Until I Love Myself – The Journey of a Nonbinary Manga Artist – Vol 2

by Soph Myers-Kelley

Poppy Pesuyama completes their epic tale of healing from sexual harassment at work, as well as the often painful journey of coming to terms with one’s own gender identity. This finale, contrary to the first volume, covers Pesuyama’s experience in working with a therapist and utilizing EMDR therapy. In a refreshing addition, Pesuyama also introduces other friendships (including with queer and gender nonconforming people) in detail and the way one other friend specifically deals with similar trauma to what Pesuyama experienced. We also get to see more dialogue between Pesuyama and the manga artist who abused her.

The author is realistic about the benefits and potential limits of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy and how it worked for them. They take us on the journey of reexperiencing painful memories with their therapist (intentionally!) over and over again, ad nauseum, in order to do the brutal work of desensitizing themself to the harm done. We see that getting to a place where PTSD symptoms are managed is hard. We see their coming to terms that self-blame, or blame on their female body, is not what’s truly at fault here. It’s both a beautiful and tragic story; beautiful to see someone fight so hard for their life and to feel well, and tragic because it’s such difficult, mind pushing work that was thrust upon them by being harassed and abused. It’s not fair, but it is their journey, and I’m grateful they have shared their story with us so other sexual assault, workplace harassment, and gender trauma survivors can feel seen and heard.

Pesuyama is deeply self-aware, commenting that talking about their trauma with a therapist was (initially) so much more difficult than drawing manga about it. They had written their first manga on their journey as a nonbinary manga artist already, so they had some expectation that they were already comfortable discussing their trauma and had healed to some extent.

In a similarly meta experience, Pesuyama shares how some of the comments on her publisher’s website for their first volume of this book were belittling and demeaning of their experience. These comments were hateful and bigoted, and after a conversation with the publisher and Pesuyama, it was decided that a statement would be put out and comments would be reviewed before publication (instead of free-for-all commenting by anyone). This cost extra money to the publisher, and it was much appreciated that this extra step would be taken not only for the safety of Pesuyama, but for the safety of all those readers who can relate to their experience and need validation, not bullying.

I would recommend this read. There is even a bonus chapter at the end that discusses sexuality and masturbation, as well as dealing with pelvic pain. A great read, and a great finish to the series overall.

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Soph Myers-Kelley (they/him) is a medical librarian, herbalist, and activist living in North Carolina. They can be contacted at https://www.smyerskelley.com/ and followed at https://www.instagram.com/sophmyerskelley/