Two hundred pages of transcripts of an insecure millennial woman’s therapy session doesn’t sound like especially appealing reading. Who would want to hear such lenient and terrifying confessions that are normally intended only for the impartial ears of a medical professional, and who would have the nerve to publish their own? And yet, Baek Sehee’s “I Want to Die But I Want to Eat tteokbokki” is a surprisingly compelling and genuinely helpful memoir on mental health.
Baek was 20 years old and working at a publishing company in South Korea when he began seeing a psychiatrist to treat dysthymia, a form of chronic depression characterized by persistent low self-esteem, hopelessness, and a lack of energy or motivation, but which is less severe. than major depression. In 2018, Baek published the transcripts of 12 weeks of sessions in book form. “I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki” became a bestseller in South Korea, BTS rapper RM listed it as one of his book recommendations and sparked a follow-up book in 2019. This year, it was published in English. by Bloomsbury Publishing, with translations by Anton Hur.
The text is almost entirely an uninterrupted dialogue between Baek and his psychiatrist, with occasional parentheses and brief reflections closing the chapters. Baek comes across as a sympathetic storyteller: sharp, sensitive, and hard-working. At the same time, he can be unpleasant: desperate for approval, prone to lying, and incredibly critical of others. That is, she is presented as completely human.
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