Despite your intentions, you start thinking, If I’m happy then this person will stop paying attention to me, which naturally leads to you trying to avoid becoming happy at all costs. You have this superego that exerts control over you, a superego built not only from your own experiences but cobbled together from all sorts of things that you admire, creating an idealised version of yourself. Now, on the one hand, I appreciated reading these sessions as they lead to discussions on self-esteem, depression, anxiety, peer pressure, one’s desire to fit in and be liked, toxic relationships, etc. And to reiterate my point above, I truly hope this book can bring someone else comfort even though it did nothing for me.

I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee

They didn’t probe thoroughly enough, often didn’t seem to ask the right and most obvious questions, didn’t address extreme patriarchy, which made me see clearly how much the therapist is the product of their culture, in which abuse towards women and alcoholism are normalised. Jiemi Ardian bahwa self-diagnosed itu tidak dianjurkan karena sangat mudah sekali bagi seseorang untuk melabeli kondisinya setelah membaca buku seperti ini. Baek Se-hee wrote the dialogues during her sessions with a psychiatrist, and included her inner thoughts on how she wants to love herself better. There was something about the title and cover of this book that brought to mind Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation and a line from Madame Bovary: ‘She wanted both to die and to live in Paris’.

She hides her feelings well at workand with friends; adept at performing the calmness, even ease, her lifestyle demands. as engrossing as it is moving' Daily Mail 'A rareachievement' The Times 'I can't even express how much I love this book! Part memoir, part self-help book, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a book to keep close and to reach for in times of darkness. I have heard of this level of incompetence from some of my Asian students and I don’t need to mention how extremely frustrated it makes me.

I WANT TO DIE BUT I WANT TO EAT TTEOKBOKKI (2022 BOOK REVIEW: I WANT TO DIE BUT I WANT TO EAT TTEOKBOKKI (2022

These days we’re all so quick to diagnose ourselves with something when really, we’re just having a hard time. Although she didn’t shy away from revealing the difficult and dark parts of her experiences, and herself, she also filled this book with so much light. I am someone who is completely unique in this world, someone I need to take care of for the rest of my life, and therefore someone I need to help take each step forwards, warmly and patiently, to allow to rest on some days and to encourage on others - I believe that the more I look into this strange being, myself, the more routes I will find to happiness. the writing style is very blunt and straightforward which i found myself appreciating (for this topic) but i lost interest over halfway, for the same reason. Ihre Gefühle kann sie gegenüber jeder Person gut verbergen und strahlt eine Gelassenheit und Leichtigkeit aus.For ten years, she received psychiatric treatment for dysthymia (persistent mild depression), which became the subject of her essays, and then I Want to Die, but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki, books one and two.

I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki (Paperback) I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki (Paperback)

Recording her conversations with her psychiatrist over 12 weeks, Baek begins to disentangle the feedback loops, knee-jerk reactions and harmful behaviours that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse.

also: interesting to learn the term dysthymia, which describes "a state of constant, light depression. Baek, understandably, finds these sessions to be enlightening as through them she gains self-knowledge and a more nuanced understanding of her mental health, I did not. As someone who gets depressed and also has anxiety, this book sounded high-key relatable and I was really excited to read it.