.KTHeaney spoke to Stephanie Foo about writing and reliving her childhood experiences, trauma as reason versus excuse (particularly in the case of Joss Whedon), and the benefits of found family
Photo: Bryan Derballa In her new memoir, What My Bones Know, author and radio journalist Stephanie Foo details her painful experiences with childhood physical abuse — and the long, indirect path she took to healing in her adulthood. Foo has C-PTSD, or complex post-traumatic stress disorder, a diagnosis first established in 1988 by Judith Herman, who argued the effects of long-term trauma required a term distinct from ordinary PTSD.
The Cut recently spoke to Foo about writing and reliving her childhood experiences, trauma as reason versus excuse , and the benefits of found family. You write about not wanting to repeat your abusers’ behaviors, and we often frame abuse as a “cycle” that repeats. How does your experience with trauma make you think about the “nature versus nurture” debate?
We do have some agency, and the healing process gives us more agency. And I think that if you haven’t gone through that healing process, that’s sort of a dangerous thing. I think the healing process is what keeps us from taking those past events that we may or may not have had control over and hurting other people in our lives.
I feel lucky that I wasn’t fixing it on my own. I had the support of people around me. And I think it’s absolutely okay to feel resentment and anger. Just this week, I had kind of a meltdown where I was just like, This is so unfair. But the important thing is to have that balance. I don’t think being mentally healthy means feeling good and happy all the time. It’s being able to feel that balance of anger and sadness and happiness, and to hold all of those things.
In your accounts of experiences with various therapists and specialists, I got such a strong journalist vibe — you’re skeptical of most treatments. Do you think it has been harder to find and accept treatment as a reporter by trade?
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