Yesterday I logged onto Goodreads, the website that tracks the books you and your friends are reading, and I noticed that an old college classmate had marked a book "to-read": What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing From Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo. "Ooh a new trauma book?" I thought, my interest piqued. Turns out this book was very new—the newest. It was released on the auspicious 2/2/22, mere days ago.

I wondered if her story and insights would be boring since I've been spending at minimum 40 hours a week for the past 3 years working in this field here at PACEs Connection, and since I had done so much reading on the subject already. A review in Goodreads assured me that even if I had read all the trauma books, this one would keep my attention.

"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." (Amazon description)

I downloaded the audiobook and dove in.

Immediately in the introduction, she details the moment she got her C-PTSD diagnosis and how she arrived to work, stared blankly at her computer, and just could not even. "Gah!" I thought, "I remember this exact moment for myself." I had gotten my Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) diagnosis (albeit an unofficial one since this isn't in the DSM), and arrived at work Monday morning in June of 2016 after reading Jonice Webb's Running On Empty: Overcoming Childhood Emotional Neglect, and I didn't feel normal. I couldn't really see the screen. Everyone in the office seemed like alien beings. Or rather, I was the alien being. "Maybe I can't do human life," I thought, "maybe I need to go live on one of those therapy ranches with horses. Yeah, maybe I need to do horse life instead of human life."

I felt seen. And validated.

I don't want to give too many spoilers to her book. It was a delight to hear each and every insight she got as she scraped her way forward, fighting tooth and nail for healing. But I will discuss a couple of things so if you want to know nothing more about this book, turn back now. I highly recommend the Audible version, read by the author.

As I listened to her story, I couldn't help but think of the life parallels between her and Darrell Hammond, featured in Michelle Esrick's film Cracked Up. "I hope she saw this film, so she doesn't feel alone," I kept thinking. Then she got to the part where she met Dr. Jacob Ham, who she'd heard on a podcast with Darrell and Michelle. "Yes!" I thought.

I got to meet Dr. Ham, virtually, when he joined Cracked Up: The Evolving Conversation, the series I got to help produce here at PACEs Connection in 2020. I just loved his soft yet powerful way of speaking. I had so many lightbulb moments as he talked about the importance of relational healing which was called "The Art of Attunement". My mom had watched that episode and she and I were able to have a healing mother-daughter talk about trauma and our relationship as a result. "Do all trauma healing roads lead back to this one therapist?" I thought. (*Note: You can watch that episode here. It's Ep5. It's worth the $12.50.)

Stephanie Foo then gives us the most amazing gift—recorded therapy sessions between her and Dr. Ham. More insight into the art of attunement, session by session, insight by hard-won insight. I texted my mom, "Dr. Jacob Ham is in the book!! He becomes the author's therapist! She plays their recorded therapy sessions in the audiobook!" "Oh geez—I must read!" she responded. Yeah, we're super fans.

It was healing to read Foo's story and see myself sometimes reflected back. "Same ACEs score," and, "Okay but Pret-a-Manger does have some dank wraps," were two notes I put into my Notes app on my iPhone. The part that felt the most healing to me personally was about the cold, hard shell Foo put around herself as a teen and young adult. I still have trouble forgiving the 14-year-old version of myself that got angry and poked my friend with the pen I'd had in my hand in class in middle school, drawing blood. I hadn't realized how angry I'd become at him, who was poking me with his finger over and over again during an exam. I was called into the principal's office and suspended from school for "assault with a deadly weapon." That same year I had pushed a close girlfriend of mine really hard in a moment of intense anger. I started to internalize the idea that there was something wrong with me. I was a bad kid.

In adulthood, I've often gotten the feedback that I've had edges. I'm direct, blunt, and sometimes hard to be around. It's hard I think because women especially are supposed to be soft, warm, and accommodating. I was a traitor to my gender. I was violent, angry, hardened. "No one wants me like this. I'm too hard to love," I've often thought. I've done much of the same healing work that Foo has described in her book, but I still was finding it almost impossible to forgive this past, and sometimes still present (sans violent attacks), version of myself.

Extending compassion to Foo as she shares so vulnerably the ways she didn't show up for a friend in need, the times she was rude, the times people didn't love her behavior has had the effect of letting me extend this same compassion to myself.

This is the power of storytelling.

Thank you, Stephanie, for the gift of your story: raw, vulnerable, transformational, messy, eloquent, captivating. I finished this book with awe and gratitude.

For those of you reading this blog, no matter what type of trauma you've had or where you are on your journey, there's something for you in this book. Her commitment to the truth empowers each and every one of us to more clearly see our own truths. Her commitment to healing empowers each of us to keep showing up, asking for help, and doing the work. Her commitment to love gives us each permission to soften our hearts and let people in.

Go get this book. Do not delay. Shop small business but if you're going to go Amazon/Audible anyway, here's the link.