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What My Bones Know

A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

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What My Bones Know

Written by: Stephanie Foo
Narrated by: Stephanie Foo
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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. Asian Creators Mental Health Mental Health Awareness Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Health Inspiring Heartfelt Thought-Provoking Native Spirituality Trauma Memoir
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I loved this book. I really enjoyed the journey she made from hurt to healed or better yet awareness

I felt deeply moved and cried at times

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A beautiful, dark, funny and insightful memoir; I cried and laughed in equal parts. As a person who underwent childhood trauma, this story renewed my hope and curiosity about what we can do to heal ourselves. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

Wonderful

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This book was deeply moving, and shows a real process of learning about yourself, digging deep, and healing. I would recommend to anybody on a similar journey.

Healing

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I recognized many of the symptoms described in the book. Sometimes with relief and other times with dread. I have been diagnosed with PTSD. But reading the book I realize I likely have C-PTSD. Multiple traumatic events starting in childhood and moving thru adolescence and early adulthood.
PTSD didn’t quite cover it and now I understand why.
So many of the behaviours described I’ve done myself. Interrupting people, not listening well. The rage. Oh my goodness, the rage. It was painful to listen to at times.
I want to listen from chapter 37 to the end again. The chapters with the recordings of the therapy sessions and then going thru the transcripts afterwards to try to make sense of the session. YES. I wish I had takes my therapy sessions.
Thanks Stephanie for sharing. I’m sorry about your parents, but you just gained a new soul sister from Canada.

Relatable and healing

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Thank you for sharing your unfathomable journey. You sharing your story gave me motivation to endure mine with renewed courage and hope. Looking forward to a sequel!

BRILLIANT!

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