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

by Stephanie Foo

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

Unfortunately, the car ride was silent. I fretted and peeled my chapped lips until we were home

This my manifested anxiety too

I wondered if I should distance myself from everyone I loved in order to protect them from me. Because the dread told me that I was on the precipice of fucking everything up.

I wrung my body out like a towel, twisting both ends with red fists and sinking my teeth into it, gritting out, “It’s fine it’s fine it’s fine,” until one day, I woke up and there would be a new accolade on my shelf, a new accomplishment I could never have dreamed of, and then—finally—it would be fine. It’d be perfect. For that day. Or an hour. And then tendrils of the dread started peeking into the corners of my vision. And I had to start all over again.

It was ridiculous that it took me sixteen damn hours to figure out that I was upset and four more to ascertain why.

The past is always here, haunting our homes, standing over us at night. They say you don’t get rid of a ghost by pretending it isn’t there.

A Different State of Mind: Derealization and Depersonalization. The article was all about recognizing that being emotionally closed off—as if you’re looking at the world through a pane of glass—is a potentially dangerous way of coping with stress and a possible symptom of depression and anxiety.

I want to have words for what my bones know. I want to use those gifts when they serve me and understand and forgive them when they do not.

Women are more likely to be avoidant and have mood and anxiety disorders.