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Complex PTSD is different to PTSD, but there's not that much understanding of it as its own condition - which was not much help to Stephanie Foo when she was diagnosed with it in 2018. We talk about facing trauma rather than burying it, self-care and self-soothing, endurance being an underrated word, and why people can quit sniping about triggers. Stephanie’s new book is What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma.
Content note: Stephanie refers fleetingly to the parental violence and abandonment she experienced, and we also mention sexual violence; but, we don’t discuss any of these things in detail. It’s a more general conversation about psychology and trauma, rather than stories of traumatisation. There are also a couple of swears.
EXTRA MATERIALS:
Other relevant Allusionists: Mind My Mind, about a handful of psychological terms; A Novel Remedy, about soothing trauma with novel-reading.
“Growth is also a strange thing to ask of the traumatized. It’s like turning to a wounded person and demanding, ‘Well, why didn’t you grow, you lazy son of a bitch?’”
“The proliferating tendency to invoke trauma as a synonym for unpleasant experiences in popular media and public discourse threatens to dissipate the term’s medical as well as its ethico-political force.”
Brief history of PTSD with a lot of links to more information at the end
“Shell shock, the term that would come to define the phenomenon, first appeared in the British medical journal The Lancet in February 1915, only six months after the commencement of the war.”
When two pods combine! Kristen Meinzer of By The Book talks about the language of self-help on this new episode of Subtitle.
Couple other pods I’ve been on lately: 1. I interviewed the actor Kristen Bell on Bullseye podcast, and no, I don't think she knew I spent two years minutely recapping Veronica Mars and thought it better not to tell her.2. I'm on last week's episode of The Bugle, with Hari Kondabolu and of course my brother Andy. Not too many puns, thankfully.
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YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
lactometer, noun: an instrument for measuring the density of milk.
CREDITS:
Stephanie Foo is a journalist and radio producer, and the author of the book What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com, listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch, and hear more of his composition on the science podcast for kids Maddie’s Sound Explorers.
Find the show at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/helenzaltzman and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
