When I was diagnosed with complex PTSD, I knew what I had to do.

Make the story human.

Receiving a diagnosis can be a demoralizing process. Survivors are often pathologized and stigmatized by experts — a phenomenon exacerbated by the fact that c-PTSD is vastly under-researched. When I found myself mired in demeaning literature and unhelpful therapies, I thought: this issue needs a real, first-person story for things to change.

For a decade, I worked as a producer at This American Life and Snap Judgment, taking big concepts like immigration, race and the military industrial complex and giving them emotional, intimate stakes through human storytelling. I took that journalistic approach and applied it towards myself. The result was What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma. What My Bones Know became a New York Times bestseller, and has begun to change the landscape of literature on complex PTSD. What My Bones Know has almost 50,000 five-star reviews on Goodreads, with readers attesting that it has given them real hope for healing. It has been translated into 11 languages and is taught in dozens of psychiatry, psychology and social work programs.

Over the years, my career has given me a pretty wild variety of skills. I produced and edited stories for shows like Invisibilia, The Cut, Nancy, Reply All, and 99% Invisible, and have written for The New York Times and Vox. Once, I co-produced a video series for This American Life that won an Emmy. I enjoyed a brief foray into tech when I made an ahead-of-its-time app that made audio easier to share. I’ve also done some voice work and am always looking for cool things to read out loud.

I’ve taught audio storytelling and production at places like Columbia University and the Salt Documentary Institute, and now teach writing classes for survivors. I love public speaking and have given talks about how to empower survivors and avoid pathologization, how to protect abused children, and how to provide effective mental healthcare to immigrants and refugees. I also give corporate speeches to companies like Panasonic about how to prioritize mental health and resilience in the workplace.

I’m currently working on a new book about parenting with C-PTSD, to be published through Ballantine.

The photo above is by Bryan Derballa. Have him take your picture.