Take My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness Composed By Kabi Nagata Exhibited In Physical Book

is more a tale of the author's personal and ongoing experience with mental illness rather than what it's like to be lesbian drawn out in a manga comic book form.
It touches on depression, eating disorders, cutting, and more, Erotic it is not. For me, the book has more of a feeling of commiseration and is an intimate confession where epiphanies are had once the author's first sexual experience occurs, and this is unique in that sex is not glamorized at all,

The naked scenes are illustrated in a nongraphic way but the story inside is raw and vulnerable, It's a deep reveal of inner struggles that a reader may or may not relate to,

In my own experience, I'm getting to a point where so many people in my life have some form of debilitating mental illness, including myself, ranging from extreme depression or anxiety to schizophrenia.
It's almost more surprising to find people who aren't struggling or fought inner demons at some point, Brain chemistry is definitely a factor and I wanted to reach out and give the author meds in addition to hugs, I felt so much empathy watching her handle things completely on her own, Her isolation triggers my own sadness and caregiver at the same time,

One note, this is a Japanese comic so everything is read right to left, It took me a few minutes to get used to it,

Recommend the read especially if you feel alone in having anxiety, depression and other mental illness issues, omg. so many little things in this manga hit way close to home, read if you're up for being in the headspace of confronting uncomfortable, notcommonlyvoiced truths about yourself, Yes, that scene from the cover actually appears in the story, a rarity by manga standards, You can be pardoned for thinking you're in for a sexy good time, but look closer, See the expression on her face That's more the kind of story you're in for, Im reminded of a line from a story by Andrew J, Offutt that's stuck with me for decadesIm blanking on the title, but it's in Harlan Ellison's famous anthology, Again, Dangerous Visions”, . . If you think this is a story off over which to get your rocks, you're mistook, ”

So this book is less Lesbian and more Loneliness, Nagata grows up struggling with depression and unsure of her sexuality, Awkward and shy, she slowly comes to terms with her life and begins to take her first tentative steps toward living as she truly wants rather than as she thinks othersher parents in particularexpect of her.
One of those steps involves scheduling an appointment with a female escort for an encounter at one of Japans many Love Hotels

There's real emotion throughout this book.
Nagata does an amazing job of conveying her feelings and the depth of her struggle to come to terms with them, The closest equivalent to this book that I can think of is Justin Greens classic underground, Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, Although very different in subject matter, both do a sensational job of putting the reader completely into a different headspace, It's hard to convey in words, but the experience of reading both books is deeper than that of the typical autobiographical comic, There's a sense of true understanding rather than just entertainment,

Anyway, I can definitely see what all of the fuss is about with this book, Highly recommended! tw: eating disorder, self harm, vomiting

the bit abt finding ur own sweet nectar amp finally living ur life, . . oh boy every single page was raw and tough to read for me at least, when i flipped to the last page, i was relieved not because i didnt like the story, but because my heart was aching and hurting for the character, i wanted to reach across the screen and hold her for as long as i could, sit there in a dirty little
dark corner and cry about our miserable
life.
i felt obligated to put the book down a few times before coming back to it because of how heavy my
heart felt in my chest, i will never shut up about this from now on What a great reading/viewing experience, The subject matter is fun, dark, and thoughtprovoking, wrapped up in a loose, skillful style, Nagata Kabi has a flair for illustrating and explaining debilitating depression and discomfort in ways I've never seen, And the bit about the mother clinginess really got me, I don't think I've ever heard anyone admit to such a thing, yet I found it so relatable by how she portrayed it all, Worth every penny. "anni. Zero autostima. Nessun futuro. "

Ovvero: come sentirsi attaccati personalmente da una quarta di copertina,

Scherzi a parte, avrei voluto leggere questo libro dieci anni fa, Non tanto per il modo in cui l'autrice affronta la scoperta della propria sessualità, quanto per l'analisi lucida e brutalmente onesta che Nagata fa di se stessa, della sua depressione e del suo processo di guarigione se di guarigione si può parlare.
C'è qualcosa di destabilizzante nella sua assoluta mancanza di pudore e nella sua capacità di mettersi, letteralmente e metaforicamente, a nudo di fronte al suo pubblico,

Questo è il genere di libro che ogni persona malata di depressione dovrebbe, prima o poi, prendere in mano, e anche il genere di libro che dovrebbe poter scrivere ad un certo punto della sua vita.
Voi, nel dubbio, leggetelo. This was a different reading experience than I was expecting, The cover and blurb makes it seem a little goofy, but it's actually quite introspective and is mostly her processing her mental health issues, “But it's easy to understand the pain when it's my body that's being hurt, It calms me down. I don't really understand the pain in my heart, It doesn't have any real form, ”

sad, sweet, amazing, relatable,
anyways i'll be back in like a month when the nextvolumes i just ordered finally arrive,


Kabi had the bravery to be very blunt, honest, and real in this book, It feels wrong to give a to someone's real life experiences, so it's hard to put my thoughts into appropriate words, I loved how she spoke about her experiences with depression and other mental illness, and I wish that had been fleshed out more, With regards to the depiction of sex and her own idea of sex, it felt like she set up the character of herself to make some selfdiscoveries that weren't really seen through.


I'd like to note before I say this that this isn't a criticism of the book or the author, just a statement about my experience as a reader: I was hoping to find this more relatable than I did.
As someone who has and does struggle with major depression, I found the depiction of mental illness far more relatable than the depiction of sexuality, which is what I was expecting to relate to in this book.


I understand the value of writing an autobiographical work that doesn't have a real "resolution", but putting down a book that didn't really have a conclusion is a strange feeling.
I guess I'd hoped that after learning about her experiences, as the reader I'd also be able to learn about what she took away from the experiences and how they've shaped her I wanted to know what, as a reader, she hoped I would take away from her story.
Lesbian experience with loneliness

This book was way too relatable for me, it also triggered some emotions and revelations about myself that I was not expecting based on the title and description.


But I still I absolutely loved it did would recommend it to anyone with any kind of mental health issues, because this really helped me with expressing myself more easily.


Ive suffered from depression for years now and my family dont accept that it is a genuine medical illness, Reading has always been my favourite way to escape reality but reading something so relatable has actually helped me feel better because Its shown me that there are actually people ho feel the same as me, but more importantly it helped me feel less alone.

Ciekawie narysowana manga na temat samotności, nie tylko w kontekście seksualnym, lecz w ujęciu ogólnym, Autorka przedstawia swoją historię zmagania się z ciężarem zaburzeń psychicznych, miejscami w sposób autoironiczny, a miejscami całkowicie poważnie opisuje własne doświadczenia i przemyślenia z tym związane.
W szerszym kontekście opowiada również o Japonii i japońskim społeczeństwie seksualność jako temat tabu, brak odpowiedniej edukacji, samotność wśród młodych ludzi, Do tego ładnie wydana i z krótkim, acz ciekawym posłowiem, At last. I'm going to be saved, I'm so, so ready for someone to comfort me, To melt away my years of loneliness, I want her to hold me, . . and not just for a few seconds, I was really, really lonely, I didn't know why I was hurting, I just had this longing, and it was finally going to be fulfilled, But I felt like I had to open my heart, or my loneliness would never go away, pg.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Selfharm: cutting, Depression. Suicidal thoughts. Anorexia Nervosa. BingeEatingDisorder.

OKAY. This must be SurpriseCarmenWithGood Books Month, No one told me this! But first I shocked myself by reading and actually enjoying sitelinkSummer of ' a book I would usually never pick up, and now this an ACTUAL FIVESTAR READ that was nothing like I expected it to be.
And that's a compliment.

Now, you might be thinking "manga isn't my thing, graphic novels aren't my thing, " I feel you. And this is Japanese, so it can be hard to get used to reading the text backward, I sometimes have a hard time 'getting into' graphic novels, although I do read them, But even if you have an aversion to reading graphic novels or are unsure or nervous about it, you should give them a chance, Pick a short one that seems quite interesting to you, It gets easier the more you do it, I have a 'graphic novel' shelf if you want some ideas,

The second thing I think might mislead people is the cover and the description on the back, Like sitelinkSummer of ', I don't feel like the blurbs are doing this one any favors,

People look at this cover and see two naked young women on there, lesbian is prominent in the title, People might avoid reading this out of embarrassment taking it out from the library or reading it in public, They might also get the wrong idea about the text, Either they might say, "Oh, I'm not interested in lesbian sex, naked women are on the cover, this isn't for me!" shocked" or on the other hand they may think, "Oooh, lesbians, heh heh heh, naked women, heh heh heh, this is going to be so titillating and pornlike! Masturbatory material!"

Both of these assumptions are going to lead to disappointed readers.


The book is actually not what it seems at all, From the cover and the writing on the back you would think this My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness's entire focus would be on sex and about how one young woman ayearold "virgin" sets out to have firsttime sex with a paid female escort.


And sure, that happens in the book, But the book is REALLY about mental illness, finding your true self, and getting up the courage to live your life the way you want, It's psychological and covers some pretty weighty topics, Kabi Nagata is luring people in with "Lesbian Sex!" flashing neon on the front, but then Tbones them with a thoughtful and insightful book about a woman's struggle with mental illness and 'growing up.
'

It was great, A great surprise. I suppose it probably was a letdown to those who only grabbed it because of "lesbian sex!" though,

Kabi Nagata is a Japanese woman who struggles with some severe mental illness, She is dealing with selfharm cutting, anorexia nervosa, later bingeeatingdisorder as a result of the years of Anorexia Nervosa, depression, suicidal thoughts, She also has some other problems, This isn't discussed in a crushing, depressing, tragic manner, Instead, Kabi Nagata adopts the kind of work sitelinkAllie Broshtype matteroffactness and selfawareness that IMO really opens up nonmentallyill people to the realities of mental illness, Kabi Nagata isn't as funny as sitelinkAllie Brosh, but she talks to her audience in a similar straightforward way, I feel like trying to explain mental illness to people is quite hard, it's books like this one and sitelinkHyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened that work wonderfully in easily and clearly explaining to people what mental illness is and how it affects a person's life.


So often mental illness is shown as 'scary' and a person who is 'psychotic' is seen as 'unstable' and 'dangerous, ' It was only very recently that mental illness was portrayed as 'an illness' and something that the person suffering from it couldn't 'easily cure, ' Oftentimes I used to hear sentiments like, "Just cheer up!" to a depressed person, or "Just eat something!" to an anorexic person, and this idea that 'mental strength or determination or willpower can "snap a person out of" mental illness.
' Which is ridiculous and painful and insulting and naïve to the mentally ill person,

It's only recently that I've begun to see the stigma about mental illness fade, people starting to be more open with their mental illness diagnoses, and the general public gradually beginning to grasp that you can't order mentally ill people to 'just get over it.
'

I think books like this and sitelinkAllie Brosh's work are helping with this, Mental illness no longer has to be a very scary, secret, shameful thing something that 'normal society' fears or misunderstands,

SO.

Kabi Nagata discusses cutting, WHY she cuts herself, her experiences with anorexia nervosa and then struggling with binge eating, Her fraught relationship with her parents and the crushing expectations from both her parents and society, She really makes clear the realities of someone dealing with this shit, It's straightforward and easily digestible to an audience who perhaps never struggled with issues like this,

Her struggles with depression, inability to hold down a job, questionable hygiene and inability to stand on her own two feet are frankly discussed,

She also addresses unrealistic expectations of sex generated by a society which is educated about sex through pornography instead of through school or adults or reality, I loved how she brought up her intense consumption of m/m gay male pornography, even though she is a lesbian woman, Why didn't she consume lesbian porn What would make a lesbian woman intensely consume m/m porn

The psychological analysis Kabi Nagata does on HERSELF in this book is really the highlight of the whole thing.
It's rare and special for a person to be so cleareyed about herself, It wasn't easy. It obviously took years for her to figure some things out about herself, but now she presents it in such an open way, It kind of reminds me of sitelinkTikva Wolf's work in KIMCHI CUDDLES, The surprising thing is that she doesn't feel any need to dramatize things, ask the reader for sympathy, make things into a sobfest, or come off as pretentious and full of herself.
She isn't selfpitying. This is a rare and good

trait,


TLDR DON'T be put off because of this My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness's cover image, or the idea of reading a manga/graphic novel, Give this book a chance, It might surprise you. A remarkable psychological study of the author on herself, A book that does a good, clear job of analyzing mental illness and showing how it affects a person's life and thought processes,

I would recommend this book to ANYONE: gay, straight, other man, woman, etc, people who have mental illness or people who have never struggled with a mental illness, It's a very human book and I think it illustrates some interesting concepts,

RELATED MATERIALS:
sitelinkHyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by sitelinkAllie Brosh due to the discussion of mental illness through graphic novels

sitelinkAsk Me About Polyamory: The Best of Kimchi Cuddles by sitelinkTikva Wolf due to a cleareyed psychological analysis of yourself, also recommend her website

sitelinkThe Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures due to a psychological analysis of an author of herself.