Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

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

65 reviews

naterjane's review

emotional informative reflective

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

raesansom's review

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, and Pandemic/Epidemic

beejoy's review

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

I read this book in two days. I underlined and flagged so many sections. I could not put it down. Stephanie Foo’s writing voice is stunning. I feel like I learned more about complex and trauma and healing from this book than I have from any Psych book or therapy. I already know I will come back to her words many, many times. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

bambooboy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, and Abandonment

Moderate: Cursing, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Xenophobia, Suicide attempt, War, and Classism

Minor: Hate crime, Infidelity, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, Medical content, Medical trauma, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

katikins's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

I really enjoyed this book. Stephanie’s journey towards healing and self-realization was so incredible and inspiring. As someone who has also been diagnosed with cptsd it was like hearing a big sister give the road map. Of course it deals with really heavy topics, but so does life.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Racism and Pandemic/Epidemic

emilycacho's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Although I couldn’t relate entirely to the authors upbringing it did resonate deeply with me. Foo takes us on her healing journey with such openness and authenticity. I loved reading about trauma through this lens. And important and informative read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Suicide attempt

flowchelle's review

challenging emotional informative fast-paced

4.5

Didn’t know how much I would personally grow from listening to this book! Stephanie’s vulnerability really makes this more than a story and more like a podcast by including all she has learned through her journey! I related a lot to the portions that pertain to generational trauma and having ancestors who had to really fight to be where they ended up and learning that those are inherited made a lot of sense. An incredible difference between the description of her childhood and the last sessions with her therapist! I enjoyed hearing those ‘live’ and how they worked through her trauma. The book never slowed down and was never boring to me. I liked how the flow worked and was happy that it ended on a positive note of hope!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Abandonment

crybabybea's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Amazing. I'm learning this year that I really enjoy nonfiction written by journalists, and Stephanie Foo is no exception. Her writing is accessible and engaging, seamlessly blending personal anecdotes, interviews, facts, and studies to support her main thesis. Foo's intelligence and self-reflection shine through her writing. Her clever humor and insightful conclusions were inspiring. The book feels like a journey alongside her, offering lessons in healing from trauma. 

This is a must-read if you struggle with C-PTSD, or even if you just struggle with trauma or a different mental illness that affects your daily life. Even if you're familiar with C-PTSD, there's much to learn. The book's sad, hard-to-get-through moments are balanced with heartening and meditative insights, showing that healing is non-linear but ultimately intensely rewarding. 

Foo's perspective as an Asian-American adds depth to her memoir, offering compassion for her family's experiences and the broader Asian-American community. She explores her family's past, connecting her trauma with collective experiences, and acknowledges the complexities beyond stereotypes. 

I especially liked the penultimate part, which focused on her sessions with Dr. Jacob Ham. She unlocked a lot of self-discovery by having an open, loving, accepting relationship with her therapist. It was so heartfelt and inspiring to see that relationship blossom and ultimately help Stephanie recover and learn to accept love and kindness rather than self-flagellating and sinking into shame spirals. He emphasized the importance of reconnection and repair and revealed to Stephanie (and to me as a reader) that regulating your emotions and triggers is just the first step in a super complicated dance involving complex relationships and the damage and repair that happens in human connection.

The final couple of pages had me a complete sobbing mess. I really appreciated Stephanie's choice to end the book with a self-reflection about accepting her C-PTSD for what it is; not something that makes her broken and unlovable, but something that makes her who she is.

I highly recommend the audiobook, narrated by the author so it feels intimate and personal. She also included the original audio recordings of her sessions with Dr. Ham, which was a really neat addition that made the audio experience feel more transformative.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, and Gaslighting

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Racism, Rape, Xenophobia, Murder, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

There is no actual car accident but there is an incident of abuse in which the author experiences her father driving maniacally and threatening to kill everyone in the car.

lauradvb's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful sad slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Abandonment

breanneporter's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

4.0

This is a beautiful memoir about the author’s healing journey after an abusive childhood and her diagnosis of C-PTSD. The first part is hard to read, as it details the extensive physical and emotional child abuse that Foo endured, but most of the book focuses on the years directly before and after receiving her diagnosis of C-PTSD, and how various experiences and therapies and relationships contributed to her recovery. The author reads the memoir herself and I was engrossed the whole time, finishing in just a couple of days, though I particularly enjoyed the last quarter of the book. the chapter on Joey’s family and marriage proposal made me cry on the shuttle bus and I really loved the recorded sessions with her final therapist. It’s a difficult read but a good one, with a lot of great advice and perspective not only for survivors of C-PTSD, but for all of us. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Suicide attempt