We follow her story from a young girl, hiding toasts behind her bookcase, to a teenager increasingly obsessed with control over food, and a young adult still struggling to get a handle on her condition. It eventually gets channeled into her pen, a strong visual opening to show how personal this story will be. It begins as Green sits at her desk, staring at a blank page while her black cloud floats around the room.
In Lighter Thank My Shadow, Katie Green recalls her struggle and tumultuous recovery from a serious eating disorder. I should also point out for the record that Lion Forge own the Comics Beat. I’d heard about this book upon it’s release in 2014, then published by Jonathan Cape, a sub-imprint of Penguin Random House UK and it was difficult to track it down in Canada. I’m grateful that Lion Forge has been able to republish this graphic novel and bring it to wider audience. It’s one of the rawest, most honest depiction of depression and mental illness I’ve read in graphic novel form. Katie Green depicts it right, this stalking cloud, this self-loathing and repugnance at oneself’s actions and behaviour, this shame at feeling that way in the first place. A fog dissipating, but still clearly visible on the horizon, just waiting to spread. It compounds and build onto itself and it’s difficult to keep at bay no matter how hard you try. Each time I feel better and fall back down, it hurts even more. I’ve had similar feelings and thoughts that Green depicts here A black cloud hovering over me, following me at every turn, sometimes growing to engulf me completely before receding and hiding until it eventually comes back. I never quite can describe it to people who never experienced it. I think this graphic novel meant so much to me because I’ve been struggling with depression for the last two or three years. Green provides a thorough look at her own life to show how this illness affected her.
People with addictions are engaged in constant struggle against themselves, whether it’s because of an eating disorder, alcohol or substance abuse, gambling or other. It’s a hard look at mental illness (anorexia in this case) and the recurring effects on a person’s physical and mental health. I cried when I finished Katie Green’s Lighter than my Shadow.
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