Reasons To Stay Alive

May’s resolution was to make more time for reading. – And that I did. Reasons to Stay Alive is truly brilliant. A book about depression, written as a memoir/self-help book, I found Haig’s writing hugely inspiring. He left no stone unturned on the topic of depression and described it in one of the most beautiful ways I’ve ever read “Minds have their own weather systems. You are in a hurricane. Hurricanes run out of energy eventually. Hold on.” 

An empowering read, full of empathy, wit and humour, it was comforting reading his story. It was all so real, so honest and raw. He spoke to the teenager in me and helped me accept my experiences as part of being human, not crazy. I didn’t think I’d find a book about depression so liberating. It was very much “YES yes I know how that feels! I’ve lived that EXACT moment before!”. I knew I wasn’t the only one to have ever had a panic attack or a day of complete numbness, but reading such a truthful account really drums in the point that you are not the only one, you are not alone in what you’re going through/have been through. 

I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone. It’s not only a lesson about depression, it’s a huge eye opener on the world we live in and how our brains often struggle to keep up. A wonderful and necessary read.

“Life is hard. It may be beautiful and wonderful but it is also hard. The way people seem to cope is by not thinking about it too much. But some people are not going to be able to do that. And besides, it is the human condition. We think therefore we are. We know we are going to grow old, get ill and die. We know that is going to happen to everyone we know, everyone we love. But also, we have to remember, the only reason we have love in the first place is because of this. Humans might well be the only species to feel depression as we do, but that is simply because we are a remarkable species, one that has created remarkable things – civilisation, language, stories, love songs…

…Emily Dickinson, eternally great poet and occasionally anxious agoraphobe, said: ‘That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.’ ”  – Reasons to Stay Alive, Matt Haig.