The first time I saw this book at the bookstore, I already wanted to read it. The cover was in purple, with a girl laying in melancholy but next to her is a bowl of tteokpokki. It is sad but also funny at the same time. I felt like that girl could be me. On days, I would think about what to have for lunch, laughing and dancing while also wanting to end my life.
This is a book by a Korean author. She also suffered from depression and this book is her recorded conversations with her therapist/psychiatrist about her problems and how she dealt with it. The more I read, the more I see myself in her. Maybe I was also looking for something in common with someone else on the other side of the world, maybe I also want to believe that what I feel isn’t too strange or “bad”. And that it is totally normal to feel like this sometimes.
I have learned that everything in my head is my own judgement, that it drives my thoughts and actions towards what I think is true or right. While the world is operating on a totally different way, I’m stuck in the bottom of the well with my own subjective perceptions on how things should run.
I have also learned that it is okay to have contradicting feelings. When I like someone and invest my time and emotions in them; I often love and hate them at the same time. I am glad that I was chosen by them but also worry that they will take advantage of me and leave me eventually. That actually has affected my relationship for quite some time, how I was acting hot and cold and giving them confusing signals.
My partner actually told me how I should sit back, think about what I really want, observe my feelings before I act on them so carelessly. They told me that feelings are important but it shouldn’t be the only thing I care about because I was encouraging my emotions to overwhelm everything else.
It took me a while to realize what they said was right and that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself and base all my decisions on how I feel at times. Similarly, the protagonist in the book I’m reading is also going through stuff that I was going through. She also has a low self-esteem, she is worried everyone will find out the real her and leave her for good. She recorded everything when she is out with people and listened to the conversations at home as a way to reassess herself. She also make very extreme judgement, things are either good or bad and not in between. And then she will blame herself for it.
I haven’t finished the book but what I got from is far more useful than any book I have ever read:
- It is interesting to know that there is someone else who is very similar to me
- I am getting therapy service I only paid a very small amount of money for
- I am learning to think more objectively and more opened. And that not everything is what I think it is.
- Write more. Express more. Just do more.
I would like to thank the author for opening up about her own vulnerability and struggles, by writing this book and letting other people like me to feel understood, she helps us see the world in a more unbiased and open-minded way.
t.l.
Tsunami of Words 