Introduction
A couple of years ago I had gone
down to London for the day by train. When I arrived at Kings Cross station to
catch the train home I found that all departures on my line had been delayed
and nothing was leaving the station. Communications were, as usual, poor but I
eventually ascertained that the cause was that “somebody had gone under a train”
north of my Royston destination. After an interminable wait I eventually got
home, much later than planned. A few days later I heard that an 18 year old
student had committed suicide on the line. He had been bright, intelligent, well-liked
by his peers and much loved by his family. The cause of his suicide was a
sudden and severe attack of clinical depression. Matt Haig had a similar
experience. He came close to throwing himself off a cliff to end it all. He
didn’t go through with it, because the rational side of his brain, the bit that
argued that the pain and anguish that his suicide would cause to his family and
friends would be greater than the terrible conflicts that were going on in his
mind, won the day. Haig is now a successful author. This book is an account of
his battle with depression and his recovery: as such it stands as a “self-help”
bible for others suffering from this terrible illness.
Review
I bought this book in order to
try to understand the mental conflicts of those people who, like the author and
my mother, suffer or have suffered from severe clinical depression coupled with
anxiety and panic attacks. The book is aimed directly at these people, so I
felt a little like an outsider when reading it. Autobiographical sections on
his descent and subsequent recovery from this most brutal, “hidden” disease are
interspersed with common sense sections dealing with how to cope with (say)
panic attacks [“First panic attack: 1. I am going to die….” “Thousandth panic
attack: 1. Here it comes. 2. I’ve been here before…”]. He doesn’t shirk the
suffering caused by anxiety and depression (which, in many cases, go hand in
hand), but he does stress how the use of logic and positive thinking, even
during the darkest times, helped him to pull through. Whilst not totally
discounting medical intervention (anti-depressants didn’t work for him) he
emphasises throughout the book the silver linings that the mental clouds of
depression bring, as well as the power of positive thinking.
Would this book be of benefit to
all sufferers of clinical depression? I feel that it would be of most use to
younger sufferers – those who are hardest hit and those who are most likely to
attempt suicide. They will identify strongly with the author, who developed clinical
depression at the age of 24 and wrote the book in his late 30s. Older people
may find it harder to identify with his case and might also find it harder to
adapt their thinking from “glass half empty” to “glass half full”. Also, Haig
emphasises throughout the book the immense help provided by his family and, in
particular, his girlfriend who stayed with him throughout the dark days and who
is now the mother of his two children. It would be ridiculous for Haig not to
mention the emotional support he received, but how would this affect somebody
reading this book and was unable to call upon all this support? Would they be
any less likely to have suicidal thoughts?
Towards the end of the book Haig
produces a number of lists, such as “How to live (forty pieces of advice I feel
to be helpful but which I don’t always follow)”. Whilst some of the advice is,
I’m sure, of general use (“Be gentle with yourself. Work less. Sleep more”)
other advice (“Go for a run. Then do some yoga” and “shower before noon”) will,
I think, work for some but not for others. He also lists “Things that make me
better”. Well, these things work for him and that’s fine in an autobiographical
account, but some of these things would make me feel worse! Perhaps he should
be encouraging the reader to produce their own lists, rather than foisting his own
likes and dislikes upon them.
Having made these comments, the
book must be an important read for those, particularly young people, suffering
from clinical depression. Knowing that they are not alone and that they can recover, even without the need for medication, is very important. With the incidence of
suicide amongst young people suffering from clinical depression being
alarmingly high a comment such as “if this book saves one life it will have
made its production worthwhile” is far more than a tired cliché. One fewer
tragedy, such as the one that slightly affected my own life when my train was
delayed and caused immense and lasting distress to many others, would be of
enormous benefit to us all.
Learning Points
Reading the account of Haig’s
mental anguish in the first part of this book convinces me that, despite having
been at a low ebb during various stages of my life, I have never suffered from
clinical depression. It also helps me to understand some of the mental anguish
that my mother must have gone through, particularly in her later years, when
she no longer had the mental strength to pull herself out of the abyss that had
been dug for her by this terrible disease. As I continue with the photographic
portrayal of my relationship with her during her final years for my OCA course
work, these thoughts should always be borne in mind.
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