Kallissa Bailey

“In Gretchen Schmelzer’s excellent, gentle book, Journey Through Trauma, she insists on the fifth page: “Some of you may choose a therapist: a psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, counselor, or member of the clergy. Some of you may choose some form of group therapy. But I am telling you up front, at the beginning: in order to heal, you will need to get help. I know you will try to look for the loophole in this argument—try to find a way that you can do this on your own—but you need to trust me on this. If there were a way to do it on your own I would have found it. No one looked harder for that loophole than I did.”[1]”
― Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

“Four months later, I got my diagnosis. And now that my past was spilling over, exploding, a volcano spewing hot toxic waste all over my present life, it was all I could think about.”
― Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

“In fact, some might argue that starting C-PTSD treatment by diving into the back of your closet and chasing out your scariest, most deeply buried skeleton is a terrible idea. You could find a murderous clown in the storm drain of your life, and he could start haunting your everyday existence. You could dig up something that triggers you badly and makes your symptoms worse or is so unpleasant to look at that you just quit therapy and never come back. That’s why many trauma therapists try to set up a strong framework of coping mechanisms before people launch into their foundational traumas.”
― Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

“You’ve interviewed sixty people who are estranged from their parents,” I stammered. “I don’t know if you have studies on it, but, um, in your experience—did the people who estranged themselves, did they feel free afterward?” “No,” Catherine said with certainty. I waited. There was nothing else.”
― Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma