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  • What My Bones Know

  • A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma
  • Written by: Stephanie Foo
  • Narrated by: Stephanie Foo
  • Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (251 ratings)

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What My Bones Know

Written by: Stephanie Foo
Narrated by: Stephanie Foo
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Publisher's 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

“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 30, 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.

©2022 Stephanie Foo (P)2022 Random House Audio

What the critics say

“Absorbing . . . a reckoning, and Foo approaches it with candor and rigor . . . profoundly affecting.”The New York Times

“Foo’s happy ending is nothing short of deliverance—rich and joyful and full of care the child was denied. . . . Possibility still glows around the edges of her sight.”USA Today

“An unflinching reminder of the hidden struggles many face, told with the keen eye of a researcher and the brutality of a documentarian.”—NPR

What listeners say about What My Bones Know

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A must-read for those living with CPTSD

Wow. This book was so honest, raw, and necessary in order to validate and make me learn more about my own experience with CPTSD. While the author’s own experience was heartbreaking to listen to in the beginning chapters, her struggles, thoughts, and analyses in the subsequent chapters made so much sense because of them.

Thank you for writing this book and for putting words to the thoughts and emotions that I’ve had throughout my time beyond childhood.

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This book should come with a trigger warning

All the negative elements in this have reactivated my childhood trauma. There is a lot of repeated negative facts about CPTSD that I already knew. I would not recommend this book and would advise caution in anyone trying to recover.

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So enlightening and helpful

Loved this book because it delivered so much more than I anticipated. I have been on a journey with my own mental health for over 10 years and am quite well versed with trauma, therapy etc. I didn’t read this book to learn more, but I learned so much with how the author articulated her own experience and explained what she had learned.
Thank you for sharing your story and your road to recovery - this book has helped me uncover layers of my own healing and I’m sure will help many others as well.

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Amazing

I sobbed with feeling fully seen and understood. Stephanie Foo’s experience with cptsd helped me to better understand myself, to give myself permission to not be perfect, and gave me hope.

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Great perspective

I really enjoyed this perspective on chronic trauma and healing from some horrific experiences. The author’s bravery, persistance and willingness to try different approaches to healing is laudible. I learn a lot about my own trauma.

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I'm pretty sure this book just changed my life

I have been trying to wade through the waters of what is "wrong" with me for a very long time. Am I bipolar, do I have ADHD, am I broken? I felt so seen as I listened and I feel like I have been handed a path way to discovery. THANK YOU Stephanie Foo!

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It was ok except the end

I was intrigued about the authors story. When she started sharing real audio of her and her therapist sessions, I checked out. Way too personal and obviously catered to HER trauma. I felt that was too much. Same with hearing her vows. I feel like that’s aspects were filler to make the book more complete.

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Stephanie Foo is a gift to the world.

I turned 60 today, and I’ve learned so much about myself listening to Stephanie’s exquisitely told story. For the first time in my life I feel validated and a have a sense of peace. Thank you Stephanie, you are a beautiful human being. 🙏🏻

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unrelatable but understandable

This is the first medical memoir i’ve read, and I can say the bar has been set high. I don’t suffer from severe familial trauma, but that didnt stop Stephanie Foo from allowing me to understand and sympathize with all that she’s been through. I now know what CPTSD is and what makes it so complex throughout her personal stories. The structure of the story was done perfectly, going from the cause of her trauma, to the results of it, then how she learned to live with it. I cried multiple times throughout this book, not only at the sorrowful parts but the heart warming times as well, which is due to the emotion Stephanie puts in her writing and the way she tells her story. This book frequently travels my mind, as Stephanie Foo reminds me to dance in between my battles aswell.

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Relatable

This was the first relatable cptsd informed book i had come across from an Asian female lense. There was so much heartache, painful truths and experiences that were relatable. Her healing journey was inspiring and is a good template for the Asian community.

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  • Lauren B.
  • 2022-03-10

Helped me immensely in better understanding my CPTSD

After being diagnosed with PTSD in 2019, actually CPTSD - but that’s not recognized as a true diagnosis - yet, I much like Stephanie felt lost and bummed out. Our stories are different, but we both had traumatic childhoods and our trauma responses are similar. It is a beautiful book, inspiring, helpful, I learned new things, and it made me feel less alone and hopeful.

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  • D. Cagle
  • 2022-07-25

Compelling and important but painful read

There were moments I had a really difficult time listening to what the author experienced as a child and I fell into minimizing my trauma as compared to hers. Then I heard HER do the same. I felt this book was beneficial to having an overall understanding of CPTSD, some of the treatment options (thank you for your candidness in relaying your experience with various treatments and your openness to discuss options. I personally have tried to read The Body Keeps the Score 3 times and I have been able to do so far due to my own triggers. This was extremely helpful for those unable or not ready to read thru such academic material.)

I enjoyed the flow of the book and how smoothly the author navigated childhood, adulthood, treatment options, family history, how generational trauma affects us, present day, seeking treatment and various options, back to childhood and then back to present day. My brain can jump around a lot and it often has trouble processing books where a lot of jumping around occurs. This book had SO MUCH jumping around, but honestly, it flowed so well and was done so expertly that I was able to focus and appreciate that we were once again “back here again” receiving deeper insight and richer understanding.

This is a book about Ms Foo’s personal experience, her collective experience with immigrants, her culture, the culture within the United States, everyone with CPTSD regardless of causation, treatment options, expenses, hurdles in finding mental health care, difficulty in maintaining relationships for as well as those with CPTSD.

When the book would become very “heavy” (in my own personal opinion) and I would need to set it aside, I always felt empowered in listening again as Ms. Foo was quick to add insights, humor, encouragement to her realism and the pain of the human experience and the struggle and enormity of recovery.

This book does include a lot of “language” which may be off putting to some listeners. Please listen anyway. There are many people of faith that are suffering from CPTSD due to trauma. A lot of it is from a spiritual or religious upbringing or even patriarchal teachings within their faith that further creates abuse. These may be people that may have trouble listening to colorful language, but they very much need this book. They may even find themselves getting curious as to their own reaction to certain words being said.

If you have CPTSD from childhood abuse or an abusive relationship as an adult, or you love someone who you know does or may have CPTSD, this is an engaging, helpful, insightful book. I pray Ms. Foo continues to find freedom in her healing journey, along with all of those of us who have CPTSD.

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  • Zeezu
  • 2022-07-17

from hopeful to hopeless

great autobiography for the author but it left me feeling more depressed and hopeless. I can't find a therapist who takes my insurance let alone 400. dollars an hour. what about the rest of us?

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  • Ellen
  • 2022-02-26

Astounding, honest, hopeful, well researched

If you have ever struggled with ANY type of mental health challenges, you will find many nuggets of gold in this book!

While it is written specifically about the author’s work to learn about and grow through her history of repeated childhood trauma and eventual diagnosis with Complex PTSD (C-PTSD), any human should be able to connect to and find solace in what Ms. Foo has to say.

Her honesty is refreshing and disarming. The inclusion of several recordings from actual therapy sessions makes the audio version really stand out. To top it all off, her writing and narration are killer!

KUDOS, FOO!!! (I am your fan for life!)

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  • Keri Turner
  • 2022-07-12

Sobbed.

I heard about this book because the Author/Reader was on The Allusionist discussing Resilience and I wanted to hear more.

We are different in almost every possible way, but she articulated the experience of growing up in an abusive home and living with that as an adult with the most resonant and inclusive way. Her story is different from mine, but I felt like I was listening to my sister talk about our father when she spoke about hers.

Be prepared to cry. Reading this was a validating catharsis.

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  • M.B.
  • 2022-07-15

Everyone needs to read this!

She actually gives you her research findings from extensive therapy for chronic PTSD. This is such an interesting story and is so helpful at the same time. She’s an amazing writer, very insightful, and you leave the book feeling you like you have some tools. Highly recommended!

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  • J. Molnar
  • 2022-07-11

Hard to Review

This is a hard one. I feel for the author who had an abusive childhood resulting in PTSD. It was interesting when she spoke about the Asian culture but if you don’t have or involved with someone who has PTSD or interested in child abuse and recovery the book is slow and repetitive. My husband suffers from PTSD from being a medic in Vietnam and I still skipped chapters. I really admire the author and what she achieved but it really did get tedious. Her narration is excellent so its hard to recommend or not recommend.

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  • Caroline Siler
  • 2022-07-20

Life changing

Life changing read. She was able to put words out into the world that I was unable to convey.

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  • mm
  • 2022-06-22

My Mother is a Survivor of Extreme Parental Abuse

My mother's father abused her physically and sexually when she was a child. She got pregnant as a way to escape her home. A high school dropout with little education, my mother never received treatment or had the help to process what happened to her. I have long suspected that her erratic behavior and neglect of me had something to do with the trauma that she experienced as a child. My mother was so busy battling her own demons, protecting herself from every perceived threat, that she could not see or properly love her own children. The trauma was passed on to a new a generation.

Stephanie Foo's memoir helped me understand my mother (and myself) better, including why the fight-or-flight amygdala is so over-reactive, the ways in which we try to defend ourselves, how and why alienation or disassociation are protective measures, and ways in which we can stop protecting ourselves and start relating to other people not as threats but as humans. The book has opened a door to a whole new understanding of my upbringing and experience, my difficulties with relationships, and it gives me some hope for my own healing. I would love to learn more about the children of untreated survivors of complex PTSD. We need a book like Stephanie's for us. (Stephanie: Maybe your next book? I am willing to be interviewed. :)

It was also wonderful to listen to this on audio. Stephanie has wonderfully expressive vocals (she did work in radio) which make the book come alive. And the snippets of real sessions with her therapist, Dr. Jacob Ham, make the audio version even better. I was amazed by Ham's treatment methodology, how he is an active participant in the therapy, and how he models and teaches Stephanie to self-monitor and relate to other humans in the therapy session. This is so different than the distanced "expert" that we usually encounter in therapy. Dr. Ham should teach his method to others; I wish he were my therapist.

Thank you, Stephanie Foo, for your authenticity and for writing the book that was sorely needed by so many. I hope this will help me begin a new path. Much gratitude.

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  • Alicia Cleveland
  • 2022-02-26

Meh

Good in some areas and not so much in others. Good info overall. Learned some insight, but not as much as I expected

3 people found this helpful

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  • Anonymous User
  • 2022-12-11

Painful and beautiful.

Warmed my heart and made me cry. This book feels like a blanket, a friend and a sister ready to give you tough love.

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  • Ju Le
  • 2022-07-27

very very very good

super hard to listen to the horrible stuff the authoe went through as a child at the begining, but as she says herself : it really is worth it.
absolutely interesting all the way through. and full of hope, not in a "magical" self developpment way, just in a finely documented, sincère way.
thank you🌈