In the shadow of trauma, Stephanie Foo still finds ‘exquisite beauty’

Idaho Matters

Acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo is the author of 'What My Bones Know'( Penguin Random House, Stephanie Foo)

By the time she was a teenager, Stephanie Foo had been abused and abandoned by both parents. She spiraled into trauma, and the feeling of, ‘‘Why didn’t anybody want me?’

Diagnosed with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, years later, Foo was able to look at that teenager and think, "Oh my God, the strength that you have … the power that you have … to have gone through all of that and to keep going and to succeed."

“I have a lot of love and empathy for that girl now,” she said.

Prior to her being the keynote at the Idaho Office for Refugees’ Northwest Conference on Resettlement, Foo, author of "What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma" visited with Morning Edition host George Prentice to talk about CPTSD and how she went from victim to survivor to understanding that “along with the losses are the triumphs.”

Read the full transcript below:

GEORGE PRENTICE: It's Morning Edition. Good morning, I'm George Prentice. Because we will be talking about PTSD and more specifically, CPTSD, you should know that yes, we will be considering trauma for the next few minutes; but you should also know that our guest reminds us that while a life can be full of anger and pain, at the same time, it is very possible to have that life also include peace and exquisite beauty. And these are some of her words in her amazing book. She is Stephanie Foo, an acclaimed radio producer for This American Life and Snap Judgment. Most of us know her New York Times bestseller, “What My Bones Know: a Memoir of Healing From Complex Trauma.” And we are thrilled to report that she is to be the keynote speaker at the upcoming Northwest Conference on Resettlement, put together by the Idaho Office for Refugees. Stephanie Foo, good morning.

STEPHANIE FOO: Thank you so much for that wonderful introduction. Good morning.

PRENTICE: With your permission, I'm going to ask you to share with us a couple of passages from your book. By the way, how do you best explain to most of us what is CPTSD?

FOO: Yeah, I think we're all familiar with PTSD. You can get PTSD from a single traumatic event. Let's say you're in a car accident. You can get PTSD from that. Complex PTSD occurs when the trauma happens over and over and over again for an extended period of time. So that could be survivors of war, of domestic violence, of child abuse. That's very frequent. My CPTSD comes from child abuse. It's kind of like if you were in a car accident every week for several years. The toll that takes on your brain is very different than Complex PTSD. And it's more complex to heal.

PRENTICE: On social media, pretty early on you threw a question out: “Do I know anybody who was diagnosed with CPTSD? And one of the responses came back from someone that you call Lacey. And in chapter 11 of your book….could you read a bit beginning with…beginning with the words “Lacey said the road…” Could you share that with us?

FOO: Sure.

“Lacey said the road would be long and difficult. That sounded about right, considering I was endeavoring to relearn how to be a person. I wanted to learn to be happy and strong and independent so I could support others instead of letting my own depression always take center stage. I wanted to learn how to be a better friend, partner, family member to invest in permanent relationships. I wanted to be the kind of woman people didn't leave. I had to find out what was salvageable. If I had good qualities underneath all of those layers of trauma and hurt and workaholism.”

PRENTICE: And you do caution us early on that the first part of your book is detailed about trauma… the trauma that you grew up with. And I have to tell you… and my guess is that this is not the first time a reader has told you this: I had to wince as I was reading …more than a few times. I also had to decide whether I needed to put the book down for a few minutes, or whether it would be better to power through. Because you do promise us a happy ending.

FOO: And I do say in the beginning too…that it's totally okay if you need to just skip a few pages. I recognize that books on trauma are really difficult… and I really wanted to make sure that survivors were protected in reading this book. And so, I tried to keep the real ugly, nasty trauma stuff from my childhood to 50 pages or less.

PRENTICE: With the success of this book, you have been asked…as I'm asking today…probably countless times in interviews or events that you're speaking at… about these horrible, visceral memories. And I truly want to know: How you do that without this not being triggering.

FOO: Well, see, CPTSD is sort of a curse and a blessing. One of the advantages, or what I kind of call superhero talents of having CPTSD, is that it makes us excellent at dissociation. I sort of leave my body and shut off all of my sadness and anxiety and all of that, whenever I talk about my childhood and I just don't feel anything. So, I it's pretty easy for me to talk about some of the hardest things that have ever happened to me. That can happen in moments of crisis. It happened during the pandemic. I wrote this book during the pandemic which pretty much completely dissociated in one of the most traumatizing moments for our society, I guess living with CPTSD is kind of like being used to always feeling like you're going to die at any moment. And so, at a certain point, you do kind of get dulled to it, and it can be both a terrible thing and a wonderful thing.

PRENTICE: Is it learned? Is it through professional help?

FOO: My dissociation?

PRENTICE: Yeah.

FOO: It's actually a symptom of how people who are very traumatized. I think that they sometimes have a hard time accessing their feelings… particularly difficult feelings. But all feelings, like when you numb the sadness, you can also numb the happiness. I think that it can be pathologized as something that's really debilitating for some people. And it certainly exists on a spectrum, But in moments of extreme distress, in moments of where you really need to stay calm in order to survive, we can be the calmest ones in the room. You know, it is a survival mechanism from having to stay calm in dangerous moments where our lives were threatened. You know, if you have a tiger… if a tiger ate your wife, you can't just, like, sit there and freak out about it and grieve. You have to feed your children. If you're living in a jungle, you have to find a way to survive. And so, you have to shut down all of those feelings and keep going. And I think the harder thing has been to tap into some of those rough feelings and feel grief and sadness and anger over what happened to me as a child.

PRENTICE: Can I assume that when you are invited for readings or a speaking engagement… do countless people come up to you when you're done and want to share their stories? I'm wondering what that experience has been like.

FOO: I feel like the language around trauma has actually been improving a lot with the help of social media and awareness and books. So, I think people understand more about the concept of trauma dumping. And the toll that it can take on people. So, I don't frequently get people coming up and dumping all their trauma on me. But what I do get a lot of is people coming to me and saying, ‘My story is your story.” And I always say, thank you so much. And I'm so sorry…I'm so sorry that you have to be part of this club. But I always say, “This is the crappiest club with the best people in it.” Because I feel like survivors… when they come up to me, they're always so empathetic. They're so kind, they're so gracious, they're so thoughtful. And it's really taught me that survivors of CPTSD are really powerful and loving… and lovable individuals.

PRENTICE: As a point of personal privilege, I have to tell you that my connection was that I worked with foster kids… pretty high risk foster kids…close to 100 before I returned to journalism. And I found your story to be their story. What I learned from your book, and what you've reminded me of more than a few times, is that you never know that you are learning to survive, But only on the other side, where there's any amount of daylight do you consider yourself a survivor. Because the process of surviving is so… just… awful sometimes… even though you are surviving.

FOO: It's all encompassing. And I think a lot of times the process of surviving is so sad that there is a lot of self-hatred in there. For me, being abused and abandoned by both of my parents by the time I was a teenager, there was a lot of self-loathing and feeling like, “Why didn't anybody want me? Why must I be unlovable?” And only years later, really, was I able to look at that teenage girl and think, “Oh my God, the strength that you have, the power that you have to have gone through all of that and to keep going and to succeed. I mean,” I have a lot of love and empathy for that girl now.

PRENTICE: I'm next going to ask you to read from your book again: Chapter 43, if it's okay? Beginning with the words, “But there are two main differences…”

FOO: Okay.

“But there are two main differences. Now I have hope, and I have agency. I know my feelings, no matter how disconsolate they are, they are temporary. I know that regardless of how unruly it is, I am the Beast's master, and at the end of each battle I stand strong and plant my flag. I am alive, I am proud, I am joyful still. 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. 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. Now I hitch my pack up. And as I wait for the beast to come, I dance.”

PRENTICE: Stephanie Foo will be the much-anticipated keynote speaker at the upcoming Northwest Conference on Resettlement, sponsored by the Idaho Office for Refugees. Stephanie, great good luck to you. Safe journey. I can't thank you enough for giving me some time today.

FOO: Thank you. So excited to see you there.

Find reporter George Prentice @georgepren

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