Book Club Pick: What My Bones Know

This month’s pick: What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo

This is our Book Club for People Who Don't Finish Books.

Welcome to the most low-pressure book club you’ll ever join! Here, we celebrate the art of the half-read - or the not even started - because, let’s be honest, many of us with ADHD have more “in-progress” books than finished ones.

In this club, I read the whole book (yes, all of it!) so you don’t have to. Then I’ll share the main takeaways, the best ideas, and a few questions to guide your own reading, whether you dive in yourself or just enjoy the highlights. You can jump in anytime, and if you ever feel inspired to read along, I’ll give you a heads-up on the next pick.

Eventually, this will grow into a community space for sharing thoughts and half-finished stacks. For now, we’re keeping it casual, a soft rollout for fellow book dabblers everywhere.

This month’s pick: What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo

Stephanie Foo’s memoir explores life with Complex PTSD (C-PTSD), a form of trauma that often develops not from a single “big event,” but from years of smaller, ongoing harm. For many of us with ADHD, trauma and neurodivergence can overlap in messy, surprising ways. Foo’s story offers an honest look at her healing process and, most importantly, the power of developing awareness and reclaiming her life. Please note that the book contains descriptions of childhood trauma, which may be triggering for some readers.

Why This is Relevant

Many ADHDers carry undiagnosed or unaddressed trauma, which can look a lot like ADHD symptoms (or make them worse). Understanding how to manage both is a lifelong process.

Main Points from the Book: 

• Chronic, repeated trauma changes how the brain works and how the body stores those experiences. It might even alter our ability to process and remember beauty and joy.

• Mindfulness practices and other forms of treatment that help someone be present in the here and now can significantly reduce reactivity, similarly to how we manage reactivity with ADHD.

• Naming, reframing, and perspective taking are important parts of the healing process.

• Generational trauma is often overlooked when understanding how these cycles perpetuate and can be a useful tool in understanding how to stop them.

• Finding the right strategies to help you cope and heal are crucial. There is no one fits all solution. Like all medical diagnoses, this can take many years to learn how to manage properly and effectively.

  
  

Favorite Quotes

“Healing is not the absence of pain. It is learning to live with it and still find joy.”

"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."

The Part Where I Got Distracted

Somewhere in the later chapters, I found myself drifting a bit. The author’s detailed account of her diagnostic process, while valuable, felt less about offering new insight and more like a reassuring reminder that healing is often a long, difficult journey.

Questions to deepen your reading: 

1. How do you notice your body responding to stress or reminders of the past? Is it in your bones, as the author experiences it?

2. What similarities do you notice between cPTSD and ADHD?  Do you already have tools for one that might also help with the other?

3. What part of the authors journey did you connect with the most, if any?

4. What tools does the author explore that might be relevant to your own journey?

5. A lot of what the author describes is a familiar set of executive function challenges that most of us with ADHD experience. It turns out that trauma can affect the prefrontal cortex. How might this complicate diagnostics and treatment for some individuals with such an overlap in symptoms?

BrainBrakes rating system

4 out of 5 Coffee Cups. I was able to read this at a pretty good clip and the information was organized well and in an interesting narrative. It would have pushed it to a 4.5 for me if the memoir had contained a little more research.

Next Pick

Next month I’ll be re-reading ADHD 2.0 by Hallowell. Feel free to grab a copy if you want to join in. I’ll share the highlights, and you can jump in whether you make it to page 20 or the final chapter!