What My Bones Know

A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

By: Stephanie Foo

Narrated by: Stephanie Foo

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.

One of the best books on trauma I’ve ever read

This is the first time I’ve ever taken the time to actually write a review. I’m a trauma therapist and someone who experienced early trauma. This is the best book I’ve read about trauma in a long time. Most books about trauma are written by therapists and fail to tell a compelling story as they’re teaching. This book does both so beautifully. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

Brilliant

This is a gorgeous, engaging, and inspiring story. Deep insights and observations. I am so glad I listened to this one versus read the text bc her storytelling and the audio clips from her therapy sessions make it even more personal and interesting.

A delicious bouquet of words, sharing a heroic life story!

You know the book is magic when, as the end nears you feel your heart wilt. Like, days before a friend moves away.
The author sketches the struggles and pain the lessons and the love with such beauty you are transported into the pages, into her life.
Smart and carefully crafted this memoir flows like slow, molten lava.
As a warrior survivor of CPTSD I cried, laughed and nodded throughout. This book weaves a rainbow path of hope that, we are so much more than our injured brain. Thank you Stephanie Foo for sharing your journey, it promises to help so many like us❣️

Captivating - I’m usually a fiction person but this pulled me in!!

This story is amazing. It is so relatable and expertly crafted. Seeing as she’s a journalist she frames her story very well. Anyone who as had childhood or simply traversed the therapeutic world and endeavors to heal old wounds will relate to this story. So well done and I usually am strictly fiction.

Thank you

Stephanie Foo has written a wrenching, amazing book that is perfectly made for Audible. This is an example of a book that is made to be listened to and I am glad that I listened to it rather than just having read it. First there is Stephanie’s voice, the voice of a good friend, the voice you want to have in your head when you are having a tough time. Then, there are the sessions with her therapist which her therapist had recorded and shared with her. Hearing their interactions helps the reader/listener more fully understand Stephanie’s healing. I also really appreciated the ending: that CPTSD was her super power. Thank you, Stephanie for using your outside voice to let us inside.