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

Do you want to know your diagnosis?

I blink and stare at my therapist. She gazes at me from her serene office, where sunshine glows through her gauzy curtains, birdsong bursts through the windows, and one of those little fountains with a giant marble on it burbles, which I guess is supposed to be relaxing. In the back of the room is a framed copy of the poem Desiderata. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

But Im not really here. My therapists warm office is in San Francisco, and I am in my dark, freezing, six-by-six-foot office in New York City, talking to her through a small window on my computer. The reason I know about the poem in her office is the same reason I cant believe she is only telling me my diagnosis now: Ive been her client for eight years.

My sessions with my therapist, whom Ill call Samantha, began when I was twenty-two, when I lived in San Francisco and needed help with a very San Francisco problem: an INTJ tech-nerd boyfriend. I lucked out with Samantha. She was acerbic and clever but loving. Shed always make time for an emergency session after a breakup and even bought me a beautiful leather-bound travel journal before my first solo trip abroad. My sessions with her quickly moved beyond boy talk, and we began discussing my monthslong bouts of depression and my constant anxiety around friendships, work, and family. I loved her so much that I kept seeing her via Skype after I moved across the country to New York when I was twenty-six.

Our session today begins with me complaining about my lack of focus. Samantha asks me to do some positive visualizations and suggests I picture myself in a safe space, as a powerful being, full of light. I try half-heartedly, but I always feel corny doing this stuff. Then, as she does every week, she tells me not to be so hard on myself. Im sure youre being more productive than youre letting on, she says, ignoring my eye rolls. Ive seen you pull yourself out of depressions like this before. I know you can pull yourself up out of this one.

But thats exactly the problem. Im tired of pulling. I dont want to pull anymore. I want a dumbwaiter, or an escalator, or a floating rainbow drug cloud. Anything to lift me toward emotional stability. To fix me.

Ive suffered from anxiety and depression since I was twelve years old. The pain is a fanged beast that Ive battled a hundred times throughout the years, and every time I think Ive cut it down for good, it reanimates and launches itself at my throat again. But in recent years, Id convinced myself that this battle was completely pedestrian. I mean, twentysomething millennials are all really stressed out, arent they? Isnt depression just shorthand for the human condition? Who isnt anxious here in New York, the capital of neuroticism?

That is, until I turned thirty. One by one, Id watched my erratic friends hit thirty and quickly become adults. They reported that they had less energy, so they stopped caring as much about what other people thought and settled into themselves. Then they bought beige linen pants and had babies. Ive waited for that mature, elevated calm, but my thirtieth birthday was months ago, and if anything, I care more than ever. I care about shopping cart placement and plastic in the oceans and being a good listener. I care about how I seem to fuck everything up all the time. I care and I care, and I hate myself for it.

My friends got one thing right, though: Im so tired now. Thirty years on this earth, and Ive been sad at least half that time.

On my subway rides to work, I stare at the supposedly neurotic masseswho are calmly staring at their phonesand think: Maybe Im different from them? Maybe something is wrong with me? Something big. In the past week, Ive been scrolling through various mental illnesses on WebMD, searching for symptoms that sound familiar to find an answer.

Now, near the end of my session with Samantha, after weve exhausted the usual pep talks and affirmations, I gather up my courage to ask about my internet diagnosis. Do you think Im bipolar?

Samantha actually laughs. You are not bipolar. I am sure of it, she says. And thats when she asks, Do you want to know your diagnosis?

I dont yell, Lady, Ive been seeing you for a fucking decade, yes I want to know my goddamn diagnosis, because Samantha taught me about appropriate communication. Thanks, Samantha.

Instead, I say, Yes. Of course.

Something in her jaw becomes determined, and her gaze is direct. You have complex PTSD from your childhood, and it manifests as persistent depression and anxiety. Theres no way someone with your background couldnt have it, she says.