Summary

In the Prologue, Baek Sehee opens with a quote from Martin Page about the nature of happiness, namely that in order to be happy one must acknowledge the reality of sadness and suffering in humanity. She connects this to her own experiences, noting her ability to feel joy in the midst of depressive episodes. Sehee muses on why we are generally poor at being honest about our emotional states, and explains she wrote this book in order to have people relate to her mental health struggles and understand their own emotional states better. She explains the book is a record of several therapy sessions she received for dysthymia, or persistent depressive disorder, along with several contextual details about her life at that time. She offers hope that the book could be a beacon for those like her, who have a...