What My Bones Know

Summary

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

"Every cell in my body is filled with the code of generations of trauma, of death, of birth, ofmigration, of history that I cannot understand. . . . I want to have words for what my bones know."

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.

My Verdict

This book written by Stephanie Foo is subtitled "A Memoir of Healing From Complex Trauma." This one was not an easy read either, but then again many memoirs are not.

The first third of the book was difficult to read as it detailed her abuse and abandonment. After that, she ties her story to the science of complex PTSD. I found this to be very interesting as someone who had some knowledge of PTSD but didn't realize that complex-PTSD was different.

This memoir is not about child abuse; it is about healing from child abuse. She was fortunate to have privilege and access to resources. The book left me a little sad about all of the people who do not have that same accessibility.

It was a good read but was repetitive at times. I give this one 4 stars.