Reviews with content warning for Toxic friendship - What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

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

9 reviews

rubellaface's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Quick caveat: I do not have C-PTSD. I am a second-generation Filipino American who grew up to have high-functioning anxiety & depression due to tiger parenting, growing up Asian American, and being forced to become an alpha daughter.

Reading this book triggered me and had me questioning my reality and how I’ve often laughed-off or disassociated my personal trauma in order to succeed in life (and therefore be perceived as being okay). Her coping mechanisms were/are my coping mechanisms, and funnily enough, I didn’t even realize they were coping mechanisms. So as Stephanie went down the rabbit hole of finding out what her bones know and how to fix it, I was right beside her– transfixed and checking my own bones for fissures and trauma from similar situations in my family life.

Cause Stephanie Foo does not pull her punches when recounting her childhood. Every abusive situation is described in a way that is almost clinical and ripe for analyzing. Her book is basically an emotional autopsy of her trauma, and the way she uses her journalism background to thoroughly vet every single c-ptsd-related therapy is both thrilling and heartbreaking. As a reader, you want Stephanie to find a therapy that works for her and that can “cure” her, and I just wanted to hug her each time a practice or therapist failed her.

Needless to say, I was emotionally invested in Stephanie’s book. I cried towards the end as she found stable ground and the tools to fight for her peace of mind. And I cried again at the similarities in how we approached our weddings and wedding guests. Her healing journey echoed and reaffirmed my own, and I will recommend this book to all my AAPI friends who I know have gone through sh*t and are trying their best.

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mangomerle's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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zygomatic's review against another edition

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emotional informative sad slow-paced

2.0

This memoir starts strong and then becomes a rambling, pseudoscience mess. I thought that Foo was being insufferable and would come to that realization by the end, but that's not the case. She's judgmental of every person she describes, as she actively disparages anyone who is not 100% in support of her or knows and appeases her triggers without informing them of said triggers. She judges people's knowledge based on race and makes fun of people's clothes and calls people she doesn't know "fuckboy." She blames schoolteachers for not finding out about and reporting home abuse, and rambles about the curriculum that they are not able to set.

She mentions that social workers and psychologists are not making much money, but then expects them to accept verbal abuse. Her annoyance and dismissal of professional opinions and doctors at large due to things like facial tics shows her lack of empathy and understanding that these people are trying to help others with a broad spectrum of disorders of varying degrees, while usually being underfunded. They are keeping themselves together mentally to help the most people possible, which means they are probably tired and not having the best day every day. They are also people who deserve respect--like all humans. They do not deserve to be yelled at, nor should they enjoy it. And many are definitely dealing with their own trauma. Yet Foo is oblivious to the end, making fun of many care workers and never understanding why people might not want to associate with her professionally or socially, listening to her self-centered complaints.

She quits her own job for having a micromanaging, dismissive boss who yells at her, so why does she think she can do the same to others? I understand that the root cause could be the trauma, but to not acknowledge this and instead say "nothing is my fault at all because I have CPTSD" seems disingenuous and mean. It's frustrating to read her lack of responsibility or remorse for any actions after diagnosis and "breakthrough." Like, you threatened people with baseball bats...you don't think that might affect the person you chased?

Isn't it wonderful that because of her connections she can take a year off and gets to have free sessions with a doctor who charges $400 per session? It is great. But my god is it distracting from the idea that others can use this story as anything other than a dissociated dream.

Dismissing other people's trauma is gross, but the author does this when talking about certain groups, saying that male PTSD is "only 4%" while female rates are at 8%, and not mentioning veteran rates, except to say they are not the exclusive owners of PTSD. But veterans literally have more PTSD-related disorders (higher than 11%) and suicidal ideations (almost 50%) than the regular population, so I don't understand her effort to dismiss their experience with a throwaway line? It's a huge issue.

The author's writing becomes progressively more annoying by the end for me personally: her humor is not for me--mentioning excrement over 10x--and she starts racking up swears for the sake of it in the second half ("I was a fucking wonder. And I continue to be a fucking wonder" (pg. 306). Um, okay?) The dialogue seems unrealistically melodramatic, but if it's factual, it is what it is. It's still eyerolling.

Foo created a reflective memoir and sees nothing wrong with her actions after researching, interviewing, writing, and editing, and that's a feat in itself. Not having common decency after this journey seems like a huge blind spot, and I don't think that was intentional. So maybe this memoir should have been shelved for a while because much of this comes across as tone deaf. Talking about unconditional love when you've shown that love is conditional (cutting off her parents) doesn't ring true.

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madredeleones's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad tense

4.75

You don't have to have CPTSD to learn and grow from this book. This was recommended in a Divorce group I am in and it was so interesting and helpful from a healing perspective. As a queer and mixed-race person, there were lots of notes in this book that rang true for me--generational trauma, the long term effects of microaggressions, the effects of COVID and the current political climate--as well as the difficult goal of changing learned behaviors and reactions. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is trying to overcome trauma of any kind. There is hope and there are a LOT of roads to healing.

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