The Sunday Story: Stephanie Foo's book has a happy ending

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4.5 • 52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

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Summary

When Stephanie Foo turned 30, she learned she had complex PTSD. Her efforts to heal from an abusive childhood and intergenerational trauma drove her to write What My Bones Know, a book that combines memoir with the rigorous reporting she'd honed as a journalist.

Stephanie talks with producer Justine Yan about the initial shame upon hearing her diagnosis, lessons she learned when she went home to San Jose, California, and the fierce love she's practicing as she expects her first child.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Rachel Martin and this is the Sunday story.
0:02.3	We hear the word trauma a lot these days.
0:05.3	Often when we say trauma, we think of veterans of wars, refugees,
0:09.2	people who've survived singularly horrifying events.
0:13.1	But trauma can also be something quietly passed
0:15.6	from generation to generation.
0:17.9	That's the kind of trauma that journalist Stephanie Fu
0:20.7	has been trying to understand most of her life.
0:23.7	Last year, she published a book called What My Bones Know,
0:27.6	a memoir of healing from complex trauma.
0:30.8	It starts with a diagnosis that she got as an adult.
0:33.9	Complex PTSD.
0:36.5	After her diagnosis, Stephanie decided to quit her job
0:39.4	and devote herself full time to learning everything she could
0:42.8	about this lesser known type of PTSD.
0:45.9	So she went back in time and looked at her personal history.
0:49.4	In her book, Stephanie writes about the abuse she says
0:52.2	she experienced at the hands of her parents.
0:55.1	They were immigrants from Malaysia,
0:56.6	and they themselves experienced trauma.
0:59.0	She also shares the research out there,
1:01.1	different sciences and therapies that are helping people
	...

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