What My Bones Know
A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma
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4.6 • 179 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, NPR, Mashable, She Reads, Publishers Weekly
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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Both harrowing and inspirational, this memoir from journalist Stephanie Foo is packed with invaluable insight into trauma and the healing process. Foo had just turned 30 when she began learning how her self-hatred, depression, anxiety, and even problems with her physical health could all be traced to both personal and inherited trauma. She takes us with her on her deeply moving journey to understand her complex PTSD diagnosis, delving into her own abusive childhood as well as the generational trauma her family suffered long before they immigrated from Malaysia to San Jose. We were touched by Foo’s candidness and fascinated by the personal and political struggles that reached her via her family tree. What My Bones Know will change your outlook on how your personal history impacts your present happiness.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Foo, radio journalist and former producer of This American Life, recounts her astounding story of living with complex PTSD (C-PTSD), a diagnosis that describes the psychological pain experienced by those who've suffered recurring traumas. To find her "redemption arc" and reckon with her trauma, Foo felt she needed "to tease apart the careful life I have crafted for myself, the one that is threatening to unravel at any minute." She exceeds her intention by delivering a heartrending portrayal of the physical abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of her parents, immigrants from Malaysia ("If you are beaten for hundreds of mistakes, then every mistake becomes dangerous.... The world itself becomes a threat"). Foo also writes of the therapeutic work she undertook in her adulthood to heal and the agency she's gained from it. "C-PTSD is a wily shape-shifter," she writes. "Each episode is its own odyssey... requiring new bursts of courage." What takes this brilliant work from a personal story to a cultural touch point is the way Foo situates her experiences into a larger conversation about intergenerational trauma, immigration, and the mind-body connection ("I was casting abuse and bad parenting as a central theme across my community—was this perpetuating a negative, unhealthy stereotype?"). This is a work of immense beauty.
Customer Reviews
Life changing
There is so much good information wrapped in so much emotion and history. Not only did I connect with Shtephanie, but she helped me understand C-PTSD better. She did a lot of leg work, for herself, for all of us. At the end of the book, I bawled my eyes out. She made it. She isn’t fixed but she has made it to a better more fruitful life. Beautiful book, amazing information. I hope I can achieve the same. Thank you.
Life changing and stunningly written
Magnificent exploration of CPTSD. A beautifully written account of the costs of physical and emotional abuse and the quest for recovery. Our society still at a loss to diagnose and treat a disorder that doesn’t present very easily in women but wreaks havoc on self esteem and the legacy of participating abuse. Thank you so much for sharing your incredible account.
Very revealing, learned a lot about my own PTSD
Great read