Hwang Seok-jeong [YouTube channel 'Seong-gyeong Goes to a Temple']
Hwang Seok-jeong [YouTube channel 'Seong-gyeong Goes to a Temple']

Actor Hwang Seok-jeong, 56, who has often spoken about the challenges of looking far older than her age, has revealed she is battling pain syndrome.

Hwang appeared Thursday in a video uploaded to broadcaster Kim Seong-gyeong's YouTube channel "Seong-gyeong Goes to a Temple." The video, titled "I Thought I Had Been Possessed by a Spirit: Hwang Seok-jeong's Tearful Life Confession After Nearly Dying From a Rare Pain Condition (feat. Yakcheонsa Temple in Paju)," showed the two visiting Yakcheонsa Temple in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, a site known as an auspicious spot for those hoping to conceive.

Hwang runs a 3,300-square-meter flower and landscaping farm on her own while continuing her acting career. She joined Kim at the temple, where she bowed and prayed with a look of deep longing.

"Life has been so hard that I keep losing my sense of ease," she said. "My heart races and I have obsessive tendencies. I've even developed panic disorder, but people don't know I'm sick." She added, "This time I was sick to the point of nearly dying. It's pain syndrome."

She went on to say, "I suffered pain that came for no apparent reason. I couldn't sleep, couldn't lie down, couldn't sit. The pain was so severe it felt like my whole body was on fire."

Hwang said that amid the agony, she found an unexpected stillness. "In the middle of all that pain, my mind became quiet. I couldn't overcome it or drive it away, so I thought, 'This must be coming to me because I need to receive it. The cause is within me.' The moment I had that thought, everything around me suddenly went silent." She then said that from that day she began to improve little by little. "Now I'm not in pain. I'm still taking medication, of course, but I feel like I've become someone who can find joy in small things."

Hwang has said she was born looking old and has recounted related episodes on various programs over the years. Among the stories she has shared: her mother told her to walk separately as a child because she was embarrassed by her daughter's appearance; a security guard at Seoul National University, where Hwang was enrolled, once blocked her at the school gate because he did not believe she was a student; and during her entrance interview at the Korea National University of Arts, a panelist used her appearance as a pretext — saying she seemed to have mental problems — to fail her.


paq@heraldcorp.com