Foo's mother repeatedly beats and verbally abuses her throughout childhood, including throwing her down the stairs.

Foo's parents beat her after a computer password dispute; her father swings a golf club into the wall near her head.

Foo's mother divorces her father, and Foo chooses to live with her father rather than her mother.

Foo's father gradually stops returning home after starting a new relationship, leaving her to fend for herself.

Foo becomes editor in chief of her high school newspaper, finding enough purpose and structure to stay alive.

Foo moves to New York City after landing her dream job as a producer at This American Life.

Foo meets Joey, a former soldier and speech teacher, through Tinder and begins a relationship with him.

Foo's boss admonishes her for a small mistake, and she threatens to quit, overwhelmed by daily panic attacks.

Therapist Samantha diagnoses Foo with C-PTSD during a Skype call, explaining that repeated childhood abuse caused it.

Foo quits her job at This American Life and uses her savings to research and treat her C-PTSD.

During an EMDR therapy session with Eleanor, Foo breaks down crying and accepts that her mother never loved her.

Foo returns to San Jose to investigate whether intergenerational trauma is widespread in her childhood community.

Foo confronts her father about her childhood abuse in a final meeting; he denies everything and leaves in anger.

Psychologist Dr. Ham offers to treat Foo for free and helps her identify deeply ingrained destructive communication habits.

Foo and Joey marry surrounded by friends and family, and Foo feels her inner void filled to overflowing.

Pool 1 covers the essential spine of Foo's memoir, tracing the physical and verbal abuse she suffered at her mother's hands and her father's eventual abandonment of her as a teenager. It captures her discovery of journalism as a lifeline, her rise to a dream job at This American Life, and her fateful C-PTSD diagnosis after years of unacknowledged suffering. After quitting her job, Foo dives into therapy and finally confronts the truth that her parents never loved her. She then finds the strength to permanently cut ties with her father and begins rebuilding her sense of self through Dr. Ham's unconventional treatment. The pool closes with Foo's wedding, the moment she realizes the painful inner void has at last been filled by love and community.

The core milestones of Foo's journey from childhood abuse to marriage and healing.

Foo's father is hired by a Silicon Valley tech company, and the family moves from Malaysia to San Jose.

After her parents beat her during the computer dispute, Foo begins sleeping with a knife under her pillow.

During family visits to Malaysia, great-aunt Auntie showers Foo with special affection and tells her to use a fallen sky as a blanket.

Foo slips into her sleeping father's room with an axe and threatens to kill him if his reckless driving continues.

Foo fails to comfort a college best friend diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and the friendship ends permanently.

Foo begins seeing therapist Samantha and works on becoming less reactive and more empathetic with others.

Foo reads Pete Walker's book on C-PTSD and realizes her workaholism is a symptom of trauma, not a sign of recovery.

Fellow journalist and C-PTSD survivor Lacey reaches out to Foo with an encouraging story of recovery, giving Foo hope.

Foo attends restorative yoga led by Jennifer Chang and begins practicing grounding as a way to manage dissociation.

Foo takes psilocybin mushrooms after her diagnosis and for the first time truly absorbs that she deserves love.

School psychologist Yvonne Gunter tells Foo she treats 230 student referrals and considers physical abuse the default among her cases.

Foo travels to Malaysia to visit the ailing Auntie and interviews her about the family's long-hidden past.

Foo's aunt Tai Koo Ma reveals that Foo's father secretly remarried eight years ago, never telling Foo.

Joey proposes to Foo on their third Christmas together after sending her and the family on an elaborate treasure hunt.

When the COVID-19 pandemic breaks out, Foo remains calm and becomes a stabilizing support for her panicking friends.

Pool 2 highlights the secondary but vital events that shape Foo's healing journey, from her earliest years in San Jose to the COVID-19 pandemic. It follows her through childhood reprieves during family visits to Malaysia, a key act of teenage self-assertion against her father, and the slow erosion of friendships in early adulthood. Pivotal encounters with Pete Walker's book, fellow survivor Lacey, and yoga instructor Jennifer Chang mark incremental breakthroughs in managing C-PTSD symptoms. Returning to Malaysia to interview a dying Auntie and then learning the full scope of her father's secret life deepen Foo's understanding of her family's culture of silence. The pool closes with Joey's proposal and Foo's emergence as a calming presence during the pandemic, bookending a journey from isolation to belonging.

The supporting moments, relationships, and discoveries that gave texture to Foo's recovery.

Foo's mother threatens suicide with sleeping pills, causing Foo to begin monitoring her and take on a caretaker role.

After her father permanently stops returning home, Foo is left alone and begins to seriously consider suicide.

Foo's father does not attend her high school graduation, and she realizes she has survived entirely through her own effort.

Foo's romantic partner breaks up with her for being too intense and intimidating, triggering a prolonged depressive episode.

Foo scores herself on the Adverse Childhood Experiences chart and discovers her score of 6 predicts a dramatically shortened lifespan.

Foo consults neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett and overhauls her sleep, diet, and exercise to stabilize her body.

Foo suffers a sudden anxiety attack on a calm spring day and realizes the dread is not merely a physical problem.

Foo navigates the convoluted and racially unequal American healthcare system in search of an affordable new therapist.

Foo rewatches Mommie Dearest to prepare for EMDR and is stunned when the therapy session finally makes her cry.

Foo tours her childhood home, now owned by a Vietnamese family, and is surprised to feel nostalgia alongside the pain.

Former classmate Steve confirms to Foo that widespread beatings occurred among Asian American peers who stayed silent about it.

Foo learns from epigenetic research that trauma can chemically alter DNA and be inherited by subsequent generations.

Auntie reveals she showed Foo extra kindness not because of family rank but because she knew Foo's mother was abusing her.

Foo discovers she has endometriosis and struggles to balance hormonal treatment options against the risk of worsening her depression.

Foo reads transcripts of her sessions with Dr. Ham and recognizes that she reflexively blames herself whenever a conversation confuses her.

Pool 3 centers on the moments of sudden clarity and hard reckoning that punctuate Foo's recovery, beginning with her childhood discovery that she was responsible for keeping her mother alive. Each event marks a decisive shift in understanding—suicidal ideation in her teens, the shock of facing graduation alone, and a romantic rupture that exposed her deepest fears of abandonment. Her sobering ACE score result, an unexpected anxiety attack on a peaceful day, and the emotional breakthrough of her first effective EMDR session each push her further toward self-knowledge. Returning to her childhood home, hearing a former classmate confirm the community's hidden abuse, and absorbing the science of epigenetic trauma inheritance collectively reframe her entire history. Her work with Dr. Ham ultimately allows her to see her own ingrained self-blame in action, completing the arc from passive victim to self-aware survivor.

The key discoveries and emotional ruptures that transformed Foo's understanding of herself and her trauma.