#6 [2023/CBR15] What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo

I am on a roll with the books from NPR's Best Books List. My latest is What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing From Complex Trauma (2022) by Stephanie Foo. With my job, we inevitably run into a number of people who have suffered significant trauma. Sometimes they tell us, and sometimes we don't know the details, but it's evident in other ways. I feel like it helps me when I have a better understanding of what others have gone through and how trauma can affect them throughout their lives.

Although I feel that I've learned a lot about trauma, I still gained a greater understanding from reading this book. Foo discusses her very disturbing childhood, and how she survived it. But her violent and loveless upbringing continued to haunt her--even after she built a successful career and found herself in a healthy relationship. When her therapist told her that her issues could be summed up by Complex PTSD, she went on a mission to make heal herself and make her life better. This quest involved tons of reading, experimenting, and finding the best doctors who would work for her.

Complex PTSD often stems from child abuse--when a person faces traumatic experiences over and over again. In Foo's case, both of her parents were very physically abusive, threatened her life, denigrated her verbally, and then abandoned her when she was a teenager. It was horrifying to read about, and I cannot even imagine having to survive it. And yet, when Foo met other C-PTSD sufferers she was told she was lucky because at least she wasn't sexually abused. It kills me to think of so many children suffering at the hands of those who are supposed to protect them, and the long-term damage it does to them.

Besides exploring many different therapies and calming techniques, Foo explored generational trauma. Foo is of Chinese descent and was born in Malaysia. Many in her family faced horrible circumstances before coming to America and then racism when they arrived. However, there is very little information about how the traumas of the immigrant experience affect mental health. Interestingly, Foo pointed out that there are studies showing that trauma can permanently alter the DNA of the children of those who experienced it.

One other aspect that stuck with me is how important it is to find the right doctors: those who are smart, who are good at what they do, and who will actually help you. Foo's first therapist did help her, but there was a point when she needed to move on in order to continue improving. She tried some more in the interim that tried to make her feel bad when they weren't helping her. When she finally found the "right" one, it made a tremendous difference. The same thing happened with her OB-GYN. She was diagnosed with endometriosis, but the doctor ignored her wishes and her mental health problems--insisting on treatments that were making her worse both physically and mentally. When she found a woman who specialized in pelvic pain it made a world of difference.

One of my favorite sections in NPR's Best Books lists is "Eye-Opening Reads," and it is often one of the first sections I browse when the list comes out. It is how I found this book. When these books are good, they change my perceptions of the world, no matter how small. This book was no different.