Graphic memoir: "My Alcoholic Escape From Reality" by Nagata Kabi
Nagata Kabi's works are important for the exploration of mental health, especially as it is treated in Japan. And perhaps, more so, how it isn't treated, because I am always waiting to hear news that Nagata has passed away.
This book contains the greatest medical challenge of Nagata's memoirs thus far: an extended hospitalization for pancreatitis. After self-medicating her depression with alcohol for three years, Nagata has an attack of acute pancreatitis that the doctors only expect to see after a period of drinking several times longer than Nagata's binging habit. It's a harsh wake-up call for Nagata, who leaves the hospital detoxed from several weeks without drinking, and with strict orders to never drink again.
Anyone who knows alcoholics knows that the sobriety won't last. But most frustrating, Nagata does not seem reignite the pancreatitis when she breaks sobriety? And that's where the book ends. With Nagata binge drinking again, leaving the reader dissatisfied and a bit depressed on her behalf.
I hope one day we get the "everything is fine" Nagata comic. But I really want to see her start with the "I got a new psychiatrist, and man, was my old one fucking around on the meds" comic. It's needed very badly. I worry for her.
