This is how we must be with our minds. We must allow ourselves to feel their gales and downpours, but all the time knowing this is just neccesary weather. When I sink deep, now, and I still do from time to time, I try and understand that there is another, bigger and stronger part of me that is not sinking. It stands unwavering. It is, I suppose, the part that would have been once called my soul.

– Reasons to Stay Alive, Matt Haig

I finished this book a few months back and it still sticks with me. I devoured this book at the time- stealing moments to read on the bus, over a cup of coffee before work (two things I would never usually do.) It is not a perfect book – it does feel a bit dismissive towards medication, and there are some other parts that maybe shifted against me in the wrong way. Overall though, it’s a beautifully written, very honest and personal, account of living with mental illness, and coming to terms with it. I also loved the parts with the tweeted responses from other people as to their own reasons to stay alive- taking the book away from the author’s point of view to brilliant effect. And now, I have a bunch of quotes saved on my phone that I still read over when I need a moments comfort. Today, I am thinking about it too.

(Also: this will sound bad but I love how short this book is. I have too many long, clinical self-help books that, no matter how brilliantly written, just end up feeling like a chore to read.)