I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki is a short therapy memoir written by ‘Baek See-Hee’. The author has written about her different phases of therapy sessions in the book that talks about having mild depression. You are not happy but you are not unhappy either. You are just there, living your life.
I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki felt relatable unlike what I expected. The key point here is that this book tells her story of what she went through while doing therapy sessions. Her story becomes relatable because it contains the problems that nowadays this generation faces way too much. Being hard on yourself, judging others by looks, feeling inferior, comparing yourself, having ideals and standards, having low self-esteem – people have faced them all one way or another either during childhood or adulthood.
Lately, I have been in a state of burnout. I didn’t feel like doing anything and kept on procrastinating the tasks. I am by product procrastinator but I always get things done anyway at last. But, this time it is different. I procrastinated everything, every single thing including mundane tasks. The whole day I would do nothing but sleep and eat. I was barely surviving with my feelings being all over the place too.
This continued for a whole week. After so much time wasting, I finally thought to read a book that would feel like a warm hug to me and understand my situation. Finally but slowly I was eager to start to live normally and keep up my life where I had left off. That’s when I picked I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki for my reading and I am so glad I did.
I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki is recommended by BTS’s RM as well. As an army, my life has been highly influenced by BTS and its members. So, it was no wonder I would have read this book one way or another.
Short Synopsis
PSYCHIATRIST: So how can I help you?
ME: I don’t know, I’m – what’s the word – depressed? Do I have to go into detail?
Baek Sehee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her – what to call it? – depression? She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgmental of others. She hides her feelings well at work and with friends, performing the calmness her lifestyle demands. The effort is exhausting, overwhelming, and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can’t be normal. But if she’s so hopeless, why can she always summon a yen for her favorite street food: the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like?
Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a twelve-week period, and expanding on each session with her own reflective micro-essays, Baek begins to disentangle the feedback loops, knee-jerk reactions, and harmful behaviors that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse. 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. It will appeal to anyone who has ever felt alone or unjustified in their everyday despair.
Every chapter contains insight
Many can relate to this book on a certain level. As said earlier, it tells about depression faced by today’s generation in general. Almost every chapter discusses different problems that causes a person to feel unhappy. It felt like I was going through My dream till now phase again. Further divided into different sections, below is all about how I have perceived the contents and learned lessons while reading this book.
beating yourself and being hard on oneself
Have we ever not beat ourselves way too hard? We can always stand up for others and say to be kind to yourself but we never take that same advice to ourselves. We have at one point in life have blamed ourselves for certain circumstances which was never our fault. When the author talks about this stuff with her psychiatrist, I just felt understood. That, there was someone who understands me.
setting high standards and having high ideals of way of living life
We have always been trying to live a good life than before but today due to high inflation it is becoming hard. We have our dreams of living better life where we have set certain standards and ideals. In the process, we forget to live in the present and enjoy it. We tend to have high expectations by setting up high standards and if we somehow fail, we then beat and be hard on ourselves.
changing the perspective and your way of thinking
Most of the time, the way we think completely differs from reality. We are not 100 percent present in the reality and tend to overthink certain situations and circumstances. Later, we just happen to know that it was not what we thought it was. We know if we change how we perceive things and change our perspective about them, life becomes so much easier.
even if we speak 10/10 people will obviously have different reactions
As an introvert, I always push myself to speak 10/10 but the result is not really successful. And, I kind of understood when the author talked about speaking 10/10. Being bold and not holding yourself back is the thing I have always admired. But, the thing is we can’t expect the same reaction. Even if we speak 10/10, we will have different reactions including negative ones too from people. We can’t always expect good reaction from other. They might be genuinely not interested in us and we can’t make everyone around us to like the way we are.
thinking in extremes
The author had a problem of thinking on an extreme level – black and white. Either it’s leave or stay, either it is good or bad, either it is happy or unhappy, there is no in between. But, we have to find a middle ground in everything. There are certain things where we can’t judge if it’s all black or white. We don’t have to choose all black or all white in matters, we just have to find a middle ground and see where things go.
enjoy the freedom of your own thoughts
As said earlier, if we just change the way we think and change our perspectives, we can enjoy what we can in present. It’s the same saying – enjoy the freedom of your own thoughts. We can think however we want, so we can as well be positive and take control of our life rather than being pessimistic and sad.
Part memoir, Part self-help
I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki is a mixture of memoir and self-help. I loved how it was written through the author’s past experiences. Mostly, a self-help book mainly contains a series telling you about how you should act in a certain way then the positive thing will happen that will lead to being productive and happy. If not, you are not progressing in your life and living like a dead. It’s boring to read the things you already know.
The way they describe it feels like my whole life I have done nothing which is not the case. In my experience, reading self-help books lead me to toxic positivity. And, I swear I never picked up any self-help books after that. Despite reading a lot of self-help books, I didn’t do anything related to it.
So, reading this book brought me to new light to re-read self-help books. I think by reading this, I enjoy self help book more if the book includes someone’s experiences. I want to be heard and understood rather than being told I should do a list of certain things.
Let’s Chat
Overall, I really enjoyed reading I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki. It was a fresh read for me. Most people didn’t enjoy this book as much as I did. Did you guys have a similar experience or did you enjoy it as well like me? Let me know in the comments!!
