and I will feature it here on the podcast.

I'm gonna start today off with my own prayer request, and then I'm gonna tell you how you can send your prayer requests to the podcast.

Today, I would love to ask you to say a prayer for my friend Sharon.

She's going through some hard times, some medical issues, and I would love it if you could please help me in praying for a complete healing, for comfort, for peace, for God to make her well.

Her name is Sharon, and it would mean the world to have you praying for her.

Now, I want to get your prayer requests, and I've given you two easy ways to send your prayer requests to me.

You can either email me, which the email address is inside of today's show notes, or you can text it to me.

And if you want to text it, well, simply send your prayer request via text to the phone number 877-749-8178.

Again, that phone number is 877-749-8178.

I'm also leaving that in the show notes so if that will be easier for you to look at and then be able to jot down.

Again, send your prayer requests.

They will be kept anonymous at the most.

I will only ever use somebody's first name.

And I just want you to get to have your prayers heard by my audience, by people from all over the world, so we can begin to help out one another.

With that, my friend, I introduce you to today's incredible guest, Lauren Grill.

SPEAKER_02: I've had a great childhood.

I have two of the most loving humans that I call parents in my life.

And they were very supportive, very attentive.

We spent a lot of time together.

They signed my brother and I up for everything, you know, soccer, tennis, dance, gymnastics.

I tried every little, every sport, every activity, piano lessons.

And I just came from a very loving home, very active home.

You know, we used to go bike riding in the parks on weekends.

So it was just, I had a really good childhood.

And I had, at first I wanted to be an actress, and then I realized like practicing in a stage and inside in a theater, I found to be really boring.

I was just such a hyperactive kid, and I just wanted to be outside playing sports.

And then I went to a Rangers game with my dad.

It was the year after they won the Stanley Cup, and it was the playoffs.

And this woman invited me to sit in the front row with her.

She had like incredible tickets, and she saw us, and it reminded her of her and her dad.

So I started talking to her, and she was an executive at ABC sports.

And I was like, wait, I could do TV and sports and like be outside and be at games.

Like, that's way cooler than being in a theater.

I want to be a sports caster.

And I was in fifth grade, I believe, then.

So if you know when the Rangers won the Stinglet Cup, you know how old I am.

But yeah, so I was in fifth grade, and that's when I decided I wanted to be a sports caster.

And and my parents were like, okay, you know, they I never had a lot of pressure from my parents.

I never had a lot of like, you have to do this or you have to go to this school.

But my brother, who I love to death, is like Mr.

Smarty Pants, and he set the bar, and I was very competitive.

So since he did really well in school, I put a lot of pressure on myself to do well as well and go to a good school like he did.

So that's where I put a lot of pressure on myself, but not for my parents.

My parents were like, just be happy, just do what you can do do the best you can.

They never pushed me to do any more than my best.

And if they knew I was giving my best, they were happy, they were proud.

You know, I don't even think they ever looked at my report cards.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, no, no.

I think that's that's amazing.

Amazing.

Now, you have this idea that I mean, what a powerful moment at the hockey game.

And to be a kid and be like, oh my gosh, like I can make dreams come true with this career.

SPEAKER_02: That's great.

Like I can be on camera and I can go to a hockey game.

And I loved, I love the environment and energy of a sporting event.

Screaming fans, the like especially hockey, they had that fighting.

Like I found it so magical.

I was like, this is awesome.

And I spent a lot of quality time with my dad.

We used to live about like 45 minutes from Manhattan, maybe an hour from 34th Street, where Madison Square Garden is.

And so it was a lot of quality time, a lot of one-on-one attention.

So I associated sporting events and hockey games and sports with happy moments with my father, and you know, full and the story goes when I was six, my dad got my brother tickets to the Rangers game.

And I was like, You think because I'm a girl, I don't want to go?

And so then he had to get me tickets too.

And then he got he, my brother played hockey, so he had gotten season tickets like shared with some other parents, so they were switching off, taking their sons to games.

And so my dad used to flip flap back and forth between my brother and me.

Then at some point, my brother was like, I don't want to go, she can just go.

SPEAKER_00: Amazing, amazing.

So leading up kind of through your story, more like teenage years, because I mean it's one thing to have like a passion like that as a kid, but all the way through like high school years, did you still have that as a goal?

SPEAKER_02: Once I get like really excited about something like I'm in, yeah, it was definitely still a goal.

I in high school, I was like finding people's profiles on AOL that worked in sports broadcasting and like reaching out to them.

I reached out to the radio announcer Kenny Albert for the New York Rangers on AOL.

And so, like a game I went to, I sat in the radio booth for a few minutes and I was networking at 14.

So yeah, I definitely in high school knew what I wanted to do.

I wanted to go to a broadcasting school for college, and my dad just said, listen, I'll sport you in whatever you want to do, but go to the best school you can get into and major in something generic, do internships on the side, but just have like the best foundation possible, something generic.

He really encouraged me to just try to go to a really great school and do something and major in something generic and then pursue whatever I wanted to pursue on the side because he just wanted me to have a foundation in case dun dun dun, I decide to do something else at some point, like start my own company.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, amazing.

I love it, I love it.

Now, high school years, I know that that is really one of the pivotal moments that that has us talking today a part of a big part of your story.

Will you please share with me, my audience, that part of your story?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, when I was 16 years old, I went to a party hosted by one of my classmates and with two of my best friends.

There was about, I would say, 10 kids there that all knew each other from another school.

And then everyone else there was from my high school.

But I went to a private school for two years.

So it was very easy for someone to show up from another school, and you not really know where they're from because there's so many people there from all different towns that one person invites one person who invites one person else, and they're they're from anywhere, like you don't know.

So there were 10 kids there from a different school than the one I went to.

And we started talking to one of them, and then they offered us a drink, and I unfortunately accepted.

And I wasn't a big drinker, I wasn't really a big party.

We were celebrating being seniors that night.

It was the end of our junior year, and I called my parents and I actually asked if I could sleep over the person whose party it was, because I had drove there that night, and they said yes.

And so I I didn't come home until the next morning, but I remember having one or two sips of the drink.

And I remember distinctly because the the living room had a view of the kitchen, and the kitchen had an island.

And I remember seeing people like gather around the island, these this group of 10 boys gather around the island in the kitchen making the drink.

And I remember just thinking there was like a lot of commotion around pouring the drink, but it didn't like dawn on me that they were doing something, what they ended up doing.

It just was like, oh, that's hmm, there's a lot of people, they're having a lot of fun pouring this drink.

This is weird.

And I just remember having one, maybe two sips of that drink.

And then my very next memory after that was being on a bed with two boys I didn't know who were sexually assaulting me.

And I could barely move, I could barely speak, my voice wouldn't go louder than a whisper.

My whole body had was in like um almost like a relaxed state.

I was sedated.

I was very, very sedated, but I remember my legs and my arms feeling like they had a weight of bricks on them.

Like I couldn't lift them, I couldn't move them, I couldn't screen.

And so I remember just praying to God, like, please don't let this be how I lose my virginity.

And I remember like I felt some, I don't know how I fell off the bed and I landed with my stomach facing down.

And I remember just thinking, like, remember Ouija board, like make yourself as heavy, like light as a feather, stiff as a board.

I remember thinking, like, let all your body weight go and make yourself as heavy as possible.

Because if I was laying flat on my stomach, it would be harder for them to rape me, but they didn't touch me again.

They just like ran out of the room in a panic.

And in the moment, I remember thinking that they thought I died.

I I don't know what they were thinking, obviously.

But that was that was my impression in the moment that like they thought I was not okay, and they're like, let us let's get the F out of here, you know.

Like, you know, she's out.

But I I was okay.

I was just very sedated.

And then actually one of their friends came in the room after and helped me get dressed and made sure I was okay.

He didn't stop them from assaulting me to begin with, but he did like check in on me after it was actually the initial guy from the group that I was talking to.

And then from there, I remember crawling across the hallway.

I couldn't walk.

And I tried to get to my friends who were locked in another room, who have unfortunately their own bad memories from that night.

And then I remember being in a bed with actually, I think, a classmate who just was like, Are you okay?

Do you need water?

And he he had no idea what happened that night.

Like it was the kids from my school had nothing to do with any of this.

That guy was actually really, really nice.

And you know, I think I was holding on to him because I was so out of it and he was just like frozen.

And yeah, then I remember waking up the next morning and looking out into it.

It was a view of the Hudson River and the Tappensee Bridge in New York.

This it was a beautiful old mansion, feeling this moment of peace, but like also being completely confused of like, what the hell just happened last night?

And then my friend walked in the room hysterically crying with that same sentiment, like, what?

She cursed, the F happened last night.

And she was hysterically crying.

And I was, I just have a different personality and I was numb.

I was just like, couldn't process it.

Got up, went to the bathroom, threw up, and then I got dressed and I drove home and I was radio silent that ride home.

I was just, I knew in that moment, I couldn't put a name to what happened.

I didn't wake up that next morning.

I was assaulted, I need to go to the police, I need to get a rape kit, like none of that.

I was just like, it was just like, what the hell was that?

But like, even in not being able to process what happened, I knew that this would change my life.

Like I knew the person 24 hours ago was not the person I was gonna be.

Not that I wasn't the same person.

I I knew that this was going to drastically impact me in some way or another, but I just did it know how.

And at first I just try to like tuck it away, like pretend it's not there, just ignore it, like don't pay to any mind.

And I remember thinking on a drive, I was in the car with my mom thinking, just make success your revenge.

Just be so great in life and do everything you want to do, and that's winning.

And and for me, I was an athlete.

I played soccer, I played lacrosse, and I was like very competitive.

And um, if I could put things into winning and losing, like that was a way for my brain to focus on something positive.

I success is winning, getting into a good school is winning.

Like all the things I wanted to do for me was like that's beating them.

But I tucked it away and I didn't talk about it for many years, and I didn't tell anyone.

I didn't even talk about it with my friends who were there that night.

It was just this horrible night that was like too much of too heavy to like even face.

And eventually it caught up to me and I had to talk about it and I had to deal with it.

And I I lost a lot of weight at that that following year.

I think it was the assault maybe combined also with applying to colleges, the stress that comes with that.

I had a lot of anxiety and I went from being like a healthy weight to losing 30 pounds.

And I and I I stressed, like I wasn't overweight, I didn't have 30 pounds to lose.

Um I was sick.

I was underweight, I lost my period.

I, you know, I was sick.

So yeah, I had my moments of struggle for sure.

And when I got to college, you know, I I couldn't walk alone at night.

So I went to Columbia in New York City, and despite being in New York City, it's a pretty safe campus.

And especially when you're actually like on the main part of the campus, I always felt the campus was safe logically, but like emotionally, I would still get scared.

Like I didn't think anything actually would happen on campus logically.

But when I would walk at night from maybe it's like a three-minute walk from where my boyfriend's dorm was to mine, um, if I had to walk that alone, my heart would race.

I would get back to my dorm crying just to release the anxiety.

Like I felt safe, but I didn't.

Like I thought the area was safe, but but I was still scared.

I had so much anxiety.

And so my boyfriend used to come and like walk me at night from one spot to another.

A couple other football players who were really nice and very big would just say, Hey, listen, you need me, you know, call me.

I don't I don't know if he had texted me in freshman year.

And they would walk me back from, you know, parties, whatever, restaurants, and whatever I needed.

But over time, things did get better.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Wow.

What a horrible story of what you went through.

And not just that individual night, but all the years afterwards of staying silent.

And so you you never spoke to anybody about what happened during this time.

SPEAKER_02: So I got engaged when I was 21.

And I I told him something around 21.

And then when I was working at an internship, I didn't remember this until the guy brought it up that I told him.

It was my boss.

I was working an internship for CBS sports when I was how old was I?

I think I was 19.

And he assigned me a project to do like a documentary on violent athletes.

So sexual violence came up a lot.

And somehow it it came up that his ex-girlfriend or someone really close to him had been assaulted.

And then I I had told him that something really bad had happened to me.

I don't remember exactly what I called it, because I didn't call it like rape or I probably called it sexual assault until I was older.

And and the federal definition and the definition of rape has changed since I was assaulted.

So by federal definition today, which is and any sort of penetration is considered rape.

So by federal or definition today, it's considered rape.

And in the state I was in, it's considered rape today.

When I was attacked, or it would have been considered sexual assault attempted rape.

So the the wording has changed.

But I told him, and I he said that I said to him, no one can ever know because I think it would break my parents off.

Yeah, I didn't, I I think it I thought it would really hurt my parents, especially my dad.

And I also said, I had the best parents.

Oh my god.

That's the part that gets me is like the parent, my parents.

I had the best parents, and like, forget about me.

They don't deserve to experience that hurt of what happened to me.

Like they did everything right.

You know, I wrote once that as parents, I don't believe that you can protect your child from the world or from everything.

Um, you can do your best, but you just can't.

But what you can do is love them so hard and so much and give them so much support that when things do hit them and they do get knocked down, they have the strength and resilience to persevere and make the most of that situation.

And I believe wholeheartedly that a majority, if not all, of my strength, of my perseverance, uh the reason I am well today and healthy mentally, physically, emotionally, whatever you want to say, is because I was loved so hard.

I just think I I went into that assault.

You know, when I was assaulted, I had a good confidence and I didn't fall as hard as I could have had I not had the family that I had.

So I truly believe that like that beautiful child that I had and that really just the love, like forget the sports, forget the games, forget all that stuff.

I was just loved so much, and I was like loved into being strong and loved into being resilient because I I had that foundation, I believe.

So um, I think that was part of the reason I was silent.

But I think there was another part to it that like when you go through trauma, I think your brain tries to protect you.

Like you, you just I like I wasn't like for I think especially the beginning, like the first couple years, I wasn't like consciously keeping a secret.

I just don't think my brain could fully process what like had happened.

And it was just like, you know what, tuck this away.

And then like I think your brain then starts to bring it back when it's able to handle it.

And I think it brought it back its pieces when I was like 19, 21, but I didn't like full force start talking about it in detail, and I didn't get open with it.

I I was started getting open with my family, my close friends when I was 24, 25.

I didn't get really open with it until I was much older, until I was in my early 30s, where then I was like, you know, really able to speak about it pretty often and and pretty easily.

But there, like, there was a time like that was my secret.

And I remember my boyfriend when I was 24, 25, I had told him, and he had told one of his friends, like, oh, she doesn't drink because of this XYZ.

And the friend came up to me extremely well-meaning and well-intentioned, and said, you know, we'll always watch out for you.

We'll never let anything happen to you.

I you know, so-and-so told me what happened to you when you were younger.

We would never, we would always protect you.

And I was so mad at him.

I was like, What don't tell people this?

Like, I it was it was something I hadn't I don't know if I was ashamed, I was embarrassed, I was just I wasn't fully like ready to to face it.

And I also think there it wasn't shame, but I've I thought like I thought there was something That I did or something that like I like I was perceived as I felt like I was chosen to be a victim.

Like, and I don't like that word victim, but I felt like they picked me and I thought there was like a reason they picked me.

And so I didn't want to tell anyone because I was like, it's it's me issue.

And it's it wasn't.

And and also when I told my friends how it happened, I didn't realize I didn't know what happened to them that night.

We didn't talk about it after.

I just know that they were locked in a room at the time.

And when I went to have lunch with my best friend, who's still my best friend, and tell her what happened to me that night because she didn't know, I brought up the party.

And remind you, uh, this is 24.

So we're talking about a party that happened eight years prior when I had this conversation with her.

And I was like, Do you remember the party at so-and-so's house, you know, in West Nyack or whatever?

And right away she goes, Of course I was drugged that night.

I said, You were drugged, I was drugged.

So I didn't realize they drugged all three of us.

And then we shared into each other, and we were both shocked that we never shared with each other before.

Like, why don't we talk about this?

And she she said, I just wanted to put it behind me.

I wanted to forget about it.

And for me, it was more of like I just couldn't even process it.

I could, it just wasn't.

It was my body, my brain was in like almost a state of shock.

So when we reconnected, we were and we tried to fill some because I don't have like I remember also that night, I think I remember it was right after I was salted thinking like whatever I remember right now, I'm gonna remember for the rest of my life.

So, like, there were holes that I don't remember.

I don't remember how I got up to the room.

I don't remember how I got in, I don't remember how I got upstairs.

I don't remember how I got because we were my friends said we were initially in the uh another room, how I got from to into the room that I was in.

I don't remember everything.

And she was able to fill some of those holes.

Apparently, I was in a room with them, and I was like, I don't want any part of what's going on here.

Like, I'm I'm gonna get out of here.

And I had walked out of that initial room, and so my friend had thought I was like downstairs with the rest of the party the whole time.

And she thought like I was gonna be mad at her for being separated, and you know, it was just everything went wrong that night, but like I think it all started that we were all drugged and not in our right minds.

SPEAKER_00: But yeah, no, absolutely.

What made you finally decide to tell your parents?

SPEAKER_02: I told my mom first, and the night before I was dating someone, and he he was he was one of those people that like to like poke your buttons and make you like get a reaction out of you.

Like he likes to to dig.

And he kept asking me, like, why don't you drink?

Why don't you drink?

I'm like, leave it alone, why don't you drink?

Why don't you drink?

Why don't you drink?

Because like I I didn't just not drink, like if I like I smelled alcohol, I was like, ugh, like I had just an averse reaction to to alcohol for a long time.

I would touch it, and it wasn't like an alcoholic who was like, I don't want to be tempted.

It was like it was the most repulsive thing I could smell.

And and and I couldn't kiss somebody if they had alcohol in their breath.

Like I can still like to this day, if I smell vodka, I can I'll start to get a little nauseous.

So he just knew something was off.

And so he kept asking me, Why don't you drink?

Why don't you drink?

What and he wouldn't let it go and he wouldn't let it go.

And I I ran out, went home, and ran away from him.

And I texted him and told him what happened.

And he's like, you need to let it go.

And I just started crying.

And the next morning, that's when I told my mom for the first time.

He kind of like, I don't know, he kind of just brought it to the forefront of my brain, I guess.

And I was finally able to let it out.

Like it was stored away somewhere.

It wasn't in the forefront of my brain until he started pushing and poking and prodding.

And then I didn't want to tell my dad at first.

I told my mom, then I told my brother, and we just thought it would hurt my dad so much.

He's just like very sensitive, very loving father.

And there was nothing we could do about it.

At that point when I was 24, like I kind of had was okay.

Like I wasn't, my anxiety was better, my PTSD was better.

So I wasn't really asking my parents for help.

I didn't really need help.

I just needed like to tell them.

I just needed that someone to know.

And then a year later, you know, I still had some like fears and stuff.

And I like didn't really like to be at my parents' house home alone a lot.

And my dad was like, this was like a year, I guess I was, I think I was 25.

He was like, What is the big deal about being home alone?

Like he thought it was weird that a 25-year-old didn't like to be home alone.

And so he started like pushing and prodding and being like, What the heck?

You know, what is that about?

And he was teasing me a little bit, and then that's when I told him what happened.

And then he felt so bad.

And he was like, Why didn't you tell me something at the time?

Because he's a lawyer, so like he's a fighter, you know.

Like he would, he would have gone after them like full force.

He's like, Why didn't you tell me so we could have done something?

And I was like, I just the only way I can explain it is I couldn't really process it fully.

I didn't wake up the next day like with a clear head of logic of like we should do this, we should do that.

My body and my mind was just in such a state of shock, and like it just took a long time for me to be able to really process it, talk about it, deal with it, address it.

And because I waited so long, I never found out who did it.

I have like I remember them to the guy, one of the guys telling me he was from X-town.

So I went and like, and they were soccer players.

So I remember like I eventually went and got the yearbook, and I'm like, okay, there were certain characteristics that I remembered.

And the characteristics that I remember, remember didn't line up with the soccer players in at that school.

So then I was like, okay, now I'm lost.

But yeah, I don't know.

I I have some ideas, but I don't know for sure who did it.

And so I've always kind of felt like, okay, well then, you know, there's nothing I can do about them, so they don't matter.

I just need to focus on me and being the best me I can be and the healthiest me.

And I still have that mentality of like, if I'm healthy and they I didn't let them hurt me and I didn't let them stop me from like achieving any and every dream, then I win.

And I just have to put everything in the context of like winning and losing because my my brain is so competitive that it motivates me so much.

Yeah, I just don't focus.

Like a lot of people ask the question, like, do I forgive them?

And my brain does not give them enough energy to like be like, oh, I forgive them.

Like it's about me, not them.

So I don't not forgive them, but I don't also don't forgive them.

They're just not up, they're just not important enough in my brain to like have an emotion toward them either way.

Like they're just it's just this is about my journey and me and my healing, not about like how I feel about these two nameless people who did this horrible thing to me.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Has it been a source of of angst, a sense of of even furthering the maybe the hardness to heal, the fact that you don't know who they are?

SPEAKER_02: Maybe when I was younger, but not anymore.

You know, it just there's a lot of research that says people who do these type of things do it over and over.

So, you know, I feel bad that I didn't stop them.

And I think for me, I just pray that like they had a moment in their life where they decided to be better people and and they're not hurting other people.

But would I be curious to know?

I guess so.

But I don't think it's stopped me from healing or hurting.

And in some ways, like it made it easier because when I tell people, it's not like I'm telling them, like, oh, like, you know, little Johnny did this to me, and that someone's like, oh, little Johnny, my friend from middle school or my friend from high school or the quarterback of the football team, he would never do it.

So I didn't get a lot of like people saying, Oh, that didn't happen, or he would never do that, because nobody knows who they are.

You know, I wasn't accusing someone's that someone knew, right?

So in some ways it made it easier because nobody questioned me.

Because, you know, I think a lot of times when girls speak up, they're like, oh, so-and-so would never do that.

Oh, he's the star athlete.

Like he would never, he he we have to protect him.

And like, I think a lot of times when you name a person, that can cause a reaction that causes another level level of trauma for for women.

So I do I no, I don't think not knowing it.

I think it was I think at one point it did, and I think I just thought I was like, I'm gonna let this go.

And that's what I I think that's why I was like, okay, I gotta focus on me, because there's nothing I could do about these two humans that I'm never gonna find.

Because I did try to find them.

I I was looking through like all the yearbooks in like Bergen County from that year.

I went to the library to to go to look at the yearbooks and and and I went to different towns, and my mom's picking up yearbooks and photocopying the pictures in the yearbooks, and I was sending them to my friends.

So any of these people look familiar, and they were like, No.

So it was dark too.

It was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Like in one school, I think it might have been the kids on a certain soccer team, but I don't know for sure.

So I don't I can't really focus on on people that I don't know who they are.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Before we move on throughout your story, I wanted to ask you, how did you react to your parents' reaction?

Were you surprised by the way they reacted to the news with your mom and your dad?

Was it what you expected?

SPEAKER_02: You know, for a long time I thought if my dad knew it would kill him.

And thank God it didn't.

So that was part of why I was so scared to tell him.

And at some point my mom was like, he can handle it.

But I think what surprised me, I don't want to say it surprised me because my parents' selfless behavior never surprises me.

They've always been selfless parents, but they didn't like cry in front of me or ever share like the pain that it makes them feel.

They just never really showed, they never made their emotions my burden to carry.

So it was just like, what can we do to love you through this?

What can we do to support you through this?

It was never I never got like like my dad asked me why I didn't tell him, but it was never like yelling, like, why didn't you tell me?

Like they put their emotions and their feelings and their the effects that that it had on him and or and my mom completely to the side.

Yeah, they they just didn't, they didn't make their emotions about it my burden.

They just like they put me first in whatever I wanted to do and whatever I needed.

And if I wanted to share, especially, you know, I I didn't talk about it a whole lot with my dad.

It was like I told him, and then like that was enough.

Like I didn't, it was too much to talk about it with him a lot because I didn't want to hurt him.

But my mom, who has a degree in psychology, she what she she wasn't a psychologist, but has a degree in psychology, is just very smart and very good with comforting people and saying the right things.

She was really, really great in just being an ear to listen to if I wanted to talk about and giving me the right feedback I needed, the right she just always said the right thing and she just gave me an ear to talk about it if I ever needed to talk about it.

And again, never cried and said, Oh, this is like this.

I'm so sad this happened to you.

And I know she was, and I know it really hurt her, and I know it like broke my parents' heart, but they never made their feelings my burden or my weight to carry.

They never made me feel worse or anything like that.

They were just they were strong for me and just supported me.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So my next question is what brought you to the point of sharing your story publicly?

Walk me through that, kind of where you were in your life, career-wise, and in what the story is behind you deciding to put this out into the world.

SPEAKER_02: I think for many years after I shared with my parents, in the back of my mind, I always thought I would share my story and I would be an advocate at some point in my life.

But I always thought I would like wait, way, way, way, way in the future.

A I was, you know, a sportscaster on TV.

So that was really my focus for a long time.

And I was like, I don't know how to like shift into talking about my story.

And then also I think that I was procrastinating talking about my story because I didn't want to hurt my parents.

I think I wanted to protect them.

But then it this had been on my mind, like sharing my story, this idea.

I was I was a sportscaster in Cleveland at the time, and at this point I had been telling other people's stories of perseverance, of resilience for many years, and all the other people's stories were really inspiring to me.

And I thought their vulnerability was really courageous and also really helpful to other people.

Then I did an interview with this girl, Gab Cruz, who's one of my good friends to this day, but we weren't we weren't friends at first.

We met at a basketball game, started talking.

I, you know, there aren't that many women who are in the press box at a basketball game, an NBA game.

So I tended to always introduce myself to other women because I felt like we were part of the same, you know, group.

And her and I started talking, and she had this nonprofit link in her bio on her Instagram called Love Doesn't Shove.

And I asked her what it was, and she opened up to me that she was abused in college by her boyfriend.

And she ended up breaking up with him, becoming an all-American runner, starting a nonprofit, like super badass boss type of thing.

And I loved it that she was so perseverant after this horrible situation with her boyfriend.

I was like, let's do a story.

Would you can I interview you?

And she was like, No, I'm not ready for his parents to see it.

I'm not ready for my parents to see, see it.

I'm not ready for myself to talk about this on TV.

She was like, Thank you.

If I ever change my mind, I'll let you know.

But no, no, and like, no.

I'm like, okay.

But we we stayed in touch.

We were, we like, we'd go to dinner once in a while.

And then like one day, it was actually after do you remember the story about Brock Turner?

He was a swimmer at Stanford, and he was accused, convicted of raping another student at Stanford.

And when they were doing his sentencing, I believe it was his father who said, like, two minutes of his life shouldn't erase 20 years of his life.

Like it was really dismissive of the what those two minutes did to this innocent woman.

And it was, it's it was a pretty awful, awful statement and really just dismissive of sexual violence and violence against women.

And so that's when she reached out to me and said, I'm ready to tell my story.

And she gave a great interview.

She was so vulnerable and honest and emotional, and it ended up going viral, the story in in Cleveland at the time.

And I asked her after the interview, I was like, Why'd you change your mind?

Like, what made you decide to share your story and not just share your story, but be so open and so vul vulnerable?

And she said, Lauren, I realized that it's the silence of victims that allow predators to continue their predatory behavior.

And that, like, I like that's etched in my mind that that when she said that.

And I knew in that moment, like here I am asking her to tell her story.

And I'm silent about my own.

And I wrote a blog to go that with that story that just said the last line of the story insinuated that I too was a victim of violence.

So it was me like basically putting my feet in the water, like just like, is it cold?

Is it warm?

You know, like just testing, like put putting my like something happened to me and I was telling people, but I didn't say I didn't go into detail.

I left the story about her.

I more just kind of said, you know, she inspired me because the same thing happened to me.

And then I just kind of had to find the right time and the right avenue.

And I couldn't just share my story like anywhere or anyhow, if I wanted to publicly, because I was under contract.

I was on TV under contract, like I couldn't do things quickly without permission from my boss.

So I also had to figure out like, how am I gonna tell my boss this and how am I gonna like frame it in a way that, you know, he's gonna say, Oh yeah, go ahead, share this.

So I ended up connecting with Cheryl Sandberg through a mutual friend.

Cheryl Sandberg was an executive at Facebook.

I think her title was COO.

And she wrote a book, Lean In, and she was working on her second book, Option B, which is about resilience.

She wrote that book and inspired by unfortunately losing her husband suddenly.

And so she asked me to do something for her website to promote her book.

Her book had already been written.

And I was like, oh, this is an interesting proposition that I can use to take to my boss.

So they had a ghostwriter.

They let me write my own piece, but it was like very much in their format, their tone, their, it was not exactly how I would have presented it.

So I asked my boss if I could simultaneously, as I did this open this statement on her website, write an open letter to sexual assault survivors.

And April, it was, I wrote it in April, published it in April, was Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

So I also was able to make it timely by asking to do it that month and releasing it the same week as Cheryl Sandberg released my story.

So I ended up writing this open letter.

And I had a boss that I think was more compassionate for sexual assault or sexual violence victims than maybe other bosses would be, because he had done a story that he won a lot of awards for about sexual violence in um the Air Force, I believe it was.

So he had a little bit more compassion and was a little bit less afraid of someone coming out with a story like this.

And mind you, it's pre-me tube movement.

So pre-me tube movement, it was still a very like taboo subject.

Like, oh my God, sexual violence, like keep that to yourself.

And quote unquote made people uncomfortable.

But he let me do it.

He let me write this open letter.

And we posted it on our station's website.

And I showed my parents first.

And my dad said, you know, he learned a lot of details about what happened through that letter that he didn't know before.

I remember I showed my parents first.

And I think they had some hesitation about like how it might affect my career, but then they ultimately were like, if this is gonna help you in any way, we're here for you.

We'll go for it.

And they shared my letter on their Facebook pages and they just were very supportive.

Once again, I don't really have a story of my parents not being supportive.

So like I am definitely my blessings every day for hitting the parent lottery.

But yeah, so I ended up publishing this letter, and it was our top story on our station website for like two weeks.

It went super viral.

I had you know, Browns players, Cavs players retweeting it, sharing it, quoting it, and saying, you know, we support you, we got your back.

One of the players on the Browns actually messaged me, text messaged me, and said the same thing happened to my mother.

Thank you for advocating and sharing your story.

So yeah, so for me, it was I when I pressed like I tweeted it out first.

When I pressed, you know, the button to tweet it out.

I I was crying.

And I'm not like that doesn't happen that much with me.

It was just such a release to let it out and to put it out there.

It was also something like every time I dated a guy, we had to have this like conversation about my past and like this happened, and I just felt like people needed to know.

Like I felt like it was important to tell people, and it was just like, okay, it's out there now.

Like I don't need to like have these weird, I don't know, awkward, not weird, but awkward conversations or uncomfortable conversations.

Like I'm just putting it out there, and it's no longer something that's uncomfortable for me because it shouldn't be uncomfortable for me.

It should be for, you know, uncomfortable for the society that enabled this type of behavior and for the people who do these type of things.

And so I felt like I was giving this skeleton in my closet back to its rightful owner.

Like it wasn't mine to care.

I didn't do anything wrong.

So it was very framing.

It was very like, here, let me, you you take this back, it's yours.

Weight lifted off my shoulder.

And I say, like, that's the moment my secret became my superpower because this thing that used to be like lingering in my head and uh weighing me down and hurting me, now all of a sudden it's transformed into this thing that I can use to inspire people, to show people that that this thing that hurt me didn't have to hold me back.

And if someone went through something similar, they too can be okay.

So my secret is my superpower because it's the thing that shows people that you can persevere and I can help other people with and I can inspire people.

So it was a really pivotal moment.

And that was the moment I was like, there's more to my career than just sports casting.

And I started brainstorming ideas of how I could do something similar for other people.

And that's when I ended up starting my own company called The Unsealed.

And The Unsealed is a platform where people can write and share open letters about their lives and about their stories.

And we asked all the letters have a positive message to go along with it.

So if it's in a negative situation like mine, you still share a positive message, share how you persevered, share how you're something that someone else can take away and be inspired by and feel hope from.

Initially, I started the site, I couldn't build a community because I didn't have a community.

So I was just finding people with good stories and ghostwriting the stories for them.

And I still do a little of that.

And like our first story went viral.

I mean, I think by I started, I launched the site in a in July.

And I had left, I had to leave my job before I could launch the site because I couldn't work somewhere else or do have a project like that while working as a sportscaster.

So I left my career as a sportscaster when my contract was up.

I had a, I think I published the letter in April of 2017, and then I started brainstorming and thinking of this idea.

And I would say my whole last year of my contract, I had started planning and plotting this company.

And then, like as soon as I left, which was June of 19, I was like, okay, launch.

Like I was ready for it.

And uh by December of that year, we had 250,000 views.

I hadn't spent a penny on advertising because I didn't have any money yet.

Like I invested$3,000 to start my company, and everything from there was just money I was making, I was putting back in.

Money I was making, I was putting back in.

SPEAKER_00: Well, no, so incredible this the story that you have.

And I am so grateful for you being so open to share it with with us today.

Uh my my next question, though, is uh from the time.

Were a child, you had a dream of being a sports broadcaster, you finally made it.

What was the decision, or what was the thought process that compelled you so much to leave this quote dream career in pursuit of something more?

SPEAKER_02: So I would say it's my childhood dream, but I'm not child anymore, right?

So, but but there were things that led up to it.

You know, the the sports casting world wasn't a very kind world to women, in my opinion.

And I didn't want my whole life story to be how I endured negativity, abuse, whatever you want to call it, from men.

So that was that was a part of it.

In some ways, the the dream was the dream, right?

I got to be at the finals for the Cavs and celebrate them winning the a championship and ending a drought.

I was at the World Series when the Indians played the Cubs and the Cubs won.

Like I had all these, I'm I've interviewed LeBron, Michael Jordan, I met Muhammad Ali.

Like I've done so many really cool things.

So in some ways the dream was a dream, but in some ways the dream was really disappointing.

So I think there's that aspect of it.

And when I say disappointing, it was more like the business side and the way like women are treated in the industry.

I I didn't like it.

So that was a part of it.

And then I also was getting a little bit bored.

I was just doing the same thing over and over and over, and it started to just feel a little bit monotonous.

And I had I had read a biography of Ted Turner when I was in fifth grade, the same year I decided I wanted to be a sportscaster.

And I remember just being so fascinated how he just like hustled so much.

He was super cheap.

And like I'm super cheap now too.

And I'm like very proud of it because I'm like, Ted Turner was cheap, right?

And he just, if a fence went up, he climbed the fence or he dug a hole underneath.

He just found every way to make this business take off.

And I found that fascinating and exciting.

So I think in the back of my mind, I always found business very exciting and intriguing.

But I first wanted to become a sportscaster.

So I think being starting a business was always in the back of my mind.

Then I got a call out of nowhere to my agent.

The call was to my agent about being a sports caster for MSG.

So mind you, the New York Rangers are on MSG.

Now, this was a job for the Devils, but like this was as close as you get to your like little girl dream going to games in Madison Square Garden and watching games on MSG Network.

Like this, this was the dream job.

This was my eight-year-old self going, like, this is what I want.

You know, that was my eight-year-old self saying that, right?

But then I went and auditioned for the job.

I they flew me out to New York.

Mind you, I didn't even apply to the job.

The job called me and I prepared like crazy, probably over prepared.

And there was a week or two where I was waiting to find out if I got this job.

And I realized I didn't want it.

Like I was like, if I take this job, it was a very X's and O jobs.

You're basically following the team and reporting on the team for MSG.

And it was very um, it wasn't like feature stories, which I really liked doing.

That was kind of my bread and butter at local news.

It was more just like what happened in the game tonight, you know, um, you know, how many goals did they score?

How many hesites did this person have?

How many penalty kills, whatever it was.

It was pure, it was more pure hockey than feature and human more human interest stories.

So I also was really interested in advocating for like social issues.

And I was like, if I take this job, if I get this job, I am not gonna be able to fully express like the person I am today.

I'm not gonna be able to advocate for all these things.

Like my job isn't gonna fully fulfill and satisfy me in the way that I want to be fulfilled and satisfied.

And basically, I wanted to be an advocate and a journalist, and that doesn't really exist.

Like the whole definition of journalism or basis is an objective point of view.

So, you know, you can't be advocating for equality or the rights that you think humans should have with your own voice.

You you can only do it really through the stories you tell, and even that, you're supposed to be balanced and objective.

And so I wanted a job that didn't exist.

And I went and I I didn't get the devil's job.

So it's not I didn't turn it down.

I didn't get it.

I I came in second from what I was told by both MSG and my agent and the girl who who got the job, I'm sure, was super great and and and deserved it in every every way.

But I was relieved when I didn't get the job.

I was like, okay, you know, because if I if I had gotten it, I would have taken it because it was a good opportunity, but I didn't really deep down want it, if that makes sense.

So I was relieved when I get it because I was like, okay, like now I don't have to like make this really tough decision and and force myself to do something.

And now I'm like, okay, I need to go find the job that I want.

And I went looking for an opportunity where I could be like an advocate and uh and a journalist.

And I just couldn't find anything that fit.

I I met with um Uninterrupted, which was LeBron's media company out in LA.

I met with some other people, but nothing really felt like it clicked.

And so that's that's was what led me to start my own company.

And I actually, what I do to advocate on issues, I advocate on the issues I believe in and I stand up for them, but I also provide a platform and help other people use their voices so we can advocate through other people's stories.

And it's not advocacy in the sense of like you should think that like I don't tell people, you shouldn't rape people.

I tell people stories and human stories, and hopefully that connects to them enough that they can figure out the message and come to the conclusion on their own that like hate is bad and and rape is bad and and inequality is bad.

And I try to tell stories that allow people to see the humanity in every single person.

So that's kind of how it went about.

SPEAKER_00: Wow, wow.

I keep saying the word powerful.

I I just I listened to your story and I think how powerful it is of what you've done, of what you've overcome, of the the chapters of life that you've lived and then being adventurous enough, bold enough to turn the page when it's time to embark on a new chapter.

I just think it's absolutely incredible.

I'm absolutely just in awe at you.

Talk to me a little bit about the business that you have now today.

What does this look like?

And maybe, you know, how has the experience been leaving a you know job where you're an employee to entering the world of entrepreneurship?

SPEAKER_02: Terrifying.

It was terrifying.

At first it was completely terrifying.

I was working nonstop, 24-7.

Like my parents would come visit and be like, let's have some dinner.

I'm like, I can't, I gotta work, I gotta write, I gotta do this, I gotta do that.

I was scared, but also confident.

Like I remember leaving Cleveland and thinking, I'm never gonna work for anyone again.

And I remember knowing that and having faith.

I think it was more faith than confidence.

Like I just believed that this was meant for me.

And I believed it in a way that was so powerful that I was willing to put in so much work because I knew it was meant for me.

But at the same time, I was like scared out of my mind.

I was like, what if this doesn't work?

What if, what if this, what if that?

And I remember about two months into my company starting it, and I was working nonstop, and I like wasn't taking a moment to eat.

And I was in the kitchen and my parents were visiting.

They lived in New Jersey, but they would come to Florida a lot.

And my dad was like, what is going on here?

Like, why are you so anxious?

Not like not sitting down for a meal, not taking a break.

Like, this is a lot.

Like, what is going on here?

And I said to my dad, I'm like, you believed in me so much throughout my entire life.

You still believe in myself so much.

You think I can do anything.

If I fail at this, there's no fingers I can point.

There's no, this person didn't give me an opportunity, or there's just like nothing, there's nothing, there's no reason for it other than if I fail, it's on me.

Like it's all on me.

And then if I fail, that means that I'm not as great as you think I am, and I'm not as amazing as you think I am.

And I don't want to disappoint you.

Like I don't want to prove you wrong.

And my dad, who, as I probably already mentioned, I have the best parents ever.

My dad was like, if you wake up every morning with a positive attitude, I will always be proud.

You will never disappoint me.

Just wake up every day and have a positive outlook, a smile on your face, and I'm good.

Like I don't need much else.

Like I just, my dad just wants me to be happy.

And that was such a gift because when you wake up with a positive attitude, it also makes you more successful.

Like I believed that like I was gonna wake up in the morning and I was gonna have a viral story, or that I was gonna sign new members.

And if you believe you're gonna sign a new member, then instead of messaging 100 people, you'll message up 250 people because you're like, I just gotta find the one.

He's there, he's there.

So I think believing that and you're gonna be able to do stuff and having a positive attitude in your pursuit of things actually makes you more efficient and more successful and more determined and more relentless.

I think it made me more relentless because I believed whatever was gonna happen that was good was gonna actually happen.

So I wouldn't stop until it did.

So yeah, my dad gave me this gift of like positivity.

And then from there, the company started growing and I started, and I was making, I didn't make a lot of money in sports casting.

So I wasn't leaving behind like some crazy salaried job that I was like, how am I ever gonna make this money again?

Like it wasn't a crazy amount of I didn't have a large salary.

So within, I would say, six months of starting The Unsealed, I was making about the same amount of money I was I was making as a sports caster, like pretty close.

Once that happened, I was like, okay, there's nothing to lose now.

There's nothing to lose.

I'm at the same place I was before financially, except now I have full control, full freedom, full power to do and whatever I want.

And when you're an entrepreneur, it's not like your salary is set.

Like you can lose, you can go, you can, your salary can go up or down, right?

You can lose money and you the ceiling isn't there.

There's endless opportunity.

And I, you know, I still think there's like a lot of opportunities that I haven't uncovered fully yet and haven't explored fully because I just do a lot of things one step at a time.

Like I never, I never got investors.

I I've just been building this one block at a time.

I've never tried to get investors.

So I I still think there's a lot that I haven't fully fleshed out and pursued yet that I am that it's in my mind and that I'm aware of.

But yeah, it was really scary, but then it turned into really empowering and really exciting.

And it's still scary and it's still hard.

Like, you know, what if this falls apart?

What if that falls apart?

And there's a lot of stress because you're not just responsible for your part or the one thing that you're really good at.

Like when you're a reporter, your responsibility is to report and maybe edit a little bit and maybe do a little bit of shooting.

But like you have three maybe tasks that you're mostly assigned to, and you just do those tasks over and over.

But when you're an entrepreneur, you're responsible for everything.

So, like I learned a little bit about web development.

Not as much as I wish I knew, but I learned about web development.

I've learned about newsletters and marketing, and I've published four books through the unsealed, and I learned how to do all of that by myself.

And I've learned how to manage people.

I hire freelancers now, so I've learned how to do that.

I've learned how to use all this different software that I never even knew existed.

So I'm not just a writer anymore.

I'm not just we do virtual events and are a host.

I know so much about so many different aspects of business that I never had to know before and just didn't know it before.

So I've learned a lot.

And that's really hard to having all having all this responsibility and having to know about so many different things.

But it's also really challenging in like a fulfilling way.

It's extended always challenged.

There's no there's no monotonous in my job.

There's always something that I'm learning, figuring out, trying to trying to figure out how to do this or that, like, and Googling and asking people questions.

How did you get to this point, or how did you make this work, or how did you make money here?

So there's always this constant challenge and places to learn.

And I'm reading books.

I read a book about gamification that was so fascinating.

And I'm using all these this information and trying to use it to like build my site and build my company.

And remember, I've said like three times, I'm competitive.

So to me, this is like the ultimate competition, but you're not competing against other people, you're just competing against winning.

Like you're trying to win, you're trying to make build this successful company.

And I guess you're you're competing against the odds.

The odds are your business is gonna fail.

And I'm fighting hard and competing, and right, I think I'm winning.

And so um, it's hard, it's scary.

It's there was a quote I saw on Facebook entrepreneurs work 80 hours so they don't have to work 40.

Truth to that, right?

You know, so I work a lot.

I rise, I'm up till three, four in the morning way too often.

And I love every minute of it.

On my worst day, I love it.

It's my baby, it's a reflection of of me in a lot of ways.

And I also have a lot of freedom.

My my boyfriend and I will, he also works for himself and and has his own thing going on.

And we can pick up and say, hey, we're gonna work from California, we're gonna work from Europe, we're gonna go here and go there, and we just take our computers with us and go wherever we want.

We don't have kids.

So we have a lot of freedom, which is definitely a very cool perk, not having to be in a spot at any given time.

We can just work from anywhere.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Oh my goodness, I love it.

I have one last question for you, but before I ask you that question, for the person who is interested in learning more, will you please tell everybody where the best place is for us to send them to get plugged into your world and to get involved in this amazing community and resource that you've built?

SPEAKER_02: So the best place would be to go to theunsealed.com.

You can check out stories that iGhost wrote, you can check out stories that members submitted.

We host poetry contests, we host writing contests, you can interact with other people sharing their stories and letters and poems from members of our community.

And it's a safe space for people to share their truth and show love to one another and encourage other people.

I'm also on Instagram.

My personal Instagram is lore.brill and my professional Instagram, the Unsealed Instagram, is the dot unsealed.

And you can find us in both places.

SPEAKER_00: Amazing.

I will be sure that all of those links are inside of today's show notes for anybody you know interested in plugging into your world.

Such a powerful story you have.

And my last question for you is if you knowing what you know now, if you were able to talk to that girl the day after that horrible event happened, what would you like to say to her?

SPEAKER_02: You're gonna be fine.

You're gonna be great.

Don't worry.

Your secret is gonna become your superpower.

It's gonna be the thing that lets you know that you are incredibly strong and you can do anything.

I I tell young girls today who come to me with similar stories.

I go, there's a little gift in this horrible, horrible thing that happened to you.

And the gift is you get to go through the rest of your life knowing exactly how strong you are.

SPEAKER_00: Amazing, amazing.

Thank you so much for being here today.

For you, my listener, I hope that you've enjoyed today's conversation as much as I have, but even more than enjoyed, I hope that if you yourself have been through something like today's guest, please check out her amazing resource.

Use the link in the show notes for easy access.

And as always, if there's somebody you know who you feel like could benefit from hearing her story, please share today's episode with them.

That would mean the world to me.

With that, my friends, get out there and enjoy the day.

This is Kevin Low with Grit Great and It's Great.