Jeannie Park

Jeannie Park

All Articles by Jeannie Park

I am experienced in concealing my identity and thrusting myself into certain scenes, where I witness and remember, and finally carve the stories out with language, maybe like a war correspondent. I have expertise gained by experience with eating disorders and other problems. Currently I am working in the digital mental health industry in Seoul.

Tragic outcome for psychiatric patient seeking help for diet pill addiction

When the news broke, I couldn’t ignore it. The deceased young woman was reportedly at the Korean hospital for treatment of a weight loss drug addiction. News portals showed CCTV (closed circuit TV) footage of the woman, where she was forcibly restrained on a bed by hospital staff whose large bodies seemed to engulf her..

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Can people experiencing mental illness teach? Absolutely

At noon on April 22, the small car stopped in front of the nursing school building, a structure of standardised windows and no excess. “We’re here,” said Professor Jeong, turning from the driver’s seat. The four passengers unfolded their crouched bodies and got out of the car. The Jeonbuk National University College of Nursing campus,..

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Korea’s EDAW 2024 puts epistemic justice on the table

So, I quit my job again at the end of January. The healthcare company I worked for was one of those doctor-owned ventures not uncommon in Seoul, South Korea, where medical doctors generally belong to the highest income groups and are probably the most exclusive interest group. In a misogynistic society, the most significant issue..

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Epistemic Justice in Understanding Eating Disorders

Eating Disorder Awareness Week (EDAW) 2024 will take place in Korea from February 28 to March 5, with all seven sessions examining the theme of Epistemic Justice. The question of how to reflect the lived experiences of the eating disorder sufferers, and those of the mental health patients themselves into the academic discourse is (especially..

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The enigma called ‘High-Functioning Anorexia’

In the late summer of 2017, when I unknowingly plunged back into anorexia, I was trying to live as a freelance translator. I’d just left the publishing company where I’d worked as an editor for a year and a half. In other words, I had stopped the office worker’s routine – getting up early, going..

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Korea’s first Eating Disorder Awareness Week giving life to small miracles

In February this year, I took unpaid leave from work to organize Korea’s first Eating Disorders Awareness Week (EDAW). Afterwards, I went straight back to work, but my employer was restructuring his business. This meant I could take a month’s paid rest before starting a new job. This period felt strange and surreal, like a..

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Speaking against cliched narratives about eating disorders – Korea’s powerful message

Korea’s first Eating Disorder Awareness Week (EDAW) has exposed the serious issue of eating disorders within families and communities. The hard schedule of seven consecutive days to mark this EDAW concluded in front of a small audience in a dimly lit bookshop. People stood and applauded, and the engineer stopped YouTube live streaming. My flu-ridden..

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Lived experience inspires Korea’s first Eating Disorders Awareness Week

Lived experience will feature in Korea’s first Eating Disorders Awareness Week (EDAW), for which I’m responsible. I’ve often been told not to scale up things so hastily, not to put too many irons in the fire, but such cautions seem useless because I’ve developed a simple suggestion from Prof. Youl Ri Kim into this unexpectedly..

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Eating Disorders as Metaphors – it’s time for change

It’s time to change our perspectives so we can think about eating disorders more clearly.  That is, it’s time to move away from current interpretations of eating disorders that are largely contaminated with “metaphors”. I am not referring to the therapeutic metaphors discussed in this article on The Diary Healer. Rather I refer to metaphors..

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An inside story about eating disorders in South Korea

I was a fixture at all students’ writing contests and didn’t expect to be congratulated with just mundane prizes, but from second grade in high school, I was unable to write. I could write only self-pitying, crappy things, bleak, fragmented poems and, above all, things the judges of student writing contests would dislike for sure...

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