{"id":13869,"date":"2026-05-04T07:19:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T07:19:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/04\/reading-baek-sehee-this-mental-health-awareness-month-latinamedia-co\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T07:19:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T07:19:59","slug":"reading-baek-sehee-this-mental-health-awareness-month-latinamedia-co","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/04\/reading-baek-sehee-this-mental-health-awareness-month-latinamedia-co\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Baek Sehee this Mental Health Awareness Month – LatinaMedia.Co"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Baek Sehee died in October 2025 at age 35, the reading public immediately began speculating about what happened. There were no public announcements about an illness, no accident listed posthumously. Her family declined to comment, announcing only that her organs would be donated. Sehee\u2019s books, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki<\/em>, and its follow-up I Want to Die, but I Still Want to Eat Tteokbokki<\/em>, are what\u2019s left.
They\u2019re both excerpts from Baek Sehee\u2019s actual conversations with her psychiatrist. In the first of the two books, the author explains her desire to record conversations, both for the sake of writing and also to replay and examine her own behavior.
Before TikTok was little more than a government-sponsored surveillance tool,<\/a> BookTok was thriving and months prior to her death, I came across Sehee\u2019s original memoir there. Numerous content creators recommended it as a candid depiction of mental health issues. I screenshot the cover art several different times, adding it to my TBR. Then Sehee\u2019s death was announced, reported as self-inflicted before any facts came out. Suddenly, my desire to read her memoir was never higher \u2013 and I was disgusted with my own reaction
While there was always interest in Sehee\u2019s work, I didn\u2019t follow through and read her two books<\/a> until after her death. Originally self-published in 2018, the memoir became such a success, a Korean literary imprint acquired it and translated into 15 languages. I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki <\/em>made its English debut in 2022, translated by Anton Hur.
While the sequel introduces the idea of a bipolar diagnosis, the first book focuses on the author\u2019s dysthymia, or persistent mild depression. I finished the first of the two books this winter, only a few months after Sehee\u2019s death, unaware until the end that there was a sequel. Once I\u2019d finished the orginal, and seemingly rewarded my morbid curiosity, I faced a dilemma: do I read the sequel with the assumption the author has committed suicide, or walk away only knowing a portion of the story? Now that I was familiar with author and her struggle, my initial disgust with my curiosity only grew. I questioned what I expected to gain from a follow-up.
As someone who has severely struggled with my mental health and subsequent bipolar diagnosis, I realized I was seeking a kinship from Sehee. I needed permission to believe I was sick, and not dramatic. That my low days were really low and not an exaggeration. Seeing myself in her story both scared and comforted me \u2013 I was operating on the assumption she\u2019d killed herself (because I didn\u2019t know that the cause of her death was never verified). I\u2019d recognized so much of myself in the author\u2019s first book that it helped me recognize the depth of my own despair. With that revelation, proceeding to the second book felt dangerous, yet I did it.
Something about being a voyeur into someone else\u2019s mental health struggle feels unsavory, but simultaneously compulsory. It\u2019s probably the same urge that draws people to true crime stories. Maybe understanding the worst gives a false sense of being able to avoid or control it.
Not fully comprehending the ending of Baek Sehee\u2019s life has proven beneficial. It both alleviates me of the responsibility for taking an interest in her story, only after she died, and resentment in attempting to compare our pain. While I originally read Sehee\u2019s story because I wanted to macabrely see how someone makes the transition from mental anguish to physical action \u2013 whether for curiosity’s sake or more nefarious, subconsciously, mentally ill reasons \u2013 I walked away changed for the better. Recognizing my struggle in the author gave me an odd sense of normalcy that\u2019s hard to find with mental illness. In showing the depths of her lows, Sehee showed mine weren\u2019t unique, and for that I genuinely hope she\u2019s somewhere in the ether enjoying tteokbokki.
After working in the music industry throughout the aughts, and succumbing to misery and madness for over a decade, Angie Maldonado is back to freelance writing. She\u2019s previously written for SPIN magazine and local, Chicago-based music publications.
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