Reasons to Stay Alive. Matt Haig

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      Matt Haig is the number one bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and six highly acclaimed novels for adults, including How to Stop Time, The Humans and The Radleys. As a writer for children and young adults he has won the Blue Peter Book Award, the Smarties Book Prize and has been nominated three times for the Carnegie Medal. His work has been published in over forty languages. @matthaig1 matthaig.com

      ALSO BY MATT HAIG

       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

      CANONGATE

      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 2015 by Canongate Books

      Copyright © 2015, Matt Haig

      Extract from Notes on a Nervous Planet copyright © Matt Haig, 2018

      The moral right of the author has been asserted

      For permissions credits please see here.

      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 78211 508 3

      eISBN 978 1 78211 509 0

      Typeset in Granjon by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire.

      For Andrea

      Contents

       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 depressives that they don’t say in other life-threatening situations

       Negative placebo

       Feeling the rain without an umbrella

       Life

       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

       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