Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

Reasons to Stay Alive, authored by novelist Matt Haig was published on 5th March 2015. This book is based on depression and anxiety disorder. It is written in English language and the genre of this book is self-help, autobiography and memoir. In this book the writer has expressed his battle with anxiety and depressed at the age of 24 and how his triumph over illness taught him to live. It’s a great book and such books like Reasons to Stay Alive should be used in schools to educate children about how mental health can be menifest also how it can be dealt with and beaten, then lived along side in the modern world.Perhaps the most interesting thing about this book is that it’s the combination of self help tips along side a memoir of personal experience of the writer. Matt has eloquently detailed his fight with depression and how it left him suicidal. He gave an insight about his experience as well as about the idea of things which have and haven’t helped him to recover. He has clearly said that this book seeks to do two things – to lessen the stigma and to let people know that the bottom of the valley never provides the clearest view. This book has been a great success and I think the reason is due to how relatable it is. While reading I felt that how Matt understands so much about how a person feels when he or she goes through this dark chapter in their life.

He expresses his story when after 3 days of no sleep and no food, he could not withstand any more the pain he was feeling. Everything he felt, everything he saw only made him more and more depressed. He felt living brought too much pain, and the only way to not feel the pain was to not be alive and so he decided to end his life. He got the edge of a cliff and was one step away from ending all of his pain and suffering. Standing on the edge of the cliff he thought of all the people that loved him, and he thought of death. He tried to gather up the courage to end everything once and for all, but he was too afraid and scared. Thinking that if he didn’t die and survived, he would remain paralyzed, trapped in his body forever. He figured that to survive such tragedy would only bring more suffering and so those thoughts retained him from him ending his life.

From that point on, even though he was still very ill, a very small part of him gave him the strength to try and fight the illness and not let himself be consumed by it. After the episode, he spent the next three years battling his depression. Matt then goes on to narrate how he learned to examine himself, how he accepted and befriended his depression, where instead of him being part of his depression, depression was a part of him and he had control over it. He recounts how through reading and learning about depression from others who have suffered from it, by writing, and the encouragement from his family and his girlfriend Andrea, he was able to conquer the illness. Eventually, he learned to appreciate life and all the things we take for granted.

By: Anjani sharma