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What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma
A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life
"Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal."-Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD-a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years.
Both of Foo's parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she'd moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD.
In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don't move on from trauma-but you can learn to move with it.
Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body-and examines one woman's ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.
"Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal."-Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD-a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years.
Both of Foo's parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she'd moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD.
In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don't move on from trauma-but you can learn to move with it.
Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body-and examines one woman's ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.
Editorial Reviews
"Stephanie Foo's incredible memoir speaks to so many things at once: the horrors of an abusive childhood, the enduring power of trauma, the messy science of the brain, and the lifelong quest for meaning and healing. Funny and tragic, unflinchingly honest and relentlessly hopeful, What My Bones Know is a marvel of a book."-Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes
"Foo's journalistic eye serves her generously through a hard-won examination of trauma and its aftermath. I cried while turning the pages; I knew that I was witnessing an astonishing literary endeavor. For others who live with C-PTSD, this is a crucial, life-changing book."-Esmé Weijun Wang, New York Times bestselling author of The Collected Schizophrenias
"In What My Bones Know, Stephanie Foo mines her past in search of answers, uncovering what it means to navigate trauma over generations. With striking candidness, Foo takes readers on her journey to understand her diagnosis of complex PTSD, weaving together reporting and personal history. A testament to Foo's determination, What My Bones Know is an act of reclamation-and a bold, defiant proclamation: ‘I am here.'"-Kat Chow, author of Seeing Ghosts
"Foo's journalistic eye serves her generously through a hard-won examination of trauma and its aftermath. I cried while turning the pages; I knew that I was witnessing an astonishing literary endeavor. For others who live with C-PTSD, this is a crucial, life-changing book."-Esmé Weijun Wang, New York Times bestselling author of The Collected Schizophrenias
"In What My Bones Know, Stephanie Foo mines her past in search of answers, uncovering what it means to navigate trauma over generations. With striking candidness, Foo takes readers on her journey to understand her diagnosis of complex PTSD, weaving together reporting and personal history. A testament to Foo's determination, What My Bones Know is an act of reclamation-and a bold, defiant proclamation: ‘I am here.'"-Kat Chow, author of Seeing Ghosts
