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

by Stephanie Foo

muscles stretching instead of straining. Twenty

My father would repeat this as an affirmation when I was older. “It’s true! Look at you! I made mistakes, but you turned out so successful! You were just born with sense!” I rolled my eyes at this. It was just another way for him to avoid taking responsibility for his neglect, to let himself off the hook.

“It’s why Chinese people don’t talk about death. When you articulate things and you speak things out, it makes it reality. Right? So by talking about death, you sort of make it come true. That’s why they don’t say negative things during the New Year time. You always say positive, good things. Because you’re speaking that into reality. Have you heard this Chinese saying, ‘Eat bitterness’? You just take that grief and you swallow it.”

Then, after the mice had offspring, the researchers exposed this next generation of mice to the cherry blossom scent. Despite the fact that these mice had never smelled cherry blossoms before and had never been shocked, they still shuddered and jumped when it wafted into their cages. This generation of mice had inherited their parents’ trauma.

The epigenome on top of noncoding DNA is very sensitive to stress and the environment. When a body adapts to constant, overwhelming stress—not a car accident or a bad flu, but long-lasting trauma—the epigenome changes. Trauma can turn on a gene that responds to the smell of cherry blossoms, for example. Or turn off a gene that regulates our emotions. It might turn on a gene for fear.

Even more surprising, Michael Meaney at McGill University has studied whether it’s possible to reverse this DNA methylation.[4] He had a population of mice whose mothers didn’t lick them very much growing up. These mice essentially had distracted, neglectful mothers and grew up anxious. So Meaney injected a solution into the brains of these anxious mice that could pull off the epigenetic markers. And…it worked. Afterward, the mice weren’t anxious anymore. Their stress response was completely normal.

If you really loved someone, it would emanate from you, sincere and overflowing, generous and unconditional. But for me, my father’s love had always been conditional.

What the fuck? What I was feeling? I didn’t know what the fuck I was feeling at that one little moment. He seemed bummed, so I tried to say something nice. Which was a weird thing to do in a session about my PTSD, but, whatever. I sat on it for a while. “I think I was trying to reassure you and myself at the same time because communicating well is a thing I’ve been thinking about? And then I think I said it in that tone because I was, like…tired?”

“Well, what I heard is that you want unconditional love but still no bullshit. Do you want me to care enough that I push you to get better and call you on your stuff? You want me to be both tough and gentle at the same time?”

I noticed that I often derailed the conversation and changed the subject when I didn’t understand something he was saying. And often when I was confused, I didn’t ask for clarification.

you is me me is you

“In my mind, the most helpful thing for you is to be reconnected with another person. Self-regulation is a very insular thing. That’s just survival. Like, ‘I’m not going to actually learn how to be connected to you, but at least I’m going to be able to regulate how upset I get from you.’ And I don’t want you to just be self-regulating in a corner by yourself. Shame makes you want to hide and tuck away. But what if instead you were in this state where you could ask, ‘Who are you? What do you need from me right now? And what do I need from you?’ ”

L'importance des connexions humaines

This was a small moment, but it was a meaningful one. A big personal win. For now, anyway, I had preserved a relationship by navigating a real, live repair. A repair that didn’t involve groveling. A nuanced repair.

I felt privileged to be able to hold space for a friend I love.

Reconnaissance et amour

But more and more, I am curious enough to ask the magic question: “What do you need?” These four words open doors and break down walls. With the benefit of understanding, we are no longer two separate beings floating through these threads alone. We are giving and receiving.

Being healed isn’t about feeling nothing. Being healed is about feeling the appropriate emotions at the appropriate times and still being able to come back to yourself. That’s just life.”

En majuscule et en gras svp

So this is healing, then, the opposite of the ambiguous dread: fullness. I am full of anger, pain, peace, love, of horrible shards and exquisite beauty, and the lifelong challenge will be to balance all of those things, while keeping them in the circle. Healing is never final. It is never perfection. But along with the losses are the triumphs.