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Biography & Autobiography. Psychology. Nonfiction. HTML: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 t… (more)
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CW: child abuse.
Got deep trauma? Feel like true healing is impossible? You need to read this stunning memoir, WHAT MY BONES KNOW, by radio producer and journalist Stephanie Foo (Ballantine/Penguin Random House, February 21, 2023). She explains how she ended up with complex PTSD
The author trying to meditate is so me.
I think about something simple…a block of fresh, soft, white tofu. For twenty seconds, I succeed….Mmm, tofu. What should I eat for dinner? Wait, damn it! Okay fine. I’ll focus on my breathing instead. Out. In. Out. In. Was I able to breathe as much as I should? Why did it feel like I didn’t get enough air into my lungs? Why did it feel like I was wheezing? Was I wheezing? Is something wrong with my lungs? Do I have lung cancer? I must be dying. That’s the only explanation for it. I never had my will notarized. I should probably get it notarized. Am I okay with dying? I never got to scuba dive in a coral reef. Now all the coral reefs are dying because of global warming. If I have lung cancer, there’s no way they’re going to let me scuba dive.
Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know p. 120.
Buddhist monks train the “monkey mind” through meditation. I am not a Buddhist monk, and my monkey mind is on cocaine or something because the gray matter chatter never stops.
Like a true journalist, Foo researches the heck out of her own trauma and the generational trauma of Asian immigrant families. Like a true podcast producer, she puts lots of smart people in front of the microphone to see what they can teach her. Her findings are fascinating and, for me, a revelation on many levels. Some of us may never fully heal, but Foo is a great communicator determined to learn to cope creatively in those areas where full healing may not happen. In order to do that, she must learn to let go of her perfectionism (me too, girl, me too).