
Baek Sehee’s thoughts are common in the lives of young adults. The details are below.
When Baek Se-hee said “I Want To Die But I Want To Eat Tteokbokki”, it was the title of her fist book, and now she’s dead, at 35 years old. She died in a hospital near Seoul, on October 16, 2025. She was brain dead and her organs were donated, saving the lives of 5 or 6 people who needed heart, lungs, liver and kidneys.
What’s Tteokbokki? Its a Korean rice cake. Look at photos of Tteobokki here.
Ms Baek had been suffering from dysthymia for at least 10 years. It was a chronic depression which never left her. Her first memoir was published in 2018 and met with huge success. It sold 600 000 copies in South Korea alone, and went global with many translations into foreign languages. In some countries, her first book stayed for many weeks on the bestseller chart. Her publisher loved the title so much that it was capitalized for the second volume of memoir; “I Want To Die But I Still Want To Eat Tteokbokki”.
Activities to manage depression
What is depression? When you feel sad consistently for more than two weeks and can’t shake off this feeling, you show a sign of having clinical depression. If you feel sad for a time shorter than two weeks, you don’t have depression.
Some signs and symptoms of depression are:
- Low mood
- Emotional feelings of sadness
- Feelings of negativity, being hopeless, low esteem and even
- Crying often
- Being in state of mourning for loss or perceived future loss
What to do help yourself out of depression or reduce the impact of depression?
Depression is a serious mental illness. Ideally, you should get professional help to handle depression. Your therapist will lead you through a series of consultations and enlighten you on how you can tackle depression.
If you suffer from biological or neurological problems, you maybe lacking hormones that maintain a happy or balanced mood. For this, a psychiatrist may prescribe medication to address this issue.
If you face challenges with situations, you might seek help from other people, or wait for your situation to improve.
A psychiatrist may prescribe medication and will inform that it usually takes 1 month to 1 1/2 months for medication to take effect in a body.
Family members can help to take care you, or at least keep an eye out for you.
There used to be stigma attached to patients with mental health concerns but the attitudes are changing with more awareness and woke. Anyone can be affected by depression or other mental health issues; even professionals in any industry and those working in healthcare. A person is not a lesser being by seeking help for mental health issues.
Discrimination reflects on the person who uses old fashioned prejudices to write off people who have psychological or mental health problems. Bias and prejudices hinder the person to seek help for the problem and do not resolve it. Instead, more and more people could be getting exposed to the patient’s symptoms. This is detrimental for the patient and the bystanders.
There are also minor activities you can use to help yourself.
Activities to manage depression:
- Plan your daily schedule. An idle mind may revert back to thoughts about depression.
- Write about your thoughts. Write about anything that runs through your mind. Even if you don’t have anything else to write, write the line, “Life is great and I feel happy.” Write this line many times until the message sinks into you.
- Record your day in your journal. You will come to recognize triggers that set off sad or low feelings. You should tell yourself to harden your resolution to resist thinking and feeling depressed whenever you recognize the familiar triggers.
- Talk to your friends for moral support.
Depression is an uphill battle to wrestle control for our mental state to be in a good equilibrium. It gets easier when you are often in a good equilibrium. This becomes your steady state and you’re less likely to feel sad for long.
Related posts:
- https://artmater.com/prescription-for-depression/
- https://artmater.com/people-with-depression-dream-of-these-aug-17/
- https://artmater.com/write-lists-to-manage-depression-nightmares/
- https://artmater.com/dreaming-of-depression/
I Want To Die But I Still Want To Eat Tteokbokki is the sequel to Ms Baek’s first book.
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Now is October 23, 2025. Here are my thoughts on depression.
From around the beginning of 2012 to the end of 2013, I lived in a house with people who wanted to manipulate me into doing several activities like taking on an outside job and caretaking of two teens, in addition to my housework, freelance writing, and self-study for my master degree. I declined. So I was abused physically, mentally and emotionally. My right hand became semi-paralyzed and my vertebrae was not right as I had difficulty straightening my spine to walk upright.
Jesus saved me. He made a different relative give me money to leave that house. And the designated day of departure was Christmas Eve.
For around 10 years after I settled into a different home, I carried my emotional and mental baggage. I could not wear clothes that were not black or dark colored, because I was afraid of cheerful colors.
Nobody in my family supported me because they didn’t think the abuse was significant. I drew art to show what it was like. I drew art to show my adventures in daily life because I was grateful to be alive. I didn’t die during the Abusive Times. These art are in the category of Mindful Doodles ( https://artmater.com/category/art/mindful-doodles/ )


Slowly, my wounds healed.
Baek Sehee’s thoughts are common in the lives of young adults.
- Women think they are not pretty enough.
- They think they’re overweight and obsess over dieting.
- They’re attracted to men or other women in a one-sided non-consummate non-relationship.
- They blame themselves for their failures.
- They care about different issues from the crowd.
- Facing anxiety over work issues.
- Facing pressure to satisfy extra work terms and conditions, even though it is unfair.
- Experiencing insomnia.
- Taking medication for various problems but finding that sometimes, medications can not work for them.
- After finding a partner who accepts her, she cannot accept why that partner did not reject her, like the way other people did.
- Binge eating.
- Thoughts and feelings of guilt after indulging in comfort food to deal with stress.
To be continued later.