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A review by beeeenerys
Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
Did not finish book.
1.0
A rich person’s rock bottom is not the same as a poor person’s rock bottom.
I got this book years ago during a very bad time in my life and I’m so glad I didn't read it until now because it is not good, it reads like out-of-touch CBT therapy. This ended up on my DNF pile and I’ll probably give it away at the end of the year.
I should have stopped when the first chapter called depression a “disease”. That’s just inaccurate to what depression is and feels kind of victimising. It would have been nice if he went into more detail surrounding the systemic issues behind mental health and it's stigmas in different communities but all we got were a few male unaliving statistics that only scratched the surface of contextualising the issue.
Maybe it just wasn’t for me because I was looking for something more nuanced and empathetic to my own position or the fact that my rock bottom couldn’t be solved by doing yoga or a trip to France because it’s directly linked to systemic issues that can not be solved independently.
Haig conflates intrusive thoughts and anxiety with depression, while their symptoms are often comorbid, conflating them together continues to perpetuate this one size fits all structure of mental health that he tried to dispel at the start of the book.
He tried his best but he would have done better if he sought to understand more than just his own experiences with depression.
I got this book years ago during a very bad time in my life and I’m so glad I didn't read it until now because it is not good, it reads like out-of-touch CBT therapy. This ended up on my DNF pile and I’ll probably give it away at the end of the year.
I should have stopped when the first chapter called depression a “disease”. That’s just inaccurate to what depression is and feels kind of victimising. It would have been nice if he went into more detail surrounding the systemic issues behind mental health and it's stigmas in different communities but all we got were a few male unaliving statistics that only scratched the surface of contextualising the issue.
Maybe it just wasn’t for me because I was looking for something more nuanced and empathetic to my own position or the fact that my rock bottom couldn’t be solved by doing yoga or a trip to France because it’s directly linked to systemic issues that can not be solved independently.
Haig conflates intrusive thoughts and anxiety with depression, while their symptoms are often comorbid, conflating them together continues to perpetuate this one size fits all structure of mental health that he tried to dispel at the start of the book.
He tried his best but he would have done better if he sought to understand more than just his own experiences with depression.