Stephanie Foo

From my blog:

CW: child abuse.

Got deep trauma? Feel like true healing is impossible? You need to read this stunning memoir, WHAT MY BONES KNOW, by radio producer and journalist Stephanie Foo (Ballantine/Penguin Random House, February 21, 2023). She explains how she ended up with complex PTSD (C-PTSD) and the myriad therapies and tactics that she tried for many years to stop falling into trigger traps and sabotaging her own life.

The author trying to meditate is so me.

I think about something simple…a block of fresh, soft, white tofu. For twenty seconds, I succeed….Mmm, tofu. What should I eat for dinner? Wait, damn it! Okay fine. I’ll focus on my breathing instead. Out. In. Out. In. Was I able to breathe as much as I should? Why did it feel like I didn’t get enough air into my lungs? Why did it feel like I was wheezing? Was I wheezing? Is something wrong with my lungs? Do I have lung cancer? I must be dying. That’s the only explanation for it. I never had my will notarized. I should probably get it notarized. Am I okay with dying? I never got to scuba dive in a coral reef. Now all the coral reefs are dying because of global warming. If I have lung cancer, there’s no way they’re going to let me scuba dive.
Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know p. 120.

Buddhist monks train the “monkey mind” through meditation. I am not a Buddhist monk, and my monkey mind is on cocaine or something because the gray matter chatter never stops.

Like a true journalist, Foo researches the heck out of her own trauma and the generational trauma of Asian immigrant families. Like a true podcast producer, she puts lots of smart people in front of the microphone to see what they can teach her. Her findings are fascinating and, for me, a revelation on many levels. Some of us may never fully heal, but Foo is a great communicator determined to learn to cope creatively in those areas where full healing may not happen. In order to do that, she must learn to let go of her perfectionism (me too, girl, me too).… (altro)

A really powerful memoir about Stephanie Foo's experiences with, and healing of, complex PTSD. Foo was raised in an immigrant family in California and suffered years of physical abuse, neglect, and abandonment (the early part of the book is a truly harrowing read). Only as an adult did she really begin to reckon with the trauma she'd suffered and the ways that had affected her behaviour and her relationships with other people. Foo is unflinching in recounting some of her red-flag actions while a college student, and in how her desire to people-please led her to put up with some awful workplace treatment. (Presuming I'm correct in figuring out who her boss was, a certain major NPR name does not come off well here.) I particularly appreciated Foo's situation of her experiences and her parents' behaviour into larger conversations about migration and intergenerational trauma.… (altro)