I went away for a few years and wrote a novel. It is called The Life Impossible. It is my big life-and-love-and-the-universe novel. It will be out next August in the U.K. and early September in the US, Canada and elsewhere. It can be pre-ordered here -
21 years ago this summer I nearly died by suicide because I knew I’d never be happy again. Today I put away the dishes then stood in the garden and let summer rain soak me to my skin. I felt so alive and quietly euphoric I wanted to reach back through time to tell me I was wrong.
I am tired. I drank some wine. I have eaten too much chocolate. Everyone is asleep. But I just heard The Midnight Library has now sold over a million copies worldwide and I wanted to tell someone. I am so grateful people seem to like this book. Happy bunny day.
Just popping by to tell all the people who say that Meghan Markle was lying about being suicidal that you are an absolute disgrace. And you also know nothing at all.
We have no control over who people think we are. So don’t worry. If they want to hate a fictional version of you that lives in their mind, let them. Don’t drain yourself trying to be understood by people who insist on not understanding you. Keep your cup full. Go to the kindness.
Bit bored today so on the dog walk I stopped by various park benches all over Brighton and left some signed copies of The Midnight Library for anyone who fancies a book.
Finished writing a new novel. My first since The Midnight Library. I'd given up writing. But then I got into it again to keep sane. This is also my first tweet in nearly two years. The book is definitely better than this tweet. Cheers.
I never understand why 'easy reading' is sometimes used as an insult. It is quite hard to write a novel that is easy to read. Imagine criticising an architect because a house was easy to live in.
When you nearly die young, ageing isn’t depressing. Every new year is a triumph. Every new age a victory. I am six minutes into 46. But I was born again at 25. Left the old me behind. So really this is 21. And it feels GOOD. Grateful for every borrowed day.
22 years ago today I nearly died by suicide in Spain. Ever since, this has always been a bad time of year for me. Some hidden danger lurks in Septembers. But I remain here and standing and today the sun shines and the sea glistens and life feels a still, light, precious diamond.
Think of how the media treats women who speak about their mental health. From Naomi Osaka to Meghan Markle, from Princess Diana to Amy Winehouse, from reality TV stars to royalty. The women change, the will to humiliate doesn’t. It is deeply rotten, outdated and needing change.
Very excited publisher telling me The Midnight Library is number one in the U.K. and - first for me - Ireland, number 2 in Canada, 3 in America and 5 in Germany. Absolutely none of this feels real. I want to hide under the sofa and shout from the rooftops at the same time. 🎺🎺🎺
Teachers have been on the frontline throughout this pandemic. Going far beyond the requirements of their job description for the greater good. Risking their own health in the process. And now the government has rewarded them by freezing their pay. Absolute disgrace.
I sometimes get an overwhelming sense of how lucky I am to be here. 20 years ago I tried to die. Today I am sitting in my living room with my dog and my family. I'm just really damn thankful to that young person for staying around long enough to experience things beyond the pain.
I sometimes struggle with the guilt of non-working even when I don’t have to work. Like my value is intrinsically tied to how long I spend staring at a laptop. It’s August ffs. I am going out in the sun. I wrote this for me and anyone who else who wants to hear it.
Everyone of us who has felt pressured to use a physical excuse to get time off for a mental issue is very grateful this year for the precedents set by Simone Biles and Emma Raducanu and Naomi Osaka.
Went for a walk in Ashdown Forest. Otherwise known as the original Hundred Acre Wood. Was life-affirming. Went there an Eeyore and came back a Tigger. Paradise.
22 years ago I was so lost I literally couldn’t speak, I couldn’t eat without throwing up, and needed desperately to die. If you are in that place: please know you won’t always be. There are future imperfect versions of yourself that are not this one. And they need you to stay.
Lockdown posed massive mental health challenges. But our 'normal' world of long working hours, stressful commutes, overstretched lives, hectic crowds, shopping centres, pointless meetings, eco-destruction and 24/7 everything was hardly a mental health utopia. A new normal please.
To anyone who is struggling with anxiety: a mere week ago I was in the middle of a really bad patch. Trapped in that self-referential spiral of worrying about worry. It tried to convince me it’d be for ever, as always. It passed. Fear lies. I hope you feel better soon.
The great lesson of Naomi Osaka and Meghan Markle is that you don’t ever have to accept abuse or ill health as ‘part of the job’. You don’t have to succumb to the judgement of people who don’t understand you. You can live life on your own terms.
The ludicrous debate about Naomi Osaka this week has been a real sign that some people still don’t see anxiety and depression as serious health issues.
Jeez. The Simone Biles trolls. Mental health is a real part of health. It's not some airy imaginary part of it. It's not some mythical unicorn. Protecting mental health is a legitimate reason not to do something. As legitimate as any physical injury. Minds are quite important.
I count progress in summers. 22 summers since my suicide attempt. Not free from depression. Not free from anxiety. Free from needing to die. Each year gives me strength, because it is another line I never thought I'd reach. The most impossible thing I ever did was somehow stay.
I've written a new book.
The Comfort Book.
It's full of things which have helped me through hard times.
Philosophy, books, quotes, thoughts, mantras, people.
Things I write down to feel good and alive.
I so LOVED writing this.
Out July 1st. You can pre-order from today.
Congratulations
@matthaig1
! We absolutely fell in love with this book and are so excited to be working on a big screen adaptation with Matt and
@Blueprint_Pics
! 🌃📚
I obviously can't say who they are. But in the last year I've tried to talk two relatively well known people out of taking their life. The reason for both their crises was the same: online abuse in newspaper comment sections and here. People don't see it as a health issue yet.
I can remember, distinctly, feeling the weight of depression and fear when I was 24 years old, absolutely KNOWING I wouldn't live to be 25. Knowing it would be impossible. Tomorrow is my 46th birthday. I am living in impossibility and it feels good. Trust the unknown.
Genuinely confused by the amount of grief Waterstones is getting for simply saying what many other businesses are saying. That they encourage customers to wear masks. I genuinely feel people just want to be angry about things at the moment.
Someone I loved died today. Brother-in-law’s mother-in-law. Don’t think there is a succinct name for that relation. But knew her for 25 years. A life force. She was a cackler. A great Doncaster lass. Never easy when someone who epitomised life, leaves it. The echo is so strong.
A few folk having a time of it slagging off pages I posted of a book literally called The Comfort Book as if they wanted it to be Dostoyevsky or something. Wrote a book full of simple, easy, (hopefully) comforting things. Don’t get your pants in a twist. You don’t have to buy it.
The Britney story is an illustration of why so many people are still scared to be honest about their mental health situation. There are always people out there who could gaslight you or use it against you. The idea that mental illness gives away your right to be a full person.
We have no control over who people think we are. So don’t worry. If they want to hate a fictional version of you that lives in their mind, let them. Don’t drain yourself trying to be understood by people who insist on not understanding you. Keep your cup full. Inhabit kindness.
Every time a journalist implies someone has a panic attack because they are weak they stigmatise every person who has panic attacks. I had panic disorder for a year. Every time I want to be strong I think of the courage I had during that time. So much misunderstanding out there.
My nephew Harvey has had a tough year. He caught Covid. He has had a lot of changes. He lost two beloved grandparents in a short space of time. But music has been his salvation and today he found out he got a FIRST in Music Production from Leeds. Such a proud uncle right now.
Massive gratitude to the doctors, nurses, care workers, scientists and all who have actually been saving lives through this crisis. Rather than to the politicians who take credit for it.
If losing a final causes you to be racist or violent the problem has nothing to do with football and you really need to analyse it and address it for the sake of society.
Panic attacks are awful. Easy to imagine you know what they are until you have one. They are like a disintegration. An intense sense of slipping away from your mind. The idea of judging other people for having something so awful is just gross.
In Ibiza, where I nearly took my life 24 years ago. I’d gone to the island to escape and had only trapped myself further. Drink, drugs, depression. Andrea has stayed with me through the fall and rise and chaos between. Returning I see a different place with different eyes. Home.
Frantic meeting at the Daily Mail right now as staffers try to decipher a way they can say Meghan naming her baby after the Queen means she secretly hates the Queen.
Wouldn't it be good if politicians were in charge of things they knew about rather than just given random positions based on where the prime minister thinks they will be politically useful?
On this day in 1999 I came off diazepam and had a hallucinatory panic attack in a shopping centre in Newcastle. Cried amid strangers. I had less than a week to live. Memories fall. The leaves feed future soil. Just walked the dog here in the future. The sun is shining. Life won.
In the 1960s humans going to space felt like a collective endeavour. Something that advanced the whole of humankind. Billionaires going to space in 2021 just feels like first class passengers on the Titanic hogging the lifeboats.
Nora is okay. She went swimming today. Outdoors. For fun. After all her zoom piano lessons. She remembered something Mrs Elm said. 'The only way to learn is to live.' She saw Ash walk by, in town, let him pass away into another life, as she posted the application. She is alive.
I am someone quite different depending on my mood or age or my sleep or my current worries or whether it is Tuesday or not. I think people are like cities. Millions of us in one person. The good ones are also often the not-so-good ones but it doesn't mean their goodness was fake.