Reasons To Stay Alive

I recently went to visit a friend down near London, and during my chaotic journey there I found myself stranded in Doncaster for a while. I decided to go shopping and happened to stumble across this book. I very rarely read, but I've heard good things about this so I decided to treat myself! Here's what I thought about it...

"Monsters are real. They live inside of us. And sometimes they win."

Matt Haig has an incredible way with words. I've never heard anybody explain feelings of depression and anxiety so perfectly. He somehow manages to write exactly how struggling makes you feel and how those thoughts take over you entirely.

'It is not you. It is simply something that happens to you.' 

A book has never reached me in this way before, I connected to it as soon as I read the first page. Sometimes it can take me weeks to get through a book, but I made it through this one in 3 sittings (the train there, back and then one night when I was back home). Most of the time, depression takes away any hope that you may have of getting better, having a future, being happy. But this book restored all my faith in living a life worth smiling about.

"Once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."

I'd recommend this book to anyone who needs a bit of hope - whether you have suffered from mental illness or not. It reminds you of the fact that nobody else needs to understand what you're going through, if it is bothering you then it is a problem that deserves to be helped. Get your hands on your own copy here!

I'd like to say a massive thank you to Matt Haig for sharing his courageous fight against mental illness with the world, and for helping me to see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

"Depression is... Smaller than you. Always, it is smaller than you, even when it feels vast. It operates within you, you do not operate within it. It may be a dark cloud passing across the sky, but - if that is the metaphor - you are the sky. You were there before it. And the cloud can't exist without the sky, but the sky can exist without the cloud."
If you have read this book or decide to give it a read then let me know in the comments below or tweet me @plattenperry :)