After a year, the couple moved to Leeds and Haig began writing. Rejecting medical solutions such as anti-depressants or sedatives, a combination of time, love, reading and exercise slowly brought him back together. The couple flew home and spent a year living with Haig’s parents in his childhood home of Newark, Nottinghamshire. In Reasons to Stay Alive, he describes how what started with a “strange flickering” inside his head soon felt as if the “Big Bang” had blown him to pieces.
His breakdown in 1999 had happened when he was living with his girlfriend Andrea (now his wife) in Ibiza. That’s a good lesson.”įor Haig, even the decision to have children required a leap of faith. It’s something you ‘go through’ – it isn’t who you are – and I survived. I had a dangerous experience, like a person who went on a dangerous voyage. They’ve heard the word ‘suicide’ and they’ve heard it nearly killed me but, at the end of the day, I didn’t take my own life. I have this crude guide, like the film certificates, in my head and I don’t think they’ve heard me talking about depression beyond a 12-rating. “Obviously there’s aspects of any serious illness you’d want to shield from them. “When it comes to my own illness, I’m trying to create an environment where my kids know I’m a happy person, that I love life, but occasionally have dips, mainly in the past but which can still happen now,” says Haig. My kids know I love life, but sometimes I have Nurturing resilience, being truthful but not terrifying, showing life’s light as well as its darkness isn’t easy – but it is crucial. Which isn’t to say Haig is blasé about how parents should approach the issue of mental health with their children. My whole view is that my problems were caused by not being comfortable talking about that stuff. I’d be hypocritical if I’d tried to keep it from them. They would hear me talking to a journalist, or come to a book event.
“ Reasons to Stay Alive was published in 2015, and that’s when the children learned that I had something called depression. “It took 10 years for me to even talk to anyone who wasn’t my partner or my parents about my breakdown,” says Haig. Meanwhile, back at home, Haig’s own children, Lucas, 10, and Pearl, 9, have been learning about their dad’s illness at the same time as the public. This year has seen the publication of Haig’s Notes on a Nervous Planet, which explores the effects of 24/7 modern life on mental health, and The Truth Pixie, a message of hope for his younger readers.
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