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Title details for What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo - Wait list

What My Bones Know

A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

by Stephanie Foo
Stephanie Foo
Audiobook
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Wait time: At least 6 months
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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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 22, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593507254
      • File size: 289381 KB
      • Duration: 10:02:52

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Author/narrator Stephanie Foo stirs listeners with this powerful memoir about abuse, trauma, and healing. As Foo discusses in her opening author's note, trauma can be painful and triggering to listen to. However, she also lets listeners know early on that her audiobook has a happy ending. Throughout her memoir, Foo is open about her experience living with complex PTSD, a condition that develops when trauma occurs unrelentingly over years. She candidly shares personal stories of childhood abuse in a calm, soothing voice that draws listeners in. The inclusion of several recordings from Foo's actual therapy sessions creates intimacy and a raw connection with her struggles and journey. An important listen showcasing resilience and hope. V.T.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from December 6, 2021
      Foo, radio journalist and former producer of This American Life, recounts her astounding story of living with complex PTSD (C-PTSD), a diagnosis that describes the psychological pain experienced by those who’ve suffered recurring traumas. To find her “redemption arc” and reckon with her trauma, Foo felt she needed “to tease apart the careful life I have crafted for myself, the one that is threatening to unravel at any minute.” She exceeds her intention by delivering a heartrending portrayal of the physical abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of her parents, immigrants from Malaysia (“If you are beaten for hundreds of mistakes, then every mistake becomes dangerous.... The world itself becomes a threat”). Foo also writes of the therapeutic work she undertook in her adulthood to heal and the agency she’s gained from it. “C-PTSD is a wily shape-shifter,” she writes. “Each episode is its own odyssey... requiring new bursts of courage.” What takes this brilliant work from a personal story to a cultural touch point is the way Foo situates her experiences into a larger conversation about intergenerational trauma, immigration, and the mind-body connection (“I was casting abuse and bad parenting as a central theme across my community—was this perpetuating a negative, unhealthy stereotype?”). This is a work of immense beauty.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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