Reasons to Stay Alive , livre ebook

A LSO BY M ATT H AIG The Last Family in England The Dead Fathers Club The Possession of Mr Cave The Radleys The Humans Humans: An A-Z How to Stop Time Notes on a Nervous Planet The Midnight Library The Comfort Book The Life Impossible

New edition published by Canongate Books in 2025
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
canongate.co.uk
This digital edition first published in 2025 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Matt Haig, 2015 Updates to original text copyright © Matt Haig, 2025 Extract from The Comfort Book copyright © Matt Haig, 2021
The right of Matt Haig to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
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Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 83726 462 9 eISBN 978 1 78211 509 0
Introduction
I N THE TEN years since I wrote this book the question I have been asked most about it is: ‘Was it difficult to write?’
The answer is no.
I mean, all books are a bit difficult to write because a book is quite an undertaking, even a small one like this. But what I mean is: this book wasn’t any harder to write because of its subject matter.
In fact, by the time I sat down to write this book I was ready. I felt far enough away from the young person who couldn’t leave the house without having a panic attack. And so this book was a healing experience. The silence of despair found words. It came in a flood. It became a kind of therapy session with the unseen reader acting as therapist.
The idea was simple. To write a book that hadn’t existed when I had needed it. A book to make people feel understood and less alone. A book that very clearly wasn’t written by a doctor or therapist or academic but just by a person who had lived through something intense, and wrote it down as honestly as possible, and in doing so wanted to offer some kind of authentic hope. I wanted it to be accessible, because I remembered how hard it is to access a book when your mind is on fire. I deliberately chose the simplest, strongest words I could find.
Looking back now I realise how imperfect this book is. One big problem was I didn’t know the whole story I was writing. There was a missing piece. One which I only found a few years ago when I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism. I didn’t always understand the causes of my depression – and I still don’t – but now I realise burnout was an underlying factor.
In this light edit I have amended that a little. There are mentions of neurodiversity, and I have also changed some of the language. Out-of-date phrases like ‘committed suicide’ and ‘depressive’ have been amended. Yet some of its haphazardness remains. I wanted to keep it that way. This book was written in a free spirit, partly because I didn’t think many people would read it. And partly because I was working out what kind of book it was as I was writing it.
Was it a memoir? Was it a self-help book? Was it, as one bookshop thought, a book to put in the poetry section? (Anyone reading this book expecting a collection of poems will be sorely disappointed. But not as disappointed as the person who ordered this off Amazon after seeing it was number one in ‘Magician Biographies’.)
So this book was a kind of hybrid. It was just an improvised cry from the heart. A letter back through time to myself standing on a cliff edge. It was also, I now realise, a way for myself to feel less alone. In writing this I was sending out a kind of bat signal, to find all the others like me who had fought through their invisible wars.
If I get stopped in the street, it is still more likely to be for this book than for anything else I have written, even after having written more popular books. And I am always awkward when that happens. I never know quite what to say to people directly when they tell me this book helped them when they needed it. I suppose that is why I wrote it in the first place. Because I am better at writing stuff down than saying it out loud.
I am now forty-nine years old.
The only reason I mention that is because at the age of twenty-four I was convinced I wouldn’t make it to the age of twenty-five. The future was a hypothetical concept. This book was, and remains, for anyone who doesn’t believe they can reach their future. Or find a different perspective on things. It is my most imperfect book. And the one I am proudest of.
It was a book that was never designed to end a conversation, but start one.
It was a book that wanted to articulate to anyone who read it the one thing life burnt into me. Our minds can lie to us. Life holds more for us than we can ever see from inside the prison of despair. We can change. We can find keys in the darkness. And sometimes it is through each other’s experiences – even if they don’t mirror our own – that we gain hope.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to stay around. But this book wants to tell you it is worth it. Life is larger than depression. And so are you.
Brighton, 2025

For Andrea
Contents Introduction This book is impossible A note, before we get fully under way 1 Falling The day I died Why depression is hard to understand A beautiful view A conversation across time – part one Pills Killer Things people say to people with depression that they don’t say in other life-threatening situations Negative placebo Feeling the rain without an umbrella Life Banter Infinity The hope that hadn’t happened The cyclone My symptoms The bank of bad days Things depression says to you Facts The head against the window Pretty normal childhood A visit Boys don’t cry Lived experience 2 Landing Cherry blossom Unknown unknowns The brain is the body – part one Psycho Jenga days Warning signs Demons Existence 3 Rising Things you think during your first panic attack Things you think during your 1,000th panic attack The art of walking on your own A conversation across time – part two Reasons to stay alive Love How to be there for someone with depression or anxiety An inconsequential moment Things that have happened to me that have generated more sympathy than depression Life on Earth to an alien White space The Power and the Glory Paris Reasons to be strong Weapons Running The brain is the body – part two Famous people Abraham Lincoln and the fearful gift Depression is . . . Depression is also . . . A conversation across time – part three 4 Living The world Mushroom clouds The Big A Slow down Peaks and troughs Parenthesis Parties Things that make me worse Things that (sometimes) make me better 5 Being In praise of thin skins How to be a bit happier than Schopenhauer Self-help Thoughts on time Formentera Images on a screen Smallness How to live (forty pieces of advice I feel to be helpful but which I don’t always follow) Things I have enjoyed since the time I thought I would never enjoy anything again A note, and some acknowledgements Permissions credits Seeking help for a mental health problem Useful Contacts Exclusive: Excerpt from The Comfort Book Baby You are the goal A thing my dad said once when we were lost in a forest It’s okay Power Nothing either good or bad Change is real To be is to let go Extract from Notes on a Nervous Planet
This book is impossible
T HIRTEEN YEARS AGO I knew this couldn’t happen.
I was going to die, you see. Or go mad.
There was no way I would still be here. Sometimes I doubted I would even make the next ten minutes. And the idea that I would be well enough and confident enough to write about it in this way would have been just far too much to believe.
One of the key symptoms of depression is to see no hope. No future. Far from the tunnel having light at the end of it, it seems like it is blocked at both ends, and you are inside it. So if I could have only known the future, that there would be one far brighter than anything I’d experienced, then one end of that tunnel would have been blown to pieces, and I could have faced the light. So the fact that this book exists is proof that depression lies. Depression makes you think things that are wrong.
But depression itself isn’t a lie. It is the most real thing I’ve ever experienced. Of course, it is invisible.
To other people, it sometimes seems like nothing at all. You are walking around with your head on fire and no one can see the flames. And so – as depression is largely unseen and mysterious – it is easy for stigma to survive. Stigma is particularly cruel for people with depression, because stigma affects thoughts and depression is a disease of thoughts.
When you are depressed you feel alone, and that no one is going through quite what you are going through. You are so scared of appearing in any way mad you internalise everything, and you are so scared that people will alienate you further you clam up and don’t speak about it, which is a shame, as speaking about it helps. Words – spoken or written – are what connect us to the world, and so speaking about it to people, and writing about this stuff, helps connect us to each other, and to our true selves.
I know, I know, we are humans. We are a clandestine species. Unlike other animals we wear clothes and do our procreating behind closed doors. And we are ashamed when things go wrong with us. But we’ll grow out of this, and the way we’ll do it is by speaking about it. And maybe even thr