Matt Haig: What Doctors Called Depression Was Actually Autistic Burnout - Here's The Difference

29:46Like, brains are the most mysterious things in the universe. We have however many, what is it, 80-something billion neurons in our brain, and we still, even the top sort of medical experts on ADHD don't really know why the neurotransmitters aren't sort of communicating properly. So to know a little bit more about yourself isn't to know everything about yourself. So it's always a journey, but I absolutely believe that my depression was kind of like an extreme autistic ADHD burnout from brain fatigue, of not only having a brain that was sort of running three times the speed, but also not knowing that.

30:31And so not being able to medicate that And I don't mean literally in terms of medicine, I just mean in terms of knowing how to sort of talk to myself about it and knowing how to behave. So I would always just be heading, you know, literally burning my candle at the wrong ends, because I'd be heading towards the very places that would be the worst for me. So I'd be heading into a world... Well, I literally physically headed to Ibiza. Which, you know, being ADHD in your early 20s and male, not knowing you've got all this mental stuff going on, then going to live in Ibiza at the end of the 90s was not, you know, with hindsight, it wasn't the right thing.

31:21I should have been walking in Northumberland or the Cotswolds, but I wasn't. And so I went to the place I was attracted to, like the moth to a flame, and then, yeah, it literally nearly killed me. And I literally nearly jumped off a cliff in a beaver and ended up in a hospital in a beaver and being prescribed very strong doses of diazepam, which didn't make anything better. And I was just terrified about what was going on Because as a young man, certainly as a young man at the end of the 90s, you felt like you had to be in control of your own mind, and that you were, and you had this thing called free will, and your brain was your servant, and you sort of like, you understood yourself.

32:18And then something happens where you think, oh, I'm not only not in control of my external life, I'm not in control of my internal life. And so that causes a crisis. So you're in a kind of state of meta-crisis, where you're having a crisis about the crisis. You're having depression about depression. You're having anxiety because you've been told you've got anxiety. So everything sort of like folds in on itself like a black hole because... The rumination. The rumination, and you can't get out of it. Because if you've got, like I sometimes have a bad back, you can point to your back however bad that pain is and it can be really oh yeah it can be really consume you pain can consume you you can psychologically cope with it even if you can't cope with it in terms of the pain you can cope with it in the abstract sense of thinking well i'm not my back i can point to my back i can say this is where the pain is It's between these vertebrae, this is the problem.

33:23Whereas when it's your brain, how do you step out of your brain to point to your brain? So you're trying to work everything out from the inside as it's falling out. So it's like you're trying to, it's like you're an architect or an interior designer trying to work out what to do with a house as the house is on fire. So you're going around choking on this man and trying to work out, how do I fix this house? And where should the windows be? And you are literally, you know. So it's almost impossible. You're firefighting your own mind and trying to work out yourself. And that's why it took me so long to get out of that, because I didn't have...

34:06And that's what motivated me when I started writing the nonfiction stuff. What motivated me was just to try and help people who were in that situation. to try and help this hypothetical younger me. Yeah. To sort of give them a sort of an escape route from that. And the escape route is, weirdly, to not be looking for the escape route. You escape yourself by accepting yourself. So, to get out of, you know, for me, to get out of panic, to get out of having a panic attack every time you leave your house, you have to get to a point where you say, I'm going to have a panic attack when I leave that house, but I'm still going to choose to have that panic attack rather than be a person who can never leave a house.

34:53So you have to get to a point where a bigger fear beats a lesser fear. So the fear of being someone who could, of being like Howard Hughes in that Las Vegas hotel room where he can't leave the house and he's weeing into bottles or, you know, I had that because I'd seen The Aviator It was around that time, wasn't it? Yeah. And as I was coming out of agoraphobia, I was not wanting to be Howard Hughes. I was wanting to sort of get out into the world. And so I would do whatever it took. And I used to count my progress in lampposts from my house. So, you know, if you'd made six lampposts without having a panic attack or whatever it was, or going to the corner shop, and it felt like I had in my head, the Indiana Jones music as I went to the corner shop and it wasn't to shoplift this time it was just to get some Marmite and you know so I'd have like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Marmite in my head as like a real adventure and it made me realize that people are achieving immense things all the time, people who are going through invisible illness, invisible grief, invisible terror that we're passing in the street every single day are probably using more courage than astronauts or stuntmen.

36:27You know, every day there's all these ordinary things that are happening that are taking such courage in people's outwardly mundane, ordinary individual lives. And so it gave me a kind of empathy and awe for people's internal stuff, the stuff you can't see. Well, I love this thing that you wrote, which feels like it connects to this, that your worst days become a reference bank. So when a day hits you harder, you can measure it against your worst and find your way through. And I definitely feel like I can connect to that because I think that's basically how I define resilience. That actually you have to keep pushing, but then you actually know that you've got through some really, really hard times.

37:16Do you still use that today? Like, have you used that this year? Have you used that? This might be one of the first podcasts you've done in a while. I'm sure there was a lot of like, well, I mean, you were literally, last night I saw you posting your stories. I'm doing a podcast tomorrow and I'm currently watching about ADHD and I had to message you and I was like, you don't need to prepare for this. Just come as you are. I know, that's scary. I always feel like I need to be prepared for everything because I'm a catastrophizer. But yeah. Do you use that? It's a good analogy. There's always some terrible day, however old we are, there's always some terrible day we've lived through, that we've accidentally lived through or gone through.

37:55and so people always say don't they think of a good good time think of a happy time and that works sometimes but I think more useful when you're in an emergency situation mentally is to think of other things you've survived so you're thinking of the bad stuff you're not thinking of happy stuff and in fact when I was depressed seriously depressed I didn't care about happiness I just wanted to feel you know happiness was like so exotic yeah ridiculous it was just so far away It was like another language, and I just could not even imagine that. So the opposite of depression isn't happiness. The opposite of depression is wellness.

38:33It's just like not, you know, of being neutrally bored. And in fact, the moment I knew I wasn't always going to be depressed, was my girlfriend, who's now my wife, was setting up this business back when we lived in Leeds. and this was in the year 2001, I think, and I was trying to help her with press releases and sending emails. And I was literally thinking about an email for a minute without hallucinating or without thinking of some sort of catastrophic thing going on in my brain. I was thinking of wording an email, and it was a very boring email to the Yorkshire Post or something. and I just thought I've had a minute of thinking about an email rather than thinking I'm going to die I'm going to be in a straitjacket everything feels terrible what's going on with my heart blah blah blah and so just that minute of boring email in my mind was like the moment I thought it's going to be two minutes of thinking about a boring email or three minutes of thinking about something that's on TV, or that's just nothing.

39:49So when you're in that depressed state, what you're craving is what a lot of people are trying to escape from. You're craving normality without pain. You're craving, you know, the things that we take for granted and that we want to leave behind on a Friday night. You're actually craving what people are wanting to leave behind. So when you come out of it, you have this sense of gratitude for things you've never had before. I love that. I also love that you said that your favorite word is impossible. Yeah. Tell me why. I like the word impossible. I've used it a lot in my book. Sometimes I even wrote a book called Life Impossible.

40:35And it's because... You didn't write Mission Impossible, did you? I didn't write Mission Impossible. I once wrote some children's stories about elves, and impossible was the ultimate swear word for an elf to say. Because, you know, if you're an elf, you've got to believe everything's possible, especially if you're working for Father Christmas. But that's literally a different story. Sorry. But, yeah, impossible. Because just in my very negative, pessimistic, depressed brain, I felt it was impossible to get better. So it's just as simple as that. And the reason I became published as an author, which had been probably a dream when I was a student to write books.

41:23But I didn't have the self-esteem or belief in myself to do that because I thought it was impossible. So when you recover from depression, which you think is impossible to do because you've had depression for three years. You've swung between panic attack, which drains you, and then you end up in depression. And then just as you're slightly coming out of depression, you have a panic attack. So you have this horrendous swing between anxiety and depression. And you think, I'm never going to get out of that. I'm never going to get out of that. So when you do get out of that, you think, well, that was literally the most impossible thing.

42:04And it was so impossible. I mean, you don't want to die if you think you're going to get out of something. So to really be suicidal, I must have felt there was absolutely no chance. There wasn't 1 % chance I was going to get better. This was it. This was what my brain was telling me. It was saying, this is new. This is where you are. There's no way. You don't know what's going on with yourself. So there's no way you're ever going to know how to get out of this. That's it. And it was terrifying. And so it was impossible. It was like falling down a well, and there's no ladder, there's no light, and you just, what do I do?

42:48So when you do, when you're in that well and you find a tunnel that leads upwards, you're like, wow, I can literally, that was the most impossible situation, and I got out of it. So it gives you a kind of, almost an arrogance where you feel like, well, what other impossible things could I do? Oh, I could get a book deal if I had that same perseverance that kept me alive, that kept me going. I can handle rejection letters. I can handle 50 rejection letters. I can just keep going until I get what I want. And it sounds really kind of like crazy and delusional. But then to myself, nothing was more crazy and delusional than getting better.

43:38So it was like, I didn't mind. I can remember when I started writing. And when I started writing. How old were you when you started writing? When did you get your first book deal? I was mid-twenties, so like 25, 26. I hardly had any kind of proper work. I'd stayed in education as long as I can, and then long summers in Ibiza, master's degree in English, then another long summer in Ibiza. So the combination of studying heavy-duty 19th century literature and critical theory, and then having a summer in Ibiza, and overanalyzing everything on lots of drugs, was not good, and having no sleep. So, you know, my breakdown was kind of inevitable.

44:24But I'd had sort of like part-time jobs and little three weeks here and there, but I'd never had a proper job. And then I was suddenly agoraphobic. And I, you know, the idea of being able to go out into a nine-to-five wasn't available to me at that point. So my dream, for me, my dream job became my only option in the sense that what can I do? And this was like pre-social media. This was very early noughties. So what could I do? And so I had my WH Smith A4 refill pad and loads of barrows, and I just started writing. And typing it up. And yeah, I just... I wrote because that was the only thing. And also, I noticed when I was writing, I wasn't thinking, especially when I was writing made-up stuff, or writing fiction, I noticed I wasn't thinking about myself so much.

45:26So it became quite a

45:31mindful, meditative exercise. And I didn't care when I sent off my first three chapters that I was being rejected. And that some people were saying... How were you? Sorry? You were rejected? Yeah, I was rejected lots by lots and lots of agents. But you never gave up? No. I liked it. Because I'd have liked to have been accepted more than rejected, obviously. But I liked the process. It's that thing, isn't it? The person who never has a rejection because you're not sending anyone off is definitely not going to make it. The person who has loads of rejection letters at least has a chance of making it, because they're sending something off.

46:18So the rejection back is a sign that you're out there, that you're alive, that you're having some kind of dead-end relationship with the world. And so, and also that was my education at writing, because sometimes an agent would have actually read it and would have a comment, and I'd take it on board. And so I had this strange resilience, which I don't really have as much now. But in my 20s, I had a strange... You know, I had no contacts. I knew no one. I had no writer friends, no publishing friends. I had nothing. But I had this insane, like, drive. Purpose. Yeah, after depression, when I was just like, I can, you know, it's...

47:08What I've got is I can be resilient and I can keep going. That's the skill I have. And so, yeah, I just kept on, kept on, kept on. And I think, you know, that's still the case. You need to have that resilience, especially in any kind of creative industry where you don't let a rejection stop you. You use it as a kind of fuel that you're on the road. Do you think that person would have ever thought younger Matt in their 20s that they would have sold over 10 million books by now? No, definitely not. I mean, even like 10 years ago, I wouldn't have thought that. But I would have thought, you know, I wasn't even aiming for that.

47:59I think, I'm trying to remember what my aim was. I think my aim was to be published, to go into a bookshop and see a book.

48:09And, you know, the human mind being what it is, you tick off one thing and then you have the next thing. You think, well, I don't want a book just on the shelf. I want a book on the table. Then I don't want a book just on the table. I want it in, you know, every bookshop. Then you want to be in the charts. Then you want to be number one in the charts. Then you want blah, blah. So, yeah, it's annoying, but at the same time, it keeps you having some sort of drive in terms of your career. And that's been useful, so it'll keep going. But no, yeah, it's been lovely. The loveliest thing is still the personal things, like when someone really responds to your work or relates to your work and they say something very, very personal about how it's helped them or their mother, or you hear from someone in a faraway place.

48:58It's mad, but something so internal as your imagination can connect with people, that's nice. It is. What I think, if you actually think about, I mean, we're speaking a lot about depression, it affects 280 million people worldwide. That's a lot of people. Yes. And that's like, I feel like with mental illness, the numbers are often lower than they would be. and this is what's frustrating about like we live in a world where we think everything's over diagnosed and we think that there's so well this is the thing with neurodiversity right people will now say everything's become very over diagnosed but my theory on that is that it was just under diagnosed and actually you know especially as well for women that masked it was like naughty little boys that had adhd were like never considered right and women just learned to mask and how can I fit into society?

49:51And that's essentially what obviously I did, but I had no attention span. So I would be told to stand out of the class because I was talking, but because I just was in my own little land the whole time. But I was never a naughty kid. No. And so I think now that you have this whole surgence of people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, now getting diagnosed because they were all misdiagnosed. Well, of course. I mean, other galaxies have always existed before we had telescopes to see the other galaxies. And it's just like, ADHD was always there. It was called other things. And in the future, I would bet it's going to be called something else because ADHD famously doesn't necessarily capture what it actually is.

50:34And I don't think the word depression captures what depression is in terms of mental illness. And so I think a lot of the terms we have for neurodiversity are going to change. But I feel, yes, in terms of diagnosis, I feel like there's so many more people who have stuff that they don't know about. I mean, and I think famously what happens is when you get a diagnosis, you start to look at your family, especially older generations. I think, ah, yes. Okay, this might be where it stems from. And, you know, so I feel like people are always scared by the sudden appearance of something. But the sudden appearance of something doesn't mean it's just arisen.

51:25It's just that we've found a way to see it and recognize it. And that's been true with physical diseases. You know, you don't go back 500 years and have people dying of all these specific, you know, you don't hear of people dying of prostate cancer in Shakespeare play, but people have prostate cancer. You know, there's things that we know exist that we didn't know existed before in the physical side of things, we accept it. But as soon as something becomes mental, people are so suspicious of neurodiversity and anything mental, even temporary disorders or illnesses because I think it questions everyone's sense of identity.

52:11I think even if you're not neurodiverse, even if you've got nothing going on with your mind that's exceptionally different to the mainstream, knowing that minds are wired certain ways for certain things, or knowing that our minds can trip up and fall into depression or something, I think it frightens people, because it says, I'm not in control, and I'm not... totally in charge of my own free will. And I think that's frightening for people. And I think, you know, when it's a physical thing, you don't have that existential philosophical rumination. But it is, because life is fragile. Life is very fragile, and the older you get, you accept that more.

53:00But I think certainly for younger people, and you're right about women especially, you know. I think it's even the diagnostic criteria we have now, I think women are being missed. I think a lot of men are being missed too, but that might be for different reasons. I think that might be more to do with, like, men not, you know, it's the way that men famously don't go to the doctor as much. I think men are often not diagnosed almost out of choice because they might know something's going on with them, but they don't want to have the sort of tag of I'm different or I'm vulnerable. I think that can be true for women, you know, because I think anyone who's taught to sort of conform, it can be hard.

53:46But I think it's good that we're having conversations and that people like you are speaking about your experiences, which are possibly different to my experiences. and yeah I mean I again I was always inverted commas naughty at school but I never wanted to be it was just branded that because I was restless and I was always uh moving about or staring out the window I find eye contact hard as you might notice but and I've always and you find chit chat hard I find chit chat hard it depends what the chit chat's about but yeah lightweight chit chat I find hard. I like deep conversations. I like this, but I want every conversation to be like this.

54:29So if someone stops you in the street and asks how you're doing, they're not wanting this. They're not wanting a podcast. The life story. Yeah. They're not wanting a full sort of philosophical dialogue, but I can do that anywhere. But yeah, actually, I also find crowds difficult. And I'm quite a people-pleasing person. I don't ever, like, I've got, like, a stereotype of autism is that you're not that empathetic or emotionally intelligent about reading such a, I'm like, I feel like I'm the opposite. I get too bothered about what other people are feeling. But at the same time, I can really put my foot in it and look rude without meaning to.

55:08A classic way I would have looked rude before is by just sort of almost walking out or tuning out of conversations. if there's a sort of group of people around the table, I'd look at my phone, look very rude, or walk out or pretend I needed the toilet. And it was a way I now realize of processing things that I hadn't been able to process. So I just need... So I still do, like at Christmas, if you've got a lot of extended family there, and I love them all. And I really am glad that they're there in my house. And I'm not antisocial in that sense. It's just, I need a little bit of time away to process it.

55:48And then it catches up. It's almost like interval training. It's like recharging a battery. Yeah. It's like if you're... You know, going all out on the treadmill for 10 minutes and you need to walk for a little bit and then you can go back out again. And it's like that. It's just sort of mental cardio. I'm interrupting for one moment to ask one small favour. Please subscribe to the show. This helps it grow more than you know and I'm so bad at asking this from you. I'm so bad at thinking about this. But you know my goal is 100 ,000 to get to on YouTube and I really want to bring you more content and bigger episodes and we can only do that with your help together.

56:30So please do hit subscribe. Thank you. You're so known for writing too. I mean, it's very exceptional that you write fiction and non-fiction. There's not that many people that can swing that easily in between two. And your most famous book, The Midnight Library, was a huge, I mean, it's kind of, you go into the internet and it's overwhelming how many people are writing reviews about The Midnight Library. Because it also brings in so many different philosophical points. And this is the thing, the regrets, different roads that we could have taken, what if we would have taken that road? What would have happened, you know, when I had Alan de Botton on, like, you will marry the wrong person?

57:09What if I married a different person? Like, all of these thoughts that we have. Why do you think we're so kind of fixated on that way of thinking, on what if that happened? And what made you write that? Because it's such an interesting concept. I think we're encouraged to be regretful, even in the sort of present of our lives. I feel like we live in a world now where we're encouraged subconsciously, subliminally, to be dissatisfied. I feel like we have whole business models based on it. We have technology based on it. We live in a world of addiction, legitimized addiction. I think social media is a massive part of that.

57:57If you think of something like Instagram, what are you doing? You're literally looking at parallel lives. You cannot help but place yourself in the situations you're looking at. If someone's in a gorgeous holiday destination and you're at a bus stop and it's raining, you can't help but think, I would rather be there under that palm tree. Even if you consciously, you know, oh, well, it's just set up. It's just fake. It's just, you know, well, I've taken that photo a hundred times. you still think, yeah, but I'd rather be doing that than here. So we live in a world of constant comparison. And I do it.

58:38And I realize it doesn't matter what stage you're at in your career, you can always compare. There's always going to be someone selling more books, getting better reviews. Always. There's always a level, even if you're at the very, very top, you think, well, tomorrow could all be taken away yeah yeah that younger author there is coming up very fast you know there's always something to be envious of yeah if you if you're that way inclined and so you sort of need to go through different levels you need like i'm lucky in the sense that i've i've been a struggling writer i've been a relatively successful writer i've had you are very successful i would take relatively out of that well that's just let's just leave yeah well it's yeah i've got you know a lot of people have read my books and that's what i wanted and it's you know uh yeah very humble but i will have to recreate you on that as a fat check well you have to be a bit dissatisfied though i feel like to write the next book you have to be a little bit dissatisfied with what you've just like you know you have to sort of always be correcting yourself but at the same time you're right you have to be appreciative of what you've got it's in like why are we also regretful like we're always looking back on the things that we could have done, should have done, did we take the right path?

59:52And that is the whole part of the Midnight Library. I mean, it is such a fascinating concept. And I feel like a lot of crises that people have in life is because they think they've took the wrong turn somewhere. Yeah, exactly. But you can never know if you took the wrong turn somewhere. You could win the lottery and be looking down at your numbers so ecstatic, and that's what causes you to get run over. You could have the best... You know, there's so many random things that are unknowable. And I know just from my own life, but a lot of the bad things that have happened to me turned out to be the good things.

1:00:33You know, a horrendous breakdown turns into a way to help other people at some future point down the road. A terrible experience becomes something that can fuel creativity. So... Do you think that your empathy, then, is because you've had so much pain, that you can now physically feel that pain in other people? I think when you've had a pain that you can't articulate, you then don't need other people to articulate their pain. You can kind of... It's not quite telepathy, but it's an understanding that people are going through more than they're showing in any situation. So I think that, I think ADHD as well, or that neurodiverse feeling in your mind, where you've had to act a certain way that's opposite to what you're feeling.

1:01:31So you have to sit still at school, you have to be patient during a two or three hour exam. you have to do things that are so against the grain that you've had all that time. And your mind, while your body is still, your mind is going off into other places and other people and other imaginings. So your imagination grows out of that forced stillness or forced conformity. So your brain is escaping where your body can't or where the situation dictates you you must stay confined in a certain place or a certain town. So that imagining is very much linked to empathy as well, because you're sort of able to see other situations, because you're putting yourself in other situations all the time.

1:02:20And that's a blessing and a curse, because going back to your thing about comparison, you're constantly aware that there's alternate versions of you everywhere. And you're thinking, Am I the best one? Or even in the best half of them? You know, could I be living better? And you know, it's that thing of every job opportunity or relationship or health situation or whatever it is, anything you've passed by, you think what would my life have ended up and that can be useful or it can be um paralyzing but i think for me writing about that writing a novel about that was a way to get over that by realizing that it's just unknowable we're always a first draft we're always just one line for our life.

1:03:28We can't be every branch. And the only real way to waste life is to waste yourself in regret and, you know, wishing for something, but you didn't do. You can change the future, but you can't change what was behind. Which type of star do you prefer writing? Well, the reason I've written so many different is because I always want to feel like I'm doing something new. every time, and I don't know if that's ADHD, but I feel like for me, the best way to write a book is to always imagine you're writing the first book. And so you've just been through that situation with your real first book. And in a weird way, I always want to be back where you are, because I feel like that is kind of, I know it's terrifying, and I'm not belittling that, but it's kind of freeing to sort of put yourself out there.

1:04:26who you are in that moment, because it becomes harder as you go on to realize the kind of writer you are. So you sometimes think, okay, I'll do something completely new. So I'll write a children's book. I don't have any ideas left for children's books, for instance, because my children are now 18 and 16. So unless I want to get inspired by Resident Evil, I'm not going to, or, you know, Tyler, the Creator. you know it's different to writing about um what I was writing about 10 years ago do you know something that I absolutely loved hearing you say at hey festival was that your favorite self-help book oh no you think the wisest self-help book is Winnie the Pooh yes when it is definitely my comfort book Winnie the Pooh is you know because I often especially since after writing about mental health, I get asked for my favourite mental health book, my favourite self-help book, and it's genuinely the Winnie the Pooh books, because they represent every single aspect of mental health condition.

1:05:37So the character I possibly relate to most is Tigger, because, you know, he's got a lot going on. He's got ADHD, definitely. You've got Piglet with anxiety, Um, you've got Al, who's definitely dyslexic, but he's got other sort of neurodiverse things going on. You've got Eeyore, who's, uh, depressed and grumpy and feels like I used to feel. And, um, I would say Winnie the Pooh is an addict to honey and gets into all sorts of problems. And, you know, I feel like Winnie the Pooh has that kind of lust for life that an addict can have, but then ends up stuck in a hole or a tree and getting stung. And who else is in Winnie the Pooh?

1:06:40Oh, and then you've got Christopher Robin, haven't you, who's hallucinating everything. So it's all going on in Christopher Robin's mind, and he probably needs help. So yeah, Winnie the Pooh, I just feel like it is like, and I think it was conscious. I think A.A. Mill knew what he was doing because he was, well, not about the terms in terms of neurodiversity, but he was writing about the mind because he was traumatized from war and shelf shock and what wasn't yet called PTSD. So he was writing his way through that. And I often think that like people expect because I wrote a book once called The Comfort Book and people expect you to be this very sort of soft gentle easygoing person if you write a book like The Comfort Book often you're writing about comfort and Winnie the Pooh or easy things or children's stories because you feel the opposite of that so you're writing your own therapy you're writing what you want to be at that moment.

1:07:42And I've always tried to be honest about that, because I think there's a danger with the whole concept of self-help, in the sense that people expect or even imagine that they have the answers. And I think that's a dangerous role for a person to feel. There's a quote by the novelist David Foster Wallace, who says the most dangerous part of himself is the part that feels he's special or different to other people. And I think as soon as you are put in or put yourself in that situation, it's not healthy for you or for people around you. So, I think it's… It feels like ego, right? It feels like a very heavy ego and shadow self.

1:08:32Yeah, and it's a very lonely place to be. And I will be honest, after I wrote Reasons to Stay Alive, I was often put in and putting myself in that kind of role of always feeling like I had to say something wise, as if I was Socrates or Yoda, you know, having to churn out wisdom, because people would come to you expectantly. And it's like, you know, beyond what I wrote in that book, I have nothing else really to say on that topic. Because, as I said, I'm not a doctor. I'm just someone who went through that. But I think there's an interesting middle ground where you can know you're being helpful to someone via your own imperfections, via your own limitations.

1:09:26If you're honest enough about what you don't know. Yeah. and what you're not good at. That in itself, paradoxically, can be helpful. Well, I guess that's the illusion on social media right now, right? Is that there's so much self-help, there's so many gurus, there's so many people that if you do X, Y, and Z, you will become this state. And I guess that's the difference. You know, you can read someone's story, you can feel seen. I think the biggest power in what you did in Reason to Stay Alive is you got people just to feel seen and to start exploring themselves more and starting to relate to themselves, but also giving them a hope to...

1:10:02Yeah. ...that there's something more out there. And there is a really important language, just how you speak to people, how you approach people, that can make people feel that they can open up and not shut down. That's a really important, like, moment in someone's life. If you say something that can offend someone or feel like they're being judged, you shut someone off immediately. But if you feel that something is very open and unjudgmental and curious, then you can try and help that person feel a little bit more seen. And I think that's the difference. But on social media, it doesn't always come across that way.

1:10:36And so there's that kind of illusion that if I do this thing or I buy that product, I will become X, Y, Z. And that's the dangerous landscape. I feel, and I see it a lot in other people, and I'm deliberately the opposite of this now, But I see on social media a lot of people becoming brands of their own misery. They turn like the most painful experience into life. And obviously the one that gets a lot of attention because a lot of people understand it. And it's useful. And I believe that people who start off very authentically talking about something very real to them, but seeing the response, feel a kind of obligation or desire to stay in that pain, and to almost market your own pain to a point where it's hard to tell where reality ends, and your own sort of self-branding begins.

1:11:35So whatever it is that you've got going on, it's a thing that didn't really exist pre-social media, but that self-branding of experience, and what it does to you is kind of interesting. And I felt it was having a negative effect on my mental health, just the sheer act of going out every night talking about depression, and talking about that moment in Ibiza where I nearly died every night, in a way that wasn't, you know, in front of the crowd. So you're kind of performing it. It was like, not helpful. Yes, it's good to talk, but is it good to talk every single day about the same terrible thing over and over in a way where it becomes a kind of script and you become very sort of detached from yourself?

1:12:26Which is why, like, after I did those mental health books, I wrote children's stories about Father Christmas. I wrote a novel about an immortal human. I just did very sort of fantastical things. and the Midnight Library was a kind of return to mental health, but in a very fantasy way. And then with a person that clearly wasn't me because it was a woman and it was, you know, different situation, location, age, everything. And that was easy to do because it was fiction. And I think in a way, for me, writing fiction, I find more free because I can actually be more truthful about myself via a character.

1:13:07So while we're on social media, I've got to talk to you about it because I found it quite funny that you wrote a post a couple of weeks ago, which is actually when I reached out to you about, because then I saw your new book that's coming out, but you said losing followers in 2026 is the equivalent of gaining followers in 2016. It feels like an improvement. Yeah, it's like exfoliation. It feels good. Tell me more about that. Well, stupidly, I had in my head, like, it's really embarrassing to admit, but I used to be obsessed with, like, follower counts and things like that. And I'd found ways to do it.

1:13:47I'd found ways for me where I'd post a certain thing and know that's an extra thousand followers, that's an extra 2 ,000 followers. And you start repeating things. And after a while, it felt like a trap. It felt like I was trapping myself into becoming this person who would say certain things and get a certain response. But none of it was real, because I was just saying it to get that response. And so now I try and be, I mean, I'm probably still as fooled by the algorithm as much as anyone else. But I try and be myself as much as possible. I'm not repeating myself. So as with books, I'm trying to do new things where possible.

1:14:27And so if I want to talk about music, I'll talk about music. I try and treat my social media now like the way people in 2008, the way your aunt treated Facebook. Or Twitter. Yeah, or Twitter. And just sort of be really amateur and real, which is good because I'm quite naturally amateur, and people will wonder why I'm published, when my spelling is so bad, and everything else. That makes me feel so much better. But I feel... Yeah. As a dyslexic. Well, I think dyslexics, and just people with crap spelling like me, I'm not dyslexic, but I am, for a writer, I'm quite sloppy with grammar, I'm very much needing editors.

1:15:14But I I think 10 years ago, there was a perfectionism everywhere, in every sense, in terms of looks, in terms of style, in terms of lifestyle. And I feel like there's such a backlash to that in some ways. And, I mean, it's partly AI, because we're never going, you know, if AI becomes absolutely perfect and all-knowing and does everything faster than we can, is better and wiser and more knowledgeable than we are, then what are we if we're aiming for that? If we're aiming for perfection and speed and looking like AI, perfect people, then we're not going to be able to compete with that. So we have to embrace the flawed side of humanity, the imperfect.

1:16:04And I think people, I've noticed people responding to that more. I feel like I lose followers. I certainly don't gain social media followers anymore like I used to. um but i feel like i've actually made more like friends on social media and it feels more real yeah so that to me feels better i mean it's easy for me to say like at this point in my career where i'm not trying to grow or anything but for me mentally it just feels nicer to just have real conversations with people and just talk in a real way rather than overthinking everything. And I think that's the danger of social media. If you have a social media thinking, you can't enjoy a view without thinking, oh, I should post that sunset.

1:16:49Or you can't have a thought without thinking, how could I shape that into a tweet? Or, you know, you can't have a little moment to yourself without thinking, how do I publicize myself? And I think it's just nice to just keep aspects of yourself to yourself and when you put yourself on social media you're actually not trying you're just being just the losing followers side affect you is that because you're very kind of outspoken politically that you think that you use followers or do you think it's uh what do you think it is that well definitely i mean the political thing can go for ways because you can get a lot of followers as well by being political because especially now in our sort of like hyper divisive times, I actually find sometimes the political posts are the ones that, you know, where you do actually gain more than you lose.

1:17:44But... What do you think makes you lose the followers? Total inconsistency. And just like people following you for one thing, and then you're giving them another thing, which I'm like an anti-brand. And so they think, oh, I'm following Matt Haig because he's so optimistic and inspiring. And then I'll be there saying, I think there's going to be a nuclear war next week. I don't follow him for this. So I'm very confusing. I feel like to be human is to be confusing. And I feel like social media encourages us to simplify ourselves. So I feel like it's, I like people who are very clearly themselves.

1:18:31Do you struggle with the comparison side of social media? And like, how do you deal with that? Well, I'm getting better at it. I used to be really bad. And I used to deal with it by being quite insecure and sort of like, you know, I don't know. You talk about some achievement or you'd seek validation, which only ever makes you look more insecure. so I think I deal with it by understanding that the rest of life is better and elsewhere and the good things in your life and certainly like as you get older and you know your parents have health issues or your in-laws have health issues and you lose people along the way your priorities, you don't even have to try.

1:19:36Just time and aging itself shifts you towards a sense of time and how, you know, lucky we are to be here. And that if you spent your 20s and 30s worrying about things like social media followers or status, then you don't want to stay doing that forever. You want to sort of like, I don't know, phone your mum. That's good for your mental health. That's a tool for your mental health and for her actually. So like you've got kids who are 16 and 18. How do you talk to them about this? Well, you know, I don't know. I've got, you know, I think every generation tries to correct their parents and their parents' generation and ends up making exactly the same amount of mistakes.

1:20:31And I think I'm very proud of being open with my kids about mental health and stuff. But then it's a balance between being open, but not giving them any sense of a self-fulfilling prophecy. For them to know that just because their father went through something, it doesn't mean that they're going to go through something. But one thing I think is brilliant about a lot of this younger generation is that they don't beat themselves up about things that my generation used to. Like my son when he was diagnosed with autistic, it wasn't a thing that swung him either way. He wasn't like proud of being autistic, but he wasn't embarrassed of being autistic.

1:21:19He just simply knows he's autistic. Hasn't changed him in any way. He's still who he is. Whereas for me, that would have been such an issue. And so I think there's an acceptance of things, which I really like. I think, I don't know, I think you try your best. And before you have kids, you imagine all sorts of things. You imagine you're never going to give them technology until, like, 25. five. And then, you know, there comes the point where they're out and their friends have all got a phone because, you know, it's safe. You know, they want to be able to contact you. So you get them a phone and then, then my friends are all on this and stuff.

1:22:06So you have that. And, but I also think what I love about kids and what I don't understand as they get older is it's a two way street. I feel at this point, I'm learning more from them than they are from me. They are very wise, instinctively, and they've got a lot to give. And I feel like the biggest parenting mistake is to not listen to your kids, or to realize they've got stuff to give. And a lot of education and a lot of growing up is actually taking yourself away from yourself. And so the job of a parent isn't just to change these creatures into something else for society. It's to keep hold of what they've got instinctively.

1:22:47And I think, you know, I'm very proud of my kids that we've managed to do that. But, yeah, we homeschool as well, which has been quite challenging at times. Imagine. I think people connected to that in COVID. And everyone had to. Yeah, exactly. And that gives you an extra pressure, because you don't have that option of blaming the school. You know what I mean? If they're failing at something or they've got some dysfunction going on, you can't say, well, it's just the teacher's fault. Everything is you. But, yeah, no, it's great having teenagers because it's impossible to become too up in the air or too arrogant when you've got two teenagers trolling you from breakfast onwards.

1:23:35You just have to sort of stay in your place. They don't let you. I feel like you took on your mum's role, who was a head teacher, to now doing that part of yourself. You're like the head teacher in the household. Yeah, well, we don't, you know, they're at the point now where they're doing it all themselves. And Lucas is no longer in sort of proper curriculum education. He's doing his own stuff. And my daughter, she's just sort of like, she wants to pursue music and she's going all out on learning the drums, guitar, piano and everything, and often teaching herself by YouTube. So they're very sort of like self-starter.

1:24:08So our job is kind of done now in terms of that. And it's just more. Yeah, it's just interesting. You're kind of always grieving for them being younger, but you're also excited for what's to come. I was thinking about this before I talked today. And I was like, there's so much to talk to you about. And also you sent me an amazing list of all the different things that you wanted to touch upon today. And then I had this thought, I was like, from all the interviews you've done, from all the things that you feel that you've kind of accomplished, what's the one question that you wish someone would have asked you that they've never asked you?

1:24:42I don't know if it's like one question, but I feel like it's always nice to be asked, as you asked right away, how you're feeling. Because I think it's quite different to how are you, where it's just polite and you expect it to help. How are you feeling is something that, As soon as you're asked it, you're put into a space of like, how am I feeling? And like, it makes you sort of mindful of yourself. And I feel like with my fast mind, I don't think about that enough. So I think you've already asked it. Well, that's great. You're very accomplished with this podcast. I connect a lot to that because I think when I was reading, you know, you said earlier, you know, I didn't ever want to do therapy.

1:25:28And then you ended up going to therapy. and you said um i thought i'd go there and i'd just blame my mom for everything and actually what i realized is that it wasn't that it was my neurodiversity yes it was me and it was my mind and even if it was you know my mom it was sort of like stuff beyond her control it was just genetics and you know things your parents passed down my mom was adopted so she's never known who her I don't know who my biological maternal grandparents are. And so I think my mum has always struggled with that. And I think I've had that passed down to me. She doesn't really know her...

1:26:09She's always struggled with place in society, even in terms of what her role should be, what class she is, what everything. She just doesn't know. And so I've had a lot about insecurity myself. But all of that, you know, I feel like we all inherit stuff from our parents, but Freudian psychology, pinning it all down and blaming it all and directing it all to your mother is just such a sort of limiting idea because you're just in this chain of being from going back generations that everyone is just a creature of a context. And especially nowadays where we live in such an unnatural world to how we're not meant to live that I feel like any sensitive person at some point is gonna feel insane in an insane world.

1:27:00And I don't think that's to do with my parents. I feel like me with my brain in any upbringing would have hit a crisis at some point. Because I say that because when I was having therapy, and I had it quite young because I used to live in New York when I was modeling in my first career. And I remember going to a dinner party, and everyone at the dinner party was like, who's your therapist? Who's your therapist? Because the Americans are very thought coming from therapy. And I felt so uncomfortable as an English person. And I was like, what do you mean? I don't have a therapist. And it was like this huge stigma shock for me.

1:27:33And so it actually kind of allowed me to dip my feet in and become curious because I was like, well, this is weird. I'm the socially awkward one that doesn't have therapy. Whereas in the UK, I would be the socially awkward one that did have therapy. So it made me like dip my feet in to go, well, let me explore this. Like, what is this? But then what I realized is the part that therapy missed for me was the somatic work, which is about like feeling in your body. And I think understanding ADHD, you can be very cerebral when in your mind a lot, but you kind of disconnect a lot from how you're feeling in your body, like the sensations.

1:28:08So like the big thing for me was going back to body work. And actually, that was way more therapeutic for me. Like, how are you feeling today? Isn't it? We say that rather than how are you thinking today. Like, how are you feeling today is mental and physical all at once. My big thing, and it's just something I came to on my own thinking in terms of my own experience of depression, and the big surprise for me about when I became ill was we have this thing called mental illness, but it's all physical. Like, it's all... I mean, even if you think it's just confined to above your neck, your brain, what is it if not physical?

1:28:44Everything's physical. Yeah. Your nervous system's partly in your gut anyway. And every, you know, the symptoms I was having, that I described to a doctor, were often physical. It was aching, it was palpitations, it was irregular heartbeats, it was sweating, it was breathlessness, it was tight chest, um, headaches, you know, it's physical. So it was all physical. and the mental stuff around it was also physical. And this very clear sort of line we have, and we've had sort of like since the enlightenment between mind and body, is just sort of breaking down, I think. And I just think it doesn't...

1:29:30And I had some pushback, actually, when I was talking very personally and very subjectively about things that helped my mental health, because often it was physical things. It wasn't, like, stereotypically medicinal things. It wasn't pharmaceuticals. And I've never, you know, judged, and in fact, I've been jealous of people. I know people where they've had the pills, and they were the right for them, and it worked. But for me, my route back was often physical. I mean, getting out of panic attacks, that was simply, for me, via running every morning. my dad was a runner he's still alive but he's got bad knees so he's a swimmer now but he was a runner and that's why he's got bad knees yeah exactly exactly but he he still looks very you know he well every time i put a picture of me and my dad up on the internet they say how old's your brother and i was like you know he's he we did a half marathon together just at the very start of before things had closed down, and I was struggling to keep up with my dad.

1:30:40So my dad was always very healthy, and he was always a runner. And he made me go running, because I was back having a breakdown, living with my parents. And the one thing, the one intervention he did was he told me to go running, and I felt dreadful after the run. I felt so heavy and drained. But I kept somehow doing it, because when you've got no options, you just take what's there. So I kept running every day, and then slowly, I realized it was sort of alleviating things even if not um permanently while I was running I couldn't have a panic attack because I was having the symptoms of a panic attack while I was running because your brain knows why you're breathless your brain knows why you're sweating your brain knows why your heart's going 100 miles an hour so you know and it kind of makes sense And just physical things like going outside or eating right or having your routine, boring, boring things to talk about are so revolutionary and overlooked.

1:31:46100%. I mean, when I had, I think I actually spoke to you about him before I sat down, Dr. Andrew Hansen, Anders Hansen, he says that, you know, when you run, you increase your blood flow to your brain by 20 % to the prefrontal lobes. So that's actually why it's helping you because it's bringing more oxygen, it's bringing more blood. And he says, whenever you have a hard task to do, like writing or doing an exam, go for a run because that hour afterwards is when your brain is the most primed to focus and be calm because of the increased blood flow. I totally relate to that. Like when I'm in like full blown novel mode, I have to run.

1:32:20I have a treadmill and I have to just do 5k in the morning and then I can write. And it's, yeah, definitely a thing I've noticed. And other things like, I think we were talking about it before, but you've done another podcast, haven't you, where you're talking about what you think about health and how that makes health. Like, if you think something's healthy, it becomes healthier. Who were you talking to? Was that? That was really me saying it too, because that's in the context of my book. Yes, of course. That's my book. And so that was really me giving my theories to, I guess. I totally relate to that in some ridiculous ways.

1:33:02Like even very healthy foods, sometimes I used to get convinced were bad for me. Because if I'd had a panic attack after eating a banana, I think it's the potassium in the banana has given me a panic attack. And then you'd associate that with that. And then you sort of realize it's not true. And that sort of disordered thinking, which you can get into and you have to break out of. But also, you know, just having water. I never used to drink water. Just things like that keeps me sort of like alert enough to not sort of like have that mid-afternoon slump. Yeah. Well, one of my favorite podcasts I did was with a neuroscientist, Dr.

1:33:44Lisa Feldman Barrett from Stanford. And she talks all about the body budgets. Right. And actually, so her daughter really suffered with depression. and so she was kind of at her wits end and she was like is it pharmaceuticals that I do or is it like other things and she was saying about like actually everything runs on a budget and so if you are deprived instead of nutrients if you're deprived in exercise like your body is taking this budgeting into elsewhere of the muscles and it's being deprived from your brain and so if you are not on a part with like your sleep your movement the right nutrients your brain is in a deficit and your brain is amazing at like using other things to pull it out.

1:34:21And so when you should be looking at depression as a treatment, you've got to be like, am I giving it the right type of thing? So it's not in a deficit. And so when you have good sleep, you're kind of like bringing that back to the, to the base level. Yes. And it was a really interesting concept for me to think about actually when we think about mental health as a whole, like it is about like body budgeting. Yes. And ADHD as well, because that's a dopamine production, isn't it? Exercise can help with that. And, yeah, like, for me... And not using social media because that's a dopamine-like reward center.

1:34:55Yes. And also the blue light, just from the screen. Definitely, definitely for me, exercise has been very, sort of, medicinal. And, um, also, I just think, like, doing an activity that's away from your laptop, away from your work, it doesn't even have to be, sort of, exercise with a capital E, but just like walking the dog or doing something that you have to do outside the house helps and makes you more productive when you get back inside the house. Because one thing I've always had a problem with is the sort of work-life balance. Because being a writer, you're sat on your sofa, you know, a lot of the day.

1:35:40And that's also the place where you wind down on an evening, where you watch TV. So your life becomes your work, and your work becomes your life, and you don't know how to sort of get out of that. So dog walking, exercise, running, socializing, activities. I sometimes go to a film quiz on a Thursday evening, something that uses your brain, but in a way that's not your work. Because I think, you know, The danger when you have a job and it's at home is stepping away from that because otherwise you just get into a pattern where you sort of neglect your life for a bit. And I found that way to step back in.

1:36:25Well, this was like a perfect time because I always end, I'm sure maybe you might know this, with the same question to everyone. But it feels like it actually ties into the entire concept of our full conversation today. And I ask this question because I think we've done now 450 or 500 episodes. We've done a lot. And this has only been repeated twice the same in the whole time. Right. Which to me shows that this is exactly what health really means, that it's so individual, similar to, like, success. Everyone has their own definition. So, are you ready? As I'll ever be. Let's go. Matt, what does live well, be well mean to you?

1:37:06Other people is the response that comes to mind in the sense that being present enough for my children and the life around me and the stuff, you know, that connected to the world. In the same way that being unwell was like being trapped inside myself. Being well is sort of connecting to other people. Such a good definition. Because that is exactly how you feel when you feel really bad. I suppose. I suppose, yeah. And I feel like, yeah, I suppose, yeah, because like that distance you feel when you're like ill or depressed. And I used to have this feeling like with my mum and dad, with my girlfriend, I'd feel like they're right there, but I'm like a thousand miles away.

1:37:58And closing that gap, you know, we're very much encouraged, I think, to sort of like, improve ourselves. You know, we literally call it self-help. But very often the way out of yourself when you're ill is via other people. You can't get out of yourself via yourself. You have to connect and care about the world outside yourself. So for me, my definition of sort of wellness is escaping myself and caring about things outside of myself. Yeah, I love that. That's why it connects so much to that analogy of loneliness. You can be in a room full of people, but yet feel hyper alone. Yeah. That's kind of what that felt for me.

1:38:48Yeah. And often I felt my most alone in a room full of people. And so often that feeling of connection you can have physically on your own. Like, I can be on a dog walk on Brighton Beach and feel very connected, but I'm not actually having a conversation with anyone, or talking to anyone, or looking at anything. I'm just sort of, like, feeling in my place in the world, and, you know, satisfied with just being a human on planet Earth, and not thinking of what I'm not, or thinking what I've got to achieve, but just sort of being in that moment. Yeah. Well, the moment that's coming up, because we have the same release date, and I couldn't leave that without making sure that we talk about your book.

1:39:33I mean, I love that we actually have the same release date. Yes, we're competitors, aren't we? We are. Friendly competitors. Yeah. Release dates are so important as well, because publishers really have to think about when you're releasing a book. They didn't do very well with me, did they? They put me against you. No, they didn't. Because, well, for a start, we're in different categories. You're non-fiction. I'm fiction. So we're not going head-to-head in that sense. But with fiction, it's very... I know what you must be feeling like, because it's very... It's hard not to put pressure on yourself in these situations, especially when it's totally new.

1:40:18I've written something like, it's quite, you feel very old when you open a book and you see this very long list of books you've written. I've written something like 26 books or something stupid. And so, and I've literally had every type of publication from total failure to international bestseller and everything in between. And you kind of know that actually, the best part of writing is the bit that stays the same. And the bit that stays the same is the writing. And I feel like the best way to cope with having something new come out is to get on with the one after to get writing is the way to cope with the pressure of what people will think about your writing.

1:41:10And it's hard to do. And you're encouraged to look around and worry about these external things beyond your control, like book sales and everything else. But if you want to be a writer, you have to enjoy writing. And so going back to writing is always the thing that keeps me sane. Like when I was, I, after my third book, I was dropped by my publisher and it couldn't have been the worst timing because we just had our first child and we still were in quite a lot of debt. We'd stupidly got on the property ladder so we had a mortgage that we couldn't afford and we had all this thing going on and that was the moment Random House as it was then dropped me.

1:41:56And I had, at that point, very few contacts. And I just thought, what am I going to do? And then I thought, well, to do anything, I'm going to need to write something. So it was quite therapeutic to just go back and try and write the book of my life to sort of like get published again. And so it's always been my safe space. It helped me get over a breakdown. It helped get my career back when I needed to. So the way to deal with the sort of angst of being a writer is to keep writing. So my advice to you, if it gets too angsty around May, is when we come out. Yeah, we both come out. Just to remind you of your publication.

1:42:39Yeah. What is the exact publication? May the 28th. May the 28th. Okay. If it gets, if we're... I'm gonna call you and have a break. Yeah, exactly. And I'll tell you, just get writing. Get writing. um healthy shouldn't be this hard the sequel yeah what's your book called that the midnight train which is it was i've put a lot of pressure on myself because i put midnight in it like midnight library and it's not really a sequel it's kind of a sibling to the midnight library and it's happening a little argument with the midnight library but hopefully yeah hopefully yeah people will like it but if they don't i'll just hide under a rock and write something else okay well Well, we're going to put that in the show notes.

1:43:16Okay. So everyone to free order. Oh, lovely. Thank you. And it will do wonderfully. So will your book, because it sounds really interesting. Thank you. Thanks, Matt, for coming on. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you.