What My Bones Know

The more childhood trauma someone had suffered, the worse their health outcomes were in adulthood.

In the universe my teachers painted, this community suffers mainly from a parental overemphasis on mathematics and an overprotectiveness that limits exposure to teen drinking. In this universe, this community is a paragon of immigrant success, privilege, and happiness. It is a miraculous place, a place where immigrant trauma comes to disappear. It

This was the most disorienting and upsetting idea that emerged from my reading: the idea that C-PTSD was baked into my personality, that I didn’t know where my PTSD stopped and I began.

I was stressing out about not being perfect at my relaxation class.

He advocated explaining your Hulk to others. To tell those close to you, “Sometimes he comes roaring out. And then as soon as the Hulk is gone, I’m going to be back. But please don’t mistake me for my Hulk.”

At the beginning of each meeting, we would go around in a circle and say how we were doing that month. And we almost never said “good.” Okay, we said. Meh.

Samantha helped me see that the loop kept happening because I was repeating behaviors taught to me by my mother—that her voice remained inside my head.

The difficulty regulating my emotions.

In Gretchen Schmelzer’s excellent, gentle book, Journey Through Trauma,