Grasp I Want To Die But I Want To Eat Tteokpokki Penned By Baek Se-hee Classified In Brochure
on I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki
is a hard book to review or rate because according to how it is being marketed it is supposed to be "part memoir" and "part self help", but then, it is neither.
This book is literally yes, I mean literally TRANSCRIPTS of her therapy sessions with her therapist with some short reflections re the sessions, I thought that the "therapy conversations" part were just going to be excerpts that serve as a jumping point into her actual thoughts and experiences as someone living with Persistent Depressive Disorder, but it was reallyjust "therapy conversations".
For a book that supposedly lays it all out, it lacked depth in terms of allowing the reader to step into the author's experiences with her struggles with her mental health examples of books I read recently that did this well: The Limits of My Language: Meditations on Depression by Eva Meijer, Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person by Anna Mehler Paperny.
It also did not give the reader any insights into her process of seeking mental health support and being in therapy itself, Because again, you literally just get the back and forth between her and her therapist, not her internal thoughts or dialogues re what is being said in therapy.
I get that it is brave to bare your intimate conversations in the protected space of therapy out for the public to consume, but then, the way it was structured just makes it feel.
. . a bit lazy.
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“I wonder about others like me, who seem totally fine on the outside but are rotting on the inside, where the rot is this vague state of being notfine and notdevastated at the same time.
”
There was something about the title and cover of this book that brought to mind Ottessa Moshfeghs My Year of Rest and Relaxation and a line from Madame Bovary: She wanted both to die and to live in Paris.
Naturally, me being a fan of both of those novels, I found myself intrigued by I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki.
This is a relatively short read which is made up of the transcripts from the authors session with her psychiatrist over aweek period, While there are occasional breaks in this patient/psychiatrist dialogue, these are brief, lasting one or two pages and consist of the author musing on the words of her psychiatrist or offering her own words of wisdom.
Now, on the one hand, I appreciated reading these sessions as they lead to discussions on selfesteem, depression, anxiety, peer pressure, ones desire to fit in and be liked, toxic relationships, etc.
Baeks worries and everyday tribulations will likely resonate with many millennials, While I appreciate the honesty that radiated from these sessions, and from her willingness to confront, assess, and critique aspects of herself, I did grow a tad bored by them.
I remember coming across a book i think it was a book where a character comments on how, most of the time, other peoples dreams do not strike us as interesting as our own ones.
Well, this is how I feel about this book, Baek, understandably, finds these sessions to be enlightening as through them she gains selfknowledge and a more nuanced understanding of her mental health, I did not.
As I said, I could certainly relate to some of the conversations they have around selfesteem and selfperception, but at the end of the day, these sessions were tailored for Baek, and I couldnt help but feel a bit uneasy at being invited in.
Maybe because I have always associated therapists/psychiatrists with privacy, but there were several instances where I wanted to bow out and leave Baek some space.
Part of me wishes that this book could have taken only certain exchanges from her sessions, and incorporated these into longer pieces where the author considers the issues they discussed.
In short, I wanted to hear more from Baek, and less from her psychiatrist, If I were to record my hypothetical sessions with a therapist or whoever, I doubt anyone would want to read transcripts of it, And if they did, well, thats kind of sus,
Anyway, jokes aside, this was by no means a bad book, I just think it could have benefitted from more original content ie miniessays/think pieces, I Want To Die But I Want To Eat Tteokbokki is a weird one, Its not a five star read that blew my socks off, but oh myyy it was such a comforting one,
This is all about Baeks mental health, which was timed perfectly with a lil blip of my own, Baek suffers from depression, but specifically persistent mild depression, As someone who feels simply hollow rather than having, say, violent feelings and suicidal desire, this book absolutely got it,
The book is a write up of Baeks time in therapy discussing this, as well as how she tends to use food for comfort.
Usually the psychologist in me means that I have issues over confidentially, but as this is specifically Baeks own stuff, I think Im okay,
Generally this book was pretty repetitive, Little progress was made and Baek needed lots of reassurance she was doing okay, It wasnt gripping or exciting, but also, thats what therapy is like,
Its hard, its a long game, and although probably life changing, it doesnt feel like it at the time, This one wont give you a lightbulb moment, but it might make you feel very heard and a lil warm,
V nice which is all you sometimes want in a book, And for me, its porridge when Im sad, Maybe with cinnamon and slightly too ripe bananas, maybe with alpro chocolate milk, absolutely piping hot and thick,
You are fine now, just the way you are, You might say silly things when drunk, there may be side effects from the pills, but youre fine, If the latter happens, all you have to do is call me up and swear at me,
To think that Ive waited for quite a while for this to be translatedMade me feel a bit silly, And while I think the translation was extremely well done, the writing just didnt resonate with me, BUT still, I am so down for this I love that journey for you, Baek Sehee as I failingly attempt to flip my hair like Alexis from Schitts Creek.
Quit your job to turn your emotional shit into gold I 'stan', At least she seems very genuine about it all, BUT my point is this isnt the book I thought it would be, I was expecting some dark beast of a book riddled with a whole platter of fuckeries, Its very mild, but that doesnt mean the writing doesnt matter, It still does it just doesnt resonate with me, Im not the right reader for this, Reading Baeks book, made me feel like I have vastly underrated Sarah Kanes sitelink,Psychosis.
I wonder about others like me, who seem totally fine on the outside but are rotting on the inside, where the rot is this vague state of being notfine and notdevastated at the same time.
The world tends to focus too much on the very bright or the very dark many of my own friends find my type of depression baffling.
But whats an acceptable form of depression Is depression itself something that can ever be fully understood In the end, my hope is for people to read this book and think, I wasnt the only person who felt like this or, I see now that people live with this.
Structurally, the book is all over the place, or at least I didnt enjoy how it was structured, I found the conversations between her therapist completely redundant, Lazy even. Its like screenshoting and forwarding texts, I think this book is better suited for someone who has no idea what its like to talk to a therapist I dont know because that could be a bit misleading as well.
Personally, when I was seeing a therapist last, I went through about ten before I found one that suited me, It was a whole ordeal, I dont think Im that picky per say, but Baeks portrayal of mental healthcare makes it all seems so simple and easy, But then again, Baek and I are clearly very different people with very different views, And I suppose Im just the wrong reader for the book,
empathy is an act of imagination, If I dont plant the seed in myself, it will never grow, Which is why some people never seem to understand the lives of others, But the only way to create something inside me that is not there to begin with is through imagination, Youve got to learn how to empathise, to imagine,
I used to treat empathy as something very difficult, and shut myself off from the things that didnt affect me emotionally, But surely to create something in me that didnt exist before and to extend emotional solidarity to another person is one of the rites of adulthood.
We are so far, and yet so near to so many people,
To learn about and imagine the emotions that I dont understand or immediately empathise with: that is the affection I extend to others, and the only way to ensure that whats inside of us doesnt dry up or rot
In her, book, Baek wrote about how she thinks empathy is a form of ones imagination.
And that bothered me, somehow Im not disagreeing with her completely, but I still think of constantly being aware of someone elses feelings is a kind of human/social responsibility And the way she phrased it so simply felt kind of offputting to me.
Perhaps Im only saying that because for me, there is no on and
off switch when it comes to that sort of thing, I just sometimes 'pretend' to not be affected/care, I suppose that makes me sort of hypersensitive usually when Im in a healthy state of mind For instance though not the best example I can usually tell whats going on with someone I hold dearly when we talk on the phone.
They would often be annoyed/delighted with my lack of surprise when they tell me about a certain thing, But I think being empathetic and/or sensitive doesnt naturally mean that one always is always having enough emotional/mental energy to cater/attend to someone elses needs.
And I suppose there is also difference between being a sensitive person and a reactive person, Just because you mirror someone elses emotions, doesnt mean youre necessarily sensitive and/or empathetic, But thats a whole other set of discussions, And the point is that I wish Baek would explore these kinds of matters more instead of just chipping the surface and skipping over it.
It left me very unsatisfied,
I am in a vague state at the moment, which is not good, I was born depressed and pathetic, I dont have deep thoughts or powers of insight, The only things Im good at are regret and selfcriticism, and even these I can only pause, never stop completely, I understand all this with my brain, but I have the hardest time modifying my behaviour appropriately, I support feminism and rail against racism, but I find myself shrinking away from a passing foreigner or my body reacts with distaste at the sight of a lesbian who doesnt put on makeup for valid political reasons.
Also, I could have read it the wrong way as Im not completely sure of it, but the two times the word lesbian appeared in the book, it made me rolled my eyes into a slimy, chewedup gumball.
The first time, she brought it up while talking to her therapist because she thinks of them as minorities after reading Im assuming it's Kim HyeJins sitelinkConcerning My Daughter even though it wasnt mentioned.
Unnecessary segregation, but fine, well just ignore that, And/but then she indirectly compared herself to the emotional pains/conflict them I get that shes trying to say that a lot of our mental distress comes from societal pressures.
But still a very unpleasant and unfair comparison, Not to trivialise her issues, but judging from what Ive read, her emotional troubles come from body dysphoria and thinking that shes not achieved enough or whatever.
While its completely okay to feel the way she feels about herself, I dont know if I feel okay about her making these comparisons, Whats the point of it Maybe Im missing something
Theres a desire to punish yourself, shall we say, 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.
But that idealised version of yourself is, in the end, only an ideal, Its not who you actually are, You keep failing to meet that ideal in the real world, and then you punish yourself, If you have a strict superego, the act of being punished eventually becomes gratifying, For example, if youre suspicious of the love youre receiving, and so act out until your partner lashes out and leaves you, you feel relief.
You eventually become controlled more by imaginary outside forces than anything that is actually you,
And to conclude, this Freudian block of trash just made my reading experience even worse, I thought of sending it straight into the DNF pile halfway through, but I finished it anyway thanks to the absolutely flawless translation, I love Anton Hur. And will always read everything and anything he translates/write and this is just a simple proof of that,
I guess I shouldve just ate some tteok instead of reading this, But if youre someone who thinks that Sarah Kanes work is too heavy, maybe Baek is just right for you, I just want to clarify again, that this is not a badly written book, but Im just not the right reader, If anything, Im the bad reader, And since Im fine with being a bad reader, there is no need for me to be polite anymore, so allow me to shamelessly plug/recommend Tablos sitelinkBlonote instead.
Keep it in your tote, whether or not you want to read it, It does a whole ton more by being much less in terms of word count anyway, It does enough even by just being, And sitelinkmy review of it , if it interests you, .