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

by Stephanie Foo

if meds work for you, take them. More power to you! But for millions of people, meds can be unhelpful—or even make their conditions worse.

trauma changes the structure and chemical and hormonal responses of our brains. In many cases, we can’t just pump opposing chemicals into our brains with the assumption that things will change. We have to treat the underlying, original cause: the trauma.

“I’m just noticing things. All the time. Bad behaviors. Like, I tend to categorize people as ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe.’ And when I don’t like somebody, I see them as unsafe and I can’t deal with them. And then whenever anybody’s upset, I’m not good with sitting with their discomfort. I’m always trying to help and fix. And some people have told me I have a tendency to make things about myself. And I’m negative and I’m always complaining about my life. And I always feel like I’m having a crisis because I’m still not good enough at self-soothing.”

Same

The only way you could heal from relational trauma, he figured, was through practicing that relational dance with other people. Not just reading self-help books or meditating alone. We had to go out and practice maintaining relationships in order to reinforce our shattered belief that the world could be a safe place.

Learning how to listen, how to talk, how to ask for what I needed.

A few days later, I was on the phone with Kathy as we talked about our weeks. She started to say that her co-worker was annoying but then drifted off. “Eh, never mind,” she said. “It was nothing. Anyway, how is your work going?” My immediate reaction was to let it go and move on in the conversation. But then I paused. Something about my new, heightened awareness clued me in to the way her voice had trailed off. I should follow up on what she was saying. My second thought was to complain about annoying co-workers or even trash-talk her co-worker whom I knew nothing about in order to comfort her. But instead, I asked, “No, wait. What were you saying about your co-worker? How did they make you feel?” Given the space and opportunity, she shared some vulnerable thoughts about her fears at work. Stuff I never would have gotten to hear if I’d moved on or jumped ahead in the conversation. Afterward, I felt closer to her, and I think she felt closer to me, too. For the first time in months, I ended a conversation feeling capable. Like a good person.

Yaampun aku sering nyela juga kayak gini

“Maybe we shouldn’t even get married in the first place if we’re going to fight over stupid things like this. If I’m going to constantly be triggered by the way his face looks.” “You’re so stupid,” Dr. Ham said, laughing again. “What?! You…you can’t call me stupid. I’m not stupid.” “You’re being stupid,” he said, grinning infuriatingly. “It’s not the fights that matter. It’s the repairs.”

one day, Joey’s brother was over for dinner and told us he’d recently injured his hand. I started talking about my own sprained thumb to relate. He grunted in response.

Sameee omg

This dynamic seemed to have been profoundly aggravated by the death of a family member. Her parents had been in so much pain after this person’s death that nobody was around to help their child process her feelings. Afterward, whenever she tried to express anxiety or sadness, her parents would dismiss her, saying she was being dramatic or even suggesting that their pain was worse than hers.

The next week, one of the reporters I was editing was struggling against me. She refused to take any of my edits and sent me three drafts in a row that were almost identically incomplete. Finally, after I pushed her yet again to add more narration, she emailed me suggesting that maybe this relationship wasn’t working—maybe she needed to be reassigned to a different editor. As soon as I read the email, I went into full triggered mode. I’m not good at my job, I messed up, oh my God, I’m a mess, if I were a kinder, better person she wouldn’t feel like she hates me, oh God. My immediate instinct was to shut down and run: If she hates me I should just not work with her. Fine. Good riddance. She can pick another editor. Bye.

This was my situation :( i wish i could've react the other way

moment. I remembered how people with C-PTSD can often assume problems are about them—not out of selfishness or narcissism but because they want to have enough control to be able to solve the problem. But if this was not about me, then what was she struggling with? What did she need? Could I provide it? I tried to prepare for the fact that I might not be able to, and that’s okay, too.

Being part of an oppressed minority group—being queer or disabled, for example—can cause C-PTSD if you are made to feel unsafe because of your identity. Poverty can be a contributing factor to C-PTSD. These factors traumatize people and cause brain changes that push them toward anxiety and self-loathing. Because of those changes, victims internalize the blame for their failures. They tell themselves they are awkward, lazy, antisocial, or stupid, when what’s really happening is that they live in a discriminatory society where their success is limited by white supremacy and class stratification. The system itself becomes the abuser.

LOUDER

On another day, I talked about how deeply depressed I got after logging on to Twitter. Looking at other colleagues’ career advances made me insecure. I tweeted something irreverent, got worried that it might be construed as offensive, and then immediately deleted it. How very C-PTSD, I complained, to get triggered over Twitter.

Same

When I’d first read those books about people with complex PTSD, so many of them had described us as emotionally erratic and said we had trouble self-soothing. For the past two years, I had felt some form of shame whenever I wasn’t in a state of blissed-out gratitude and appreciation. But, Dr. Ham told me, these negative emotions are not simply something to endure and erase. They are purposeful. Beneficial. They tell us what we need. Anger inspires action. Sadness is necessary to process grief. Fear helps keep us safe. Completely eradicating these emotions is not just impossible—it’s unhealthy. These negative emotions only become toxic when they block out all the other emotions. When we feel so much sadness that we can’t let any joy in. When we feel so much anger that we cannot soften around others.

“Pain is about feeling real, appropriate, and valid hurt when something bad happens. Suffering is when you add extra dollops to that pain. You’re feeling bad about feeling bad.”

You’re just accepting of it all. And if the feeling stays, you ask, okay, why is this feeling still in me? And then, assume that there’s incredible wisdom in your intuitions and just start listening to them. What is this? What is this thing in my body right now? What are you trying to teach me?”

“You’re done today,” he said. “You’re going home. Relax.” He gave me permission to treat myself to dessert. No longer did I have to hack and slash at myself on the road to betterment: But what about calories? But what about carbs? But what about inflammation? Instead, I surrendered to my basest instincts. But what if I want to? But what if this feels right for me, right now? I ate the cookie. I ate two. I went to bed and cried for an hour at three p.m. I held a grudge for a week before I was ready to let it go. I did all the bad things. I didn’t feel bad about them. And the world didn’t collapse. In fact, the opposite happened. I was still productive. Maybe even more productive than before because my brain felt freer. I was still healthy. I still nurtured my friendships. Nobody died.

This is important. Learn to rest

When I’d expressed that I wanted a community-based wedding, Joey had not only agreed but also suggested we write a personal letter to every single person in the audience telling them why we were glad to have them in our lives.

That is so cool

“No one has ever seen me so thoroughly and loved me so well as you have,” he says at the end. “I will be loyal to you. I’ll be true to you and I’ll be true with you because to be known by you touches me wholly. I’ll ensure that you know you are the most important person in my life, that you are loved. I will make these words forgettable because I will live them for you every day.” He pauses, shrugs. “Probably not every day. Most days. Many days, I will live them.”

This is so beautiful im crying

In my vows, I tell Joey that because of the way I was brought up, I couldn’t, for the longest time, comprehend the concept of unconditional love. That isn’t true anymore. His constant, unwavering love has healed me in ways I never could have imagined. Through him, I learned that you can make mistakes and still deserve love. You can fight and then repair. Through his love, I understood how to unconditionally love myself.

In other words, in some moments of intense stress, we are super-duper good at dissociation. Our hearts don’t pump as hard. Our brains cut themselves off from our bodies, so we don’t really have that feedback loop of getting anxious about getting anxious. Instead, our prefrontal cortices blink online—we become hyperrational. Super focused. Calm.

Pantesan iyaasih bener

People with C-PTSD might have an outsized, gnarly freak-out about a cockroach in the house or a flash of anger on someone’s face. But in times of real danger—when someone furious is coming toward us with an actual machete in their hand, ready to kill—we face the problem head-on, while everyone else is cowering. A lot of the time, we’re the ones getting shit done.

Lacey started dating an extremely hot dude. Unfortunately, like most extremely hot dudes, he also insisted on being extremely unavailable. He frequently canceled plans without rescheduling new times to see her and didn’t call when he promised to. He blamed it on his busy schedule, but his flakiness was driving her increasingly up the wall. “Is this normal?” she texted me every few days. “I don’t want to seem needy or weird. But I can’t sleep. I feel all this anxiety and rage. It’s all I think about.” “Totally normal! Of course you feel that way. Most people would feel bad about this. But your C-PTSD means that you especially value stability and reliability!” I replied. “It’s okay to have these needs. They’re not out of control. They are a part of you, and it’s okay for you to make them known. If he can adapt to meet your needs, then he’s a decent dude! If it freaks him out, good riddance to him.”

My struggles with C-PTSD made me more empathetic. They made me more attuned to what people needed and uniquely skilled in comforting them. Even the negative parts of my C-PTSD had a silver lining.

There is a Chinese saying that “a third of the world is under the control of heaven, a third is under the control of the environment, and a third is in your hands.” I got here through forces of war, luck, dowries, parents, bad bosses, and good boyfriends. But I took what was given to me, and I used my third of the equation to make choices to heal some of the wounds that had coursed through our family for generations. I picked out the rocks and the weeds. I am doing everything I can to provide a better plot of soil for those who will come after me.

I will show my child her great-grandmother’s jade, the little gold rabbit with the ruby eyes. I will tell her that this will be hers. I will tell her all the stories about how our family survived, about the wars, and the gambling dens, and, yes, eventually even the golf club. I will tell her that when the sky falls, she should use it as a blanket. And then I will give her the shining thing, the thing that none of us got, the thing that only I, in all of my resilient power, can give. The thing that all this pain has given me. I will hold her tight and tell her that I love her more than anything in the world. That she can always come to me for anything at all, and I will fix it if it needs fixing or just listen if she needs to be listened to. And as long as I live, I will never leave.

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. I accept the lifelong battle and its limitations now. Even though I must always carry the weight of grief on my back, I have become strong. My legs and shoulders are long, hard bundles of muscle. The burden is lighter than it was. I no longer cower and crawl my way through this world.