Opening
By early 2019, Stephanie Foo finally feels steady—career humming, engagement to Joey, symptoms manageable. A sudden medical crisis shatters that calm and sends her back into the heart of Complex Trauma and Its Lifelong Impact, where she must fight dismissive doctors, relearn how to connect, and replace self-punishment with repair and love.
What Happens
Chapter 36
Stephanie’s hard-won stability collapses when stabbing pelvic pain leads to a diagnosis of endometriosis. When she asks whether her trauma history might be related, the gynecologist waves her off.
“Tell your psychiatrist about your mental health stuff. Don’t tell me.”
The doctor pushes hormonal options that have previously destabilized Stephanie’s mood, proposing an antidepressant to manage the side effects. Stephanie digs into the research and finds evidence linking Childhood Abuse and Family Dysfunction to increased endometriosis risk, and into the science of Intergenerational and Cultural Trauma and how women’s pain is sidelined. As predicted, the NuvaRing triggers a severe depressive episode. The physical agony makes yoga and meditation impossible; the pain feels like her mother’s abuse lodged in her body.
Cascading C-PTSD symptoms push Stephanie to confront her therapist, “Mr. Sweater-Vest,” whose vagueness and judgment of her need for structure feel intolerable. She leaves him—and fires the gynecologist, too—reclaiming agency in her Journey of Healing and Recovery. A new specialist, Dr. Emily Blanton, validates the mind-body link, removes Stephanie from hormones, recommends pelvic floor PT, and has her IUD taken out. Pain and PMDD symptoms ease dramatically, proving that attuned, respectful care changes everything.
Chapter 37
A podcast leads Stephanie to psychologist Dr. Jacob Ham, whose “Hulk” metaphor reframes trauma rage as a protective part to be befriended. Intrigued, she interviews him, only to find his abstract, psychoanalytic language dizzying as he turns questions back on her, probing how she suffers and what she wants from healing.
At the end, he proposes an unusual exchange: free treatment in return for recording sessions—with Stephanie retaining full control. She agrees. In their first session she brings a goals list, including reframing her diagnosis to loosen the grip of Identity, Self-Loathing, and Self-Acceptance. She recounts regulating herself after a triggering interaction with her Auntie. Dr. Ham surprises her by suggesting she missed a chance to “reconnect” and repair. He slows the room down to study their own “ruptures”—her interruptions, hypervigilance, and fast conclusions—and invites curiosity over judgment. Then he names what she needs: “unconditional love but still no bullshit.”
Chapter 38
Together they invent a method. After each session, Stephanie transcribes the audio; they annotate a shared Google Doc, analyzing patterns like editors combing a draft. The written distance helps her see hypervigilance, self-criticism, and dissociation without shame. Therapy becomes collaborative, structured, and measurable—finally a process that matches her journalistic mind.
Dr. Ham lays out his theory: C-PTSD is relational trauma, so healing must be relational. Self-regulation alone is survival, not recovery. His office becomes a gym for the “relational dance,” and the recordings become “game tape” for review and improvement—“interpersonal dueling” with safety nets. Empowered by a clear methodology, Stephanie tries it with her friend Kathy: she doesn’t rush past discomfort, asks questions, listens. The conversation deepens. She hangs up feeling competent, connected, like a good person.
Chapter 39
Stephanie remembers Mott Haven Academy, a charter school for foster kids that centers community and repair over punishment. She watched a yard monitor guide two boys through mediation—naming feelings, restoring friendship. She realizes she’s been searching for the adult version of that: a place to practice repair until it becomes second nature.
The need crystallizes after a minor train interaction with Joey explodes into a C-PTSD spiral. Concerned for his health, she nags; he shoots her a look; she collapses into panic, sobbing on a public curb and saying she wishes she were dead. In session, Dr. Ham first chuckles at the absurd escalation, then validates the pain beneath it. He traces her nagging to love and fear of loss, then offers the chapter’s core lesson: fights are inevitable; what matters is repair. People with trauma often apologize in only two broken ways—groveling or blaming. The task is learning a mutual repair where both sets of needs are seen.
Chapter 40
Dr. Ham teaches “emotional disarmament”: lead with curiosity about the other’s pain (“What is hurting you?”) instead of self-attack (“Have I hurt you?”). Stephanie starts spotting misattunements without diving into her “shit spot.” A breakthrough arrives via a video: a father moves from defensiveness and self-punishment to fully present love with his daughter, enabling real repair.
Stephanie’s core belief snaps: Punishment doesn’t work. Shame doesn’t build character; it blocks connection. Holding this, she navigates a conflict with a reporter she edits—stays engaged, asks about the reporter’s fears, and co-creates a solution. The repair lands on both sides. The section closes by widening the lens: research shows systemic oppression—especially racism—can produce brain changes akin to C-PTSD. The system itself can be an abuser. Stephanie reframes her workplace breakdown: it’s not just childhood; it’s the prejudice and microaggressions, like a boss calling her “different,” that also shape her nervous system.
Character Development
Stephanie steps from fragile stability through relapse into a new phase of agency and relational skill. She fires dismissive providers, finds attuned care, and—under Dr. Ham—shifts from self-regulation to connection and repair, challenging her lifelong alliance with shame.
- Stephanie Foo: Reclaims medical autonomy, finds effective treatment, and learns to spot ruptures and pursue two-way repairs. Her realization that punishment is not love begins to rewire her self-concept.
- Dr. Jacob Ham: An unconventional guide whose mix of firmness and warmth (“no bullshit” and unconditional regard) builds trust. His metaphors and the Google Doc method turn therapy into practice and reflection.
- Joey: A loving partner with limits; the train fight reveals how trauma strains intimacy and sets the stage for shared repair skills.
Themes & Symbols
Healing shifts from solo mastery to relational courage. The memoir moves beyond private coping toward practicing repair—naming ruptures, staying present, and meeting needs on both sides. This marks a pivotal turn in Stephanie’s [Journey of Healing and Recovery], where connection, not control, becomes the engine of change.
The body bears witness to trauma. Endometriosis and PMDD embody [Complex Trauma and Its Lifelong Impact], while research on [Intergenerational and Cultural Trauma] expands the frame to systems: oppression can dysregulate a nervous system as surely as a household. Against this backdrop, the “Hulk” reframes rage as protection, Mott Haven symbolizes a community of repair over punishment, and the “Google Doc/game tape” turns therapy into a clear, collaborative craft.
Key Quotes
“Tell your psychiatrist about your mental health stuff. Don’t tell me.”
A snapshot of medical invalidation that splits mind from body. The line crystallizes why survivors must self-advocate and seek practitioners who honor the full picture.
“Unconditional love but still no bullshit.”
Dr. Ham names the paradoxical holding Stephanie needs: warmth without appeasement. The phrase defines the therapeutic container where she can risk connection and grow.
“It’s not the fights that matter. It’s the repairs.”
This becomes the section’s thesis. Conflict is inevitable; healing lies in mutual acknowledgment, needs-sharing, and concrete repair attempts.
Punishment doesn’t work.
Stephanie’s turning point. Abandoning shame as a strategy opens the door to curiosity, empathy, and sustainable behavioral change.
“Reconnect.”
The single word redirects self-regulation toward relationship. It reframes success from calming down alone to returning to the other with openness and care.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters mark the memoir’s central pivot from solitary coping to relational healing. Dr. Ham’s approach gives the book its methodology—practice in session, analyze the “game tape,” try again—and its ethic: repair over punishment, curiosity over shame. The expansion of trauma’s scope to include systemic oppression connects Stephanie’s personal breakdown to social forces, widening the story from one woman’s recovery to a critique of the conditions that injure—and the relationships that can heal.