In Conversation with Matt Haig

   How do you cope in a world that is increasingly louder and more technologically advanced? Is it possible to step back and just breathe without fighting the need to check your emails and endlessly scroll on Instagram? This is just a few questions Matt Haig poses in his number one bestselling book, Notes on a Nervous Planet, a follow up of sorts to his smash-hit Reasons to Stay Alive. Ahead of his sold-out event in Waterstones Reading, I catch up with Matt to talk about the book, the power of social media and how this is all intrinsically linked to mental health.

  At the time of writing, 'Notes on a Nervous Planet' has spent a staggering five weeks at the number one non-fiction hardback chart, something Matt never expected. "I've never had a hardback go in at number one. It feels great, as I was very neurotic and very worried about this book". This success comes off the back of How To Stop Time, a fiction novel about a four hundred and thirty nine year old man which has been green-lit for a film starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and 'Reasons to Stay Alive', a book that put the spot light on mental health and encouraged a conversation to create more awareness, rather than fuel the stigma. When the idea of a follow-up or 'sequel' was pitched, Matt initially put off the idea. "I didn't feel like I had anything more to say about mental health, but then I had the idea of it being extremely helpful to treat mental health the same way we treat physical health: the aspects of modern life that might affect us and trigger us and all of this coincided with me having lots of internet meltdowns on twitter and feeling stressed out".

"There was nothing left to say, and I was getting scared of being labelled as 'Mr Depression'"





   Social media plays a vital part in our day-to-day lives, that need to check, refresh, update and charge continually, and I ask Matt whether this constitutes a fear of missing out, a fear of not being part of the collective. Matt slowly nods as I explain all this, "It's become an integral part of our lives, through stealth almost. I don't remember the meeting where we all sat down and said 'shall we massively change everything we do in life and the way we communicate to each other?'. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is something that has happened that has changed the way we talk to each other". Matt argues that this change over the last decade lead to a technological revolution of sorts, one that may have been a factor in the Trump era and the Brexit era. "Change can be unsettling, even positive change like having a baby, moving house, getting a promotion is still a change, it unsettles us and make us go a bit crazy".

   We talk more about that unsettled feeling, that sense of not feeling grounded and how one can utilise that into making ourselves better whenever we seem to struggle. Matt notes an experience in a shopping centre where he had arguably one of the worst panic attacks he had ever had, but he returned to it whilst on tour. "It's cliched to say but time really is the best remedy. When I first became ill, I was depressed for a very long time and my brain would tell me things like I would be dead by the time I was twenty five, my wife Andrea would leave me, things like that.

"I'd watched the film 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' too many times as a teenager and all my understanding of mental illness came from that. I thought I was either mad or sane and that there was no in-between"

  I had to live through that experience in order for the fear to slightly subside, waiting for that rational part of my brain to kick in to say 'that hasn't happened yet', so maybe we should stop listening and dull the inner volume a little". Matt frequently mentions getting that perspective, which can be difficult at times but he likens a panic attack or spout of depression to a weather pattern, "It'll be horrid, but it'll eventually break through".

  We briefly touch on How to Stop Time, as Matt's feeling of being perceived as mad can be directly drawn to the protagonist of the novel Tom, as he visits a doctor to discuss his condition but is dismissed and told to commit himself to an asylum. "I wanted to write an entertaining adventure story that also had that feeling of long life having lost various things and reached various understandings, but that's kind of like a metaphor for my relationship with mental illness, especially with that idea of a secret condition that no one else can see yet you feel so detached to everyone else".

   This sense of detachment and loneliness and drawn upon a lot in Matt's first non-fiction book Reasons to Stay Alive, and with the way social media has encouraged more people to come forward and openly discuss mental illness, through all its faults, Matt says it would have been a big help for him back in 1999, as he realised that he actually wasn't alone in his feelings. "It sounds melodramatic but I literally thought I was the only person on the planet who felt like this, I had no one to describe it to me, even my mum when she went through her depression, she never talked to me about it. The hardest thing about the recovery is learning not to fear the fear and to not be depressed about the depression".

"It's a sort of paradise, having known how crap life can be, it's a sort of relief"






   In Matt's new book, there is a section entirely devoted to happiness, how it can be used as our secret weapon, as long as we make our own happiness and we don't measure our own happiness to the level of success we achieve. I ask Matt quite simply when he was the most happiest. "It's those moments of extreme gratitude, those little moments you have. Travel is my big thing, going abroad or travelling around the country is such a good way of getting perspective of who you are. We went to a few Greek islands last year and I remember on the ferry I had this feeling of being totally happy".

   Before our interview rounds up, we talk about the ideology of toxic masculinity, something that Matt discusses a lot in both Notes and Reasons but we are still a long way off of seeing things get formidably better. "Suicide statistics and addiction statistics seem to imply that there is a problem with men looking after themselves and not being toxic to themselves. Toxic masculinity affects other people and poisons inwards as well, which is why it has all those destructive effects and I think men haven’t really caught  up with women in terms of knowing how to talk  about being male  or even have the discussion about it. When the discussion does happen, men can get very defensive. It exudes the toxicity that needs to be dismantled, it’s about recognising in ourselves and recognising the things that we were encouraged to do when were younger that are not healthy".

  We part ways before Matt begins his talk, but not before I show him my tattoo on my forearm that was directly inspired by How to Stop Time. He beams radiantly and asks to take a picture, later posting it on his Instagram account. What strikes me about Matt is how kind, honest and unassuming of a man he is. His words leap and dance off the page that take a spot in your heart, words that may make you see the world a little differently and maybe change your life. 

Notes on a Nervous Planet £12.99
Canongate Books 
9781786892676