Book Excerpt: I Want To Die But I Still Want To Eat Tteokbokki By Baek Sehee

When Baek Sehee started recording her sessions with her psychiatrist, her hope was to create a reference for herself. She never imagined she would reach so many people, especially young people, with her reflections. I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki became a runaway bestseller in South Korea, Indonesia, and the US., and reached a community of readers who appreciated depression and anxiety being discussed with such intimacy. Baek’s struggle with dysthymia continues in I Want to Die but I Still Want to Eat Tteokbokki.

With this second book, Baek Sehee reaches out to hold the hands of all those for whom grappling with everyday despair is part of a lifelong project, part of the journey.

Here's an excerpt from I Want to Die but I Still Want to Eat Tteokbokki.

Psychiatrist: (A sore throat has made it difficult for them to speak.) 

Me: So, doctor, I’ve been well, but there was a moment where I crumbled for a bit. Does therapy help me bounce back better from setbacks?  Because I think my recovery speed has improved a little. I recently read this book titled Hunger by Roxane Gay. It’s full of the author’s candid thoughts on her body and life. She goes into the darkness a lot, and I started crying right from the foreword. And all these memories, not ones I erased completely but ones I wanted to forget and tear up and suppress, they kind of gushed up inside me. Is that something that can happen? 

Psychiatrist: Of course. 

Me: It was fascinating. Reading that book made the memories unfurl in my mind’s eye in a panorama. I jotted down the memories as they came. And I realised that I haven’t been honest with myself. What I mean is, of course we don’t need to be completely honest with everyone.But it made me realise, I haven’t been honest with myself, even, I’ve only been honest with myself insofar as I could stand it. It was so devastating in that moment that I had this unbearable feeling, you know? (Rummages, looking for my notes.) In other words, ‘I realised I had never completely accepted myself as I am, that I had never embraced mypast and wanted only to rid myself of it, and ended up suppressing it, and now my past self and present self cannot connect or separate properly and are in a kind of limbo.’ Like this, for example: If I’m not going to embrace the past-me, then I should bury her and live my life being satisfied with the present me, but I can’t do that, and present-me, which is supposed to be different from and stronger than past-me, ends up being tangled up with past-me, making me think, ‘Oh, I’m just the same as the old me. This is just a shell.’ 

Psychiatrist: Can you tell me more about past-me? 

Me: (Talks about the times I was denied love.) I thought a lot yesterday about whether I would tell you or my partner first, but seeing how unwell you are now makes me glad I told my partner first (because the psychiatrist can’t speak well today). If I hadn’t let it out yesterday, I would not have been in a good place today. I guess everyone has different ways of healing. I think there’s no need for absolute truth all the time. And there’s nothing more violent than forcing the truth out of someone, making them confess against their will. But still, I know myself. The path to freedom and relief has always been letting the light in as opposed to burying something or running away from it. No matter how hard it may be. This letting in the light has made me stronger and minimised a lot of things that used to loom large for me. Like growing up in poverty or having eczema. 

I think the past that I really wanted to keep hidden just wasn’t ready to be revealed yet. That’s my interpretation of it, at least. I’d locked it away in my subconscious and pretended the past was past and the old me had nothing to do with me, but that didn’t mean I was healed, it had remained a wound this whole time.  

Maybe, if I were to put a positive spin on it, the memories resurfaced because I am ready to accept them now? 

Psychiatrist: Was it difficult bringing it up with your partner? What went through your mind? 

Me: I did worry whether they would look down on me. I was nervous about it, but I really wanted to tell them. As I’ve said in here before, I would rather reveal myself, and if the other person wants to leave me because of that, they can leave. But my partner couldn’t understand why I would think they’d look down on me or be disappointed in me. Like they couldn’t understand why I’d even think anyone would come to such conclusions. 

When I told them about my past where I was hated so much, they said they had never in their lives hated someone for being ugly, fat, or having bad skin. That such things were out of one’s control (I wish everyone was like that). They said this to me as if this should be the norm, that any other attitude would be surprising. It shocked them that my classmates had been disgusted by my skin, that I thought of myself as, maybe not ugly – I don’t think I was ugly – but plump, and that’s why I thought I was ugly?  

That I would be ashamed about my crushes being embarrassed about my liking them. I would think, ‘I’m someone who inspires disgust, that’s the value that I have.’ And what’s even more disgusting is how I would internalise that gaze and perpetuate it. I would look down on someone who liked me, and out of my obsession with weight, hate people I perceived as fat. My hate was all twisted, but in the end, I think I was projecting myself onto them, seeing myself in them. 

Extracted with permission from Baek Sehee's I Want To Die But I Still Want To Eat Tteokbokki; published by Bloomsbury India.