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

In part because she is eager to begin her career as a journalist and in part because she feels unwelcome on campus, Foo graduates college in only two years. Without the tools to cope with her trauma, Foo channels all her anxieties into anger. When one of her best friends at college is diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she cannot find the right words to comfort her, instead choosing to vent her own frustrations. This causes her friend to break all contact with her. Even after graduating and moving to San Francisco, Foo realizes her relationships are beginning to crumble, and most people find her presence frustrating or exhausting. Foo understands that she is trapped in a vicious cycle of anger begetting anger: She is doing to others what her mother did to her.

Foo decides that radical forgiveness, the act of letting go of her anger, is the only way out of this loop. Foo searches for ways to be more sympathetic and less reactive. She begins to see Samantha, her therapist, and learns ways to love others better. Eventually, her circle of friends begins to grow again.

However, Foo does not view herself as “healed” or “cured” from trauma. Although her successful career demonstrates her resilience, she is constantly battling stress and depression. She realizes that professional success is not a measure of mental or physical stability. Foo works between 50- and 70-hour weeks for a radio show called Snap Judgement, popularizing the show in the process. Despite being outwardly successful and even sometimes believing herself fulfilled, she continues to struggle with social anxiety.

Foo describes her episodes of intense stress as “the dread.” It is a force that surfaces frequently, making Foo doubt herself and agonize over every small interaction with others. It makes her question the quality of her work and her value as a friend. It manifests as a constant need for reassurance and affection from the men she dates and fuels her fear of abandonment. Even while asking for confirmations of love, she is anxious about appearing too needy.

When one of her partners breaks up with her, claiming to find her too intense and intimidating, she enters a prolonged depressive episode. The dread grows immense, to the point of causing Foo intense, paralyzing anxiety. Foo knows something is wrong but continues to forge on, throwing herself into her work. She starts to convince herself that the dread is actually a positive force because it makes her a better worker and furthers her career.

Foo moves to New York City in 2014 after landing her dream job at the radio show This American Life. She is convinced the dread is what helped her achieve this milestone. However, thrown into an environment where many of her peers are Ivy-League graduates, Foo feels inadequate. This is exacerbated by her boss, who frequently criticizes her work for not being meticulous enough. Although the quality of her work improves due to this scrutiny, the added stress exacerbates her underlying anxiety.

The dread also forces Foo to keep dating out of fear of growing old and undesirable. Foo finds her eventual husband, Joey, through Tinder. A former soldier and a current speech and debate teacher, Joey is honest, welcoming, and empathetic. He presses Foo to acknowledge her abandonment complex and explains that they can work together on her trust issues and insecurities. Foo describes Joey as the opposite of the dread because he is unafraid to plan for a future together. He provides her a safe and supportive space to counterbalance her anxiety. Nevertheless, the dread grows ever larger as the situation at work grows ever more tense.

The 2016 presidential elections exacerbate Foo’s anxieties. Her pitches about covering stories of human joy are shot down and every story seems to need a contrarian political angle to air. A pivotal moment arrives in 2018, when Foo’s boss admonishes her for a small mistake in her work. By that point, her panic attacks stretch for long periods of time and she cries every day out of anxiety. Unable to cope, Foo threatens to quit her job. Taken aback, her boss and others at work beg her to reconsider. In her indecision, Foo begins to question why she is constantly on edge and why the dread is so overwhelming for her. At her next session with Samantha, she receives her answer in the form of a C-PTSD diagnosis.

After learning of her diagnosis, Foo researches C-PTSD. Medical papers list aggressiveness, social anxiety, alcoholism, and unpredictability as common symptoms. To Foo, these feel like accusations that mark her as a fundamentally unlovable human being. Information on C-PTSD is scarce, and she becomes desperate to find a hopeful story of recovery. When her research turns out to be largely unsuccessful, she realizes that survivors of abuse like herself often perpetuate a vicious cycle of violence: In other words, “hurt people hurt people” (69).

After reading Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by psychotherapist Pete Walker, Foo realizes her workaholism and successful career are not symbols of her recovery but symptoms of her condition. Foo begins to reach out to other survivors on social media in an attempt to support herself. She eventually receives a message from another journalist, Lacey, who is further along in her recovery from C-PTSD. She is a jovial character, and her story gives Foo hope for the future. Lacey suggests that the first step toward healing is to learn how to manage the symptoms of C-PTSD. Foo realizes she must become happy, strong, and independent, and the first step toward self-healing is removing herself from her stressful work environment.