I Want to Die but I Still Want to Eat Tteokbokki

:The shock each person experiences in the face of a traumatic event is going to be different. Just as an event we consider shocking would be passed over as no big deal in another society. It all depends on the cultural environment and mood, or how easy or hard it is to come to an agreement on the extraordinariness of a situation. I wouldn’t say you’re oversensitive. I’d say it’s your general regard for the powerless. You feel the same emotions towards victimised women as you do to your dogs.

I read something fascinating in a book recently. It’s from this book titled Conquering Shame and Codependency by Darlene Lancer where she explains that people who don’t try to gain something from outside of themselves are those who end up gaining the most, that self-esteem and pride come from letting go of external validation. It made me think about how I’m always trying to gain something from the outside. I’ve always craved external validation, whether it was through knowledge or affection or esteem. But it’s this very craving that indicates how I’m not enough to myself. I keep wanting to fix myself, to gain something better. It’s exhausting. Wouldn’t it be better for me to accept my flaws as they are?

To make a habit of continuing things and getting things done is in itself an excellent development. When one thinks, ‘I am depressed,’ it makes them stay at home more and be helpless and meet fewer people and get cut off from society. In such cases, it is the habits we developed when we were not depressed that help us slough off that depression. One might say they’re doing a certain thing because they’re depressed, but such behaviour may be exacerbated by a habit of withdrawing from society. If we make a habit of doing a certain thing when our serotonin levels are high (when our condition is good), the possibility of creating more good days by trying to be the selves we were at that optimal state would be that much greater.

I thought about why I am overly polite to people who are not important to me. It’s because they can hate me at any time. Because they can judge me and resent me for the smallest things I do. Meanwhile, because the people who love me already love me, and there’s a low chance they’ll start to hate me, I get snappy with them.

But on days I perform politeness for long stretches of time, I collapse into bed. The fatigue lingers. I can never leave behind the fear of someone hating or resenting me, and I probably never will.

I think once you’re used to putting yourself down, you let others put you down as well. Because you become less sensitive to the putdowns

It’s impossible to predict other people’s reactions to the things you tell them. Some people may react positively, like this friend, and others might go, ‘How tiresome this all is.’ The more you try to predict other people’s reactions, the more negatively you will imagine them to be

But the thing about urges is that they’re not always about fear. Sometimes, as I said about women earlier, an attraction or fascination towards strength can lead you to think more about women’s rights or the disenfranchised, and your impulses and desire for compensation could be directed positively. It could end up becoming a motivating force in your life.

It made me think, I already consider homosexuality, asexuality, polyamory, etc. as valid forms of love, but why was I so disrespectful of a fan’s love for their idol? Who cares if I had a crush on a celebrity, as long as I’m not going up to them in person and harming them? That’s the thought I had. But I also had these other thoughts when I liked him, heartbreaking thoughts. That I liked him so much as I watched his videos and listened to his music and bought everything associated with him, but he didn’t even know I existed, which made me feel so much pain over unrequited love. At least when you have a crush on a real person, they know about it. Or at least, they might know about it. But this love was the kind that could never come true. Which made me a bit depressed.

The last thing they had said to me was, ‘I hope you learn how to enjoy the present. It’s not that your past isn’t meaningful, and I don’t know what your partner now is like, but I get the feeling that if you put your best into the present, you’ll feel the same way I do now. I really hope you’ll be happy.’