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

Foo comes to the decision to cut ties with her father. She speaks with Dr. Kristina Scharp, an assistant professor of communications at the University of Washington, who admits estrangement is fairly common in Asian American communities, despite the heavy stigma it carries. Scharp tells Foo that choosing to cut ties is particularly difficult for women, who have traditionally been relegated the role of caretaker. Most people choose estrangement not because it will make them happy but because it is a necessity for survival.

Foo’s final meeting with her father takes place in 2008 in downtown Oakland. She confronts her father about her childhood abuse and neglect, but he replies with denial and leaves in a fury. Foo collapses into tears against Joey. She recognizes that her father never loved her. Now her only recourse is moving forward and accepting this fact. Despite her sadness, Foo warns her father’s wife to take care of him.

Seven months after her diagnosis, Foo begins to work on finding ways to fill the void her parents left. She quits EMDR, which has become less effective over time, and finds another therapist through the National Institute for the Psychotherapies. Her new match, Mr. Sweater-Vest, is secretive about his methodology and tends to jump to conclusions. He tries Foo on Internal Family Systems (IFS) as a form of therapy, but she finds it does not work well for her.

Foo then tries MNDFL, a meditation space that combines yoga and visualization exercises to help process trauma. Foo is once again instructed to embrace and encourage past versions of herself. For the first time, she feels unconditional self-love without the aid of drugs. Foo understands that she spent her childhood parenting her mother and father, and she is now determined to turn that same energy inward.

Self-parenting is the process through which Foo ends up mourning the childhood she could have had. She draws a distinction between two kinds of sadness: the sadness of loss and the sadness of reckoning. Whereas the latter can be assuaged through the delivery of justice, the former is an insatiable hunger. Foo is not childish for mourning or craving parental love, because it is a universal, primal need. She is only deeply saddened that she has to provide it to herself now that she is an adult.

Foo juxtaposes the love and care she receives from Joey’s parents with the emotional neglect and abuse she received from her own. She recounts how Joey’s parents demonstrated unconditional love and acceptance the first Christmas she spent with them. Foo describes Joey’s family as accommodating, considerate, and supportive. Upon learning of her past, Joey’s mother declares that Foo can forget about her parents because she belongs to their family now. Joey proposes on their third Christmas together after sending her and the rest of the family on a long treasure hunt. Foo is ecstatic to have found a new family that treasures her.