• i want to die but i want to eat tteobokki
• non fiction, memoir, mental health
• “When you're having a hard time, it's natural to feel like you're having the hardest time in the world. And it's not selfish to feel that way.”
• rating: ☆☆☆☆.25

Baek Se-Hee 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 judgemental of others. She hides her feelings well at work and with friends, adept at performing the calmness, even ease, her lifestyle demands. The effort is exhausting and 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 favourite street food, the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like? Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a 12-week period, Baek begins to disentangle the feedback loops, knee-jerk reactions, and harmful behaviours that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse.