What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

Description:

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.

Review

“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

“Many trauma survivors struggle to describe the seemingly indescribable sense of carrying something intangibly sharp—something there but not there—inside. But in What My Bones Know, Stephanie Foo details that and more. Her achingly exquisite memoir takes us on a journey through complex trauma, illuminating her path of self-discovery and providing real hope for those who long to heal.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

“At turns funny and devastating, terrifying and transcendent, Foo’s quest for understanding should be relevant not just to someone with C-PTSD but to anyone seeking to grow and be present in this one life.”—Jenny Odell, New York Times bestselling author of How to Do Nothing

“Funny and tragic, unflinchingly honest and relentlessly hopeful, What My Bones Know is a marvel of a book.”—Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes

“I cried while turning the pages; I knew that I was witnessing an astonishing literary endeavor. For others who live with C-PTSD, this is a crucial, life-changing book.”—Esmé Weijun Wang, New York Times bestselling author of The Collected Schizophrenias

“What My Bones Know is an absolute triumph. Foo’s beautifully written memoir is a balm and a light for anyone afraid that their early traumas have permanently stunted their capacity for connection, love, and purpose. This book is a must-read for anyone hungry for hope.”—Christie Tate, New York Times bestselling author of Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life

“A striking memoir . . . Stephanie Foo’s voice is singular—at times poetic, at times biting. This is a must-read for anyone healing from complex trauma.”—Jennette McCurdy, #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died

“This book is a major step forward in the study of trauma. It’s also a huge artistic genre-busting achievement. Stephanie Foo’s brilliant storytelling and strong, funny, relatable voice makes complex PTSD enjoyable to read about.”—Kathleen Hanna, singer for Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, and The Julie Ruin

“This is a work of immense beauty.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Foo’s writing is shrewdly insightful. In telling her story so compellingly, she joins authors such as Anna Qu and Ly Tran in adding nuance to the ‘model minority’ myth, if not actively subverting it.”—Library Journal, starred review

About the Author

Stephanie Foo is a writer and radio producer, most recently for This American Life. Her work has aired on Snap Judgment, Reply All, 99% Invisible, and Radiolab. A noted speaker and instructor, she has taught at Columbia University and has spoken at venues from Sundance Film Festival to the Missouri Department of Mental Health. She lives in New York City with her husband.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Prologue

“Do you want to know your diagnosis?”

I blink and stare at my therapist. She gazes at me from her serene office, where sunshine glows through her gauzy curtains, birdsong bursts through the windows, and one of those little fountains with a giant marble on it burbles, which I guess is supposed to be relaxing. In the back of the room is a framed copy of the poem “Desiderata.” You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

But I’m not really here. My therapist’s warm office is in San Francisco, and I am in my dark, freezing, six-by-six-foot office in New York City, talking to her through a small window on my computer. The reason I know about the poem in her office is the same reason I can’t believe she is only telling me my diagnosis now: I’ve been her client for eight years.

My sessions with my therapist, whom I’ll call Samantha, began when I was twenty-two, when I lived in San Francisco and needed help with a very San Francisco problem: an INTJ tech-nerd boyfriend. I lucked out with Samantha. She was acerbic and clever but loving. She’d always make time for an emergency session after a breakup and even bought me a beautiful leather-bound travel journal before my first solo trip abroad. My sessions with her quickly moved beyond boy talk, and we began discussing my monthslong bouts of depression and my constant anxiety around friendships, work, and family. I loved her so much that I kept seeing her via Skype after I moved across the country to New York when I was twenty-six.

Our session today begins with me complaining about my lack of focus. Samantha asks me to do some positive visualizations and suggests I picture myself in a safe space, as a powerful being, full of light. I try half-heartedly, but I always feel corny doing this stuff. Then, as she does every week, she tells me not to be so hard on myself. “I’m sure you’re being more productive than you’re letting on,” she says, ignoring my eye rolls. “I’ve seen you pull yourself out of depressions like this before. I know you can pull yourself up out of this one.”

But that’s exactly the problem. I’m tired of pulling. I don’t want to pull anymore. I want a dumbwaiter, or an escalator, or a floating rainbow drug cloud. Anything to lift me toward emotional stability. To fix me. I’ve suffered from anxiety and depression since I was twelve years old. The pain is a fanged beast that I’ve battled a hundred times throughout the years, and every time I think I’ve cut it down for good, it reanimates and launches itself at my throat again. But in recent years, I’d convinced myself that this battle was completely pedestrian. I mean, twentysomething millennials are all really stressed out, aren’t they? Isn’t depression just shorthand for the human condition? Who isn’t anxious here in New York, the capital of neuroticism?

That is, until I turned thirty. One by one, I’d watched my erratic friends hit thirty and quickly become adults. They reported that they had less energy, so they stopped caring as much about what other people thought and settled into themselves. Then they bought beige linen pants and had babies. I’ve waited for that mature, elevated calm, but my thirtieth birthday was months ago, and if anything, I care more than ever. I care about shopping cart placement and plastic in the oceans and being a good listener. I care about how I seem to f*** everything up all the time. I care and I care, and I hate myself for it.

My friends got one thing right, though: I’m so tired now. Thirty years on this earth, and I’ve been sad at least half that time.

On my subway rides to work, I stare at the supposedly neurotic masses—who are calmly staring at their phones—and think: Maybe I’m different from them? Maybe something is wrong with me? Something big. In the past week, I’ve been scrolling through various mental illnesses on WebMD, searching for symptoms that sound familiar to find an answer.

Now, near the end of my session with Samantha, after we’ve exhausted the usual pep talks and affirmations, I gather up my courage to ask about my internet diagnosis. “Do you think I’m bipolar?”

Samantha actually laughs. “You are not bipolar. I am sure of it,” she says. And that’s when she asks, “Do you want to know your diagnosis?”

I don’t yell, “Lady, I’ve been seeing you for a f***ing decade, yes I want to know my goddamn diagnosis,” because Samantha taught me about appropriate communication. Thanks, Samantha.

Instead, I say, “Yes. Of course.”

Something in her jaw becomes determined, and her gaze is direct. “You have complex PTSD from your childhood, and it manifests as persistent depression and anxiety. There’s no way someone with your background couldn’t have it,” she says.

“Oh. Yeah, PTSD.” Post-traumatic stress disorder. I had a crappy childhood, so I kinda figured that.

“Not just PTSD. Complex PTSD. The difference between regular PTSD and complex PTSD is that traditional PTSD is often associated with a moment of trauma. Sufferers of complex PTSD have undergone continual abuse—trauma that has occurred over a long period of time, over the course of years. Child abuse is a common cause of complex PTSD,” she says. Then her eyes drift to the corner of the screen. “Oh—we’re out of time! Let’s continue this next week.”

The first thing I do after our Skype window closes is bring up Google. I’ve never heard of complex PTSD. Surprisingly, there aren’t that many results. I go from Wikipedia to a government page about C-PTSD as it relates to veterans. I read the list of symptoms. It is very long. And it is not so much a medical document as it is a biography of my life: The difficulty regulating my emotions. The tendency to overshare and trust the wrong people. The dismal self-loathing. The trouble I have maintaining relationships. The unhealthy relationship with my abuser. The tendency to be aggressive but unable to tolerate aggression from others. It’s all true. It’s all me.

The more I read, the more every aspect of my personhood is reduced to deep diagnostic flaws. I hadn’t understood how far the disease had spread. How complete its takeover of my identity was. The things I want. The things I love. The way I speak. My passions, my fears, my zits, my eating habits, the amount of whiskey I drink, the way I listen, and the things I see. Everything—everything, all of it—is infected. My trauma is literally pumping through my blood, driving every decision in my brain.

It is this totality that leaves me frantic with grief. For years I’ve labored to build myself a new life, something very different from how I was raised. But now, all of a sudden, every conflict I’ve encountered, every loss, every failure and foible in my life, can be traced back to its root: me. I am far from normal. I am the common denominator in the tragedies of my life. I am a textbook case of mental illness.

Well, this explains it all, I think. Of course I’ve been having trouble concentrating on my work. Of course so many people I’ve loved have left. Of course I was wrong to think I could walk into fancy institutions full of well-bred, well-educated people and succeed. Because the person with C-PTSD, the person who is painted here on the internet, is broken.

The orange walls of my office close in on me. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong anywhere. I try to stay another couple of hours at my desk in a desperate attempt to prove to myself that I am capable of a full workday, but I can’t see my computer screen. My co-workers, laughing outside my door, sound like jackals. I grab my coat and rush out of the building, into the cold air, but even outside, I haven’t escaped. With every step, one word echoes in my head: Broken. Broken. Broken.

For ten years I thought I could outrun my past. But today I realize that running isn’t working. I need to do something else.

I need to fix this. Fix myself. To revisit my story, one that has until now relied on lies of omission, perfectionism, and false happy endings. I need to stop being an unreliable narrator. I need to look at myself, my behaviors, and my desires with an unflinching, meticulous eye. I need to tease apart the careful life I have crafted for myself, the one that is threatening to unravel at any minute.

And I know where I have to begin.

Every villain’s redemption arc begins with their origin story.

Reviews:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly intriguing, compelling, and written

V.B. · September 8, 2025

Stephanie Foo takes us on a journey of self discovery which starts with childhood abuse and abandonment, plows through years of confusing anger, outbursts and self-loathing, down unexpected twists and turns with unflinching honesty, to arrive at her destination. The search is tenacious, her story hard to put down. brimming with intellectual prowess, grace, and emotion. This is a courageous accomplishment of resilience and love, a gift from a generous spirit.

5.0 out of 5 stars Brave, insightful and inspiring

E.L. · May 10, 2024

I read Stephanie Foo's memoir obsessively over a 36-hour period after hearing her interviewed on a podcast. It is the best memoir and one of the best non-fiction works I have read.Foo walks the reader through her painful and brave journey of suffering and healing and shows what it is like to learn a new way of being in the world, how to be kind to yourself, and how to be in relationship with other people without leaving a path of destruction. We need more people in this world like her. The inner work that she has done matters so much more than the superficial striving that we like to celebrate.We also need to redefine resilience and success in terms of internal well-being and stop using professional achievement as a proxy for wholeness.She nails this: "When scientists and psychologists provide case studies of resilient individuals, they do not showcase a housekeeper who has overcome personal tragedy and now has impressive talents at self - regulation. They write about individuals who survived and became doctors, teachers, therapists , motivational speakers —sparkly members of society. Resilience, according to the establishment, is not a degree of some indeterminable measure of inner peace. Resilience is instead synonymous with success."What she describes is the ultimate manifestation of materialism. Outward success and inner wholeness are not even related. Foo is absolutely right that mental health isn't always sparkly, and her insight explains why there are so many deeply toxic and unhealed people in high places. This is why so many narcissistic jerks end up on "top."I hope the people at This American Life either fired her a-hole boss or put him through some kind of long-term rehab to learn to be decent. What are the chances, though?Foo's point about immigrant trauma being the legacy of our country's colonial exploits was so important. This stuff doesn't just happen.Wonderful, wonderful book.

4.0 out of 5 stars Wow

A.G. · April 2, 2025

This was a good book on trauma and complex PTSD. I enjoyed learning about her life and how she found her way to better mindset. A lot of things resonated with me in this book and I loved the broad range of things I learned. Its a memoir, but I really think its a good read for those who want to read about this topic.

5.0 out of 5 stars An Incredible book, a must read.

K.G. · October 4, 2025

An absolutely phenomenal book. I am a therapist and I have already recommended it to several of my clients. The author’s first person account of her experience—and her experience of therapy itself—is so incredibly honest, brave, and open. I am confident that this book will help not only patients with PTSD but every therapist who reads it as well.

5.0 out of 5 stars Brutally honest, hopeful memoir

e. · July 30, 2025

This memoir is harrowing and brutally honest. The way the author has researched trauma in order to process her own is impressive. In the telling of her story, she gives hope and guidance to other survivors of childhood trauma. So well-written, and I’m so glad I purchased it, as this is one I think I’ll read again and again.

5.0 out of 5 stars so good!

S. · July 13, 2025

This book is a must-read for anybody who has experienced trauma or works with or loves anyone with trauma. I don’t normally write reviews but I read this in two days. This was beautifully written and full of facts as well as personal experience.

5.0 out of 5 stars More effective than other self help books

L. · July 16, 2025

I wasn’t sure what to expect. Some moments of the author’s childhood were hard to read. Other times it really got to me how universal CPTSD experiences can feel like. I’m only halfway through but it was definitely a worthy read, and one I wish I came across as a much younger version of myself early on in this journey.

5.0 out of 5 stars WOW

M. · December 30, 2024

There are no words to describe how I feel after I read Stephanie's portrayal of her Complex PTSD. Although she is Asian and I am not, I can relate to the difficult traumas that she faced. Every time I put down the book I feel like crying. Kudos to her for coming out so openly. There are no words to describe how I feel after reading Stephanie's portrayal of her Complex PTSD. Although she is Asian and I am not, I can relate to the difficult traumas she experienced. Every time I put the book down, I feel like crying. Kudos to her for being so open about her experiences.I find it hard to express the depth of my emotions after reading Stephanie's insightful portrayal of her experience with Complex PTSD. Despite the differences in our backgrounds—she is Asian and I am not—I resonate deeply with the challenging traumas she has faced throughout her life. Each time I set the book down, my heart feels heavy, and I can't help but feel overwhelmed, often on the verge of tears. I truly admire her courage in sharing such personal and painful experiences so openly, shining a light on issues that many people struggle with in silence. Her story not only evokes empathy but also serves as a powerful reminder of the resilience of the human spirit. Kudos to her for her bravery and transparency!

Impressive and touching

C.S. · March 26, 2025

Verry impressive and touching personal story with a lot of insights about different therapeutic approaches

Great book

N.H. · August 2, 2024

Although C PTSD is a heavy topic I found this book was well written and a good read. It gives a lot of insight into how childhood trauma impacts us as adults and outlines the steps that the author took on her own healing journey.

moving. strong. gorgeous

c. · June 29, 2022

personal, researched, gorgeous. also, amazing that someone can relate such violent abuse in a non-scary manner. clearly her intention was not to shock the reader, but to walk us through the truth of living with c-ptsd and the lifelong work of healing. beautifully written. brought me to tears on multiple occasions.

At once excruciating and liberating

L.W. · August 7, 2024

This raw and contoured account helps to normalise the experience of CPTSD for the millions who feel like their suffering was "not that bad," and gives them hope that, once seen and acknowledged, their suffering can be transformed into growth. Thank you, Stephanie, for your vulnerability and for shining a bright ray of optimism into the lives of survivors and the people who love them.

It explains a lot even if it's her story, it's lots of peoples stories and very well told

K.H. · September 14, 2024

A book you won't put down. Very well written and easily read in simple lanhuage. I recommend it to anyone who's suffered from cptsd or childhood trauma.

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What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

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What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

Product ID: U0593238125

Condition: New

4.6

What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma-0

Type: Paperback

^AED97²⁵

Price includes VAT & Import Duties

Availability: In Stock

Quantity:

Order today to get by 7-14 business days

Delivery fee of AED 20. Free for orders above AED 200.

Returns & Warranty policies

Imported From: United States

At BOLO, we work hard to ensure the products you receive are new, genuine, and sourced from reputable suppliers.

Your trust is our top priority, and we are committed to maintaining transparency and integrity in every transaction.

Unless otherwise stated, all prices displayed on the product page include applicable taxes and import duties.

All items are shipped by air, and any products classified as “Dangerous Goods (DG)” under IATA regulations will be removed from the order and cancelled.

Description:

Review

About the Author

Reviews:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly intriguing, compelling, and written

V.B. · September 8, 2025

5.0 out of 5 stars Brave, insightful and inspiring

E.L. · May 10, 2024

4.0 out of 5 stars Wow

A.G. · April 2, 2025

5.0 out of 5 stars An Incredible book, a must read.

K.G. · October 4, 2025

5.0 out of 5 stars Brutally honest, hopeful memoir

e. · July 30, 2025

5.0 out of 5 stars so good!

S. · July 13, 2025

5.0 out of 5 stars More effective than other self help books

L. · July 16, 2025

5.0 out of 5 stars WOW

M. · December 30, 2024

Impressive and touching

C.S. · March 26, 2025

Verry impressive and touching personal story with a lot of insights about different therapeutic approaches

Great book

N.H. · August 2, 2024

moving. strong. gorgeous

c. · June 29, 2022

At once excruciating and liberating

L.W. · August 7, 2024

It explains a lot even if it's her story, it's lots of peoples stories and very well told

K.H. · September 14, 2024

A book you won't put down. Very well written and easily read in simple lanhuage. I recommend it to anyone who's suffered from cptsd or childhood trauma.

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Parenting & Relationships

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