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A review by phlegmcel
What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo
challenging
emotional
inspiring
5.0
Trauma is mourning the fact that, as an adult, you have to parent yourself. You have to stand in your kitchen, starving, near tears, next to a burnt chicken, and you can’t call your mom to tell her about it, to listen to her tell you that it’s okay, to ask if you can come over for some of her cooking. Instead, you have to pull up your bootstraps and solve the painful puzzle of your life by yourself. What other choice do you have? Nobody else is going to solve it for you.
4.5 stars. this was a tough read but ultimately very validating and helpful. Stephanie Foo’s determination to heal was the most inspiring part of this book for me. so much of it resonated, but the recount of her first EMDR session made me close out of the book and just sit and cry for a while. it was nice to see her highlight how trauma and PTSD affects women differently than men, as well as how trauma in women is so understudied and undermined. it was also interesting to see how the symptoms of C-PTSD affected her relationships and her perception of herself and how she dismantled the lines of thought that led to those struggles. i’m really happy to have read this because i feel like it gave me some recovery tools that i didn’t possess before going in. it’s definitely one of the most personally helpful memoirs i’ve read.
4.5 stars. this was a tough read but ultimately very validating and helpful. Stephanie Foo’s determination to heal was the most inspiring part of this book for me. so much of it resonated, but the recount of her first EMDR session made me close out of the book and just sit and cry for a while. it was nice to see her highlight how trauma and PTSD affects women differently than men, as well as how trauma in women is so understudied and undermined. it was also interesting to see how the symptoms of C-PTSD affected her relationships and her perception of herself and how she dismantled the lines of thought that led to those struggles. i’m really happy to have read this because i feel like it gave me some recovery tools that i didn’t possess before going in. it’s definitely one of the most personally helpful memoirs i’ve read.