Eri Mametsuka was 16 when she tried to take her own life at her home in Oita Prefecture.
What led there was a childhood defined by poverty, isolation and emotional abuse from her Zainichi Korean mother and Japanese stepfather. A self-described “latchkey kid,” Mametsuka initially turned to books to escape the friction at home. But by junior high, her quiet coping mechanisms gave way to self-harm.
As severe depression took hold, the walls closed in — until one morning, a fight with her mother over not getting up for school pushed her to the brink. Mametsuka jumped from their third-floor balcony, a fall that broke her neck and left her paralyzed from the chest down.
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