A memoir about surviving severe emotional & physical abuse and eventual abandonment as a child, and then navigating the invisible aftermath as an adult. By 30, Stephanie Foo appeared like a wildly successful journalist, but behind the scenes she was having daily panic attacks. Then a complex PTSD diagnosis pushes her to confront the abuse and abandonment of her past — everything she'd spent years outrunning. Taking us along the journey of healing, Foo shows us how trauma rewires the body and how recovery becomes possible through steady care, safe connection, and consistent support.

Foo blends deeply personal storytelling with journalism (as a journalist herself), walking us through therapy, research, and relationships in a way that validates how nonlinear and imperfect trauma recovery really is.​

What you can get from reading it

• A clear, lived-in understanding of complex PTSD — how it shows up in daily life, relationships, work, and the body, beyond textbook definitions.​
• Relief in recognizing your own patterns (hypervigilance, shame, trust issues, emotional swings) on the page, and seeing they make sense given what you’ve lived through.​
• An inside view of trying different healing modalities (long-term psychotherapy, EMDR, IFS, somatic work, DBT, neurofeedback, relational healing) and how hit-or-miss that process can be.​
• Nuanced exploration of culture, race, and immigrant family dynamics in trauma — especially the silence, perfectionism, and gratitude pressure many children of immigrants carry.​
• Encouragement to aim not for a fantasy of being “fully healed,” but for building a life with more self-compassion, steadier relationships, and a felt sense of safety.​

About the author

Stephanie Foo built her career as a respected journalist at places like This American Life, Snap Judgment, and The Cut, known for her sharp reporting and emotionally attuned storytelling. Born to Malaysian immigrant parents and raised in an abusive home, she left at seventeen and spent years masking the long-term effects of that trauma behind achievement, humor, and relentless work. Her eventual complex PTSD diagnosis became a turning point, pushing her to investigate her own history with the same curiosity she brought to her journalism. In What My Bones Know, she uses that blend of vulnerability and reporting skill to map how trauma shapes identity — and how rebuilding a sense of safety, connection, and self-worth becomes possible even after a chaotic beginning.