Everyone would have a label if they asked the right professional.ĥ. We’re all total bastards, us humans, but also totally wonderful.Ĥ. Pretty much every human could find a reason to hate themselves if they thought about it as much as you did. You are in a dark, dark land with a population of millions.Ģ. You have never felt this way before, and the shock of the descent is traumatising you, but others have been here. You don’t think they do because the only reference point is yourself. No-one understands what you are going through. Here are things I wish someone had told me at the time:ġ. I am so glad I didn’t kill myself, but I continue to wonder if there is anything to say to people at those darkest times. And I spend my days writing stories, that are really guide books, the way all books are guide books.

And I am doing a job I never thought I’d be doing. Death or total madness seemed more realistic.īut I’m here. Back then, I almost knew I wasn’t going to make it to 30. Panic, despair, a daily battle to walk to the corner shop without collapsing to the ground.īut I survived. Instead, I walked back inside and threw up from the stress of it. I was too busy trying to summon the courage needed to throw myself over the edge. It was the most beautiful view I had ever known, but I didn’t care. In the midst of depression I walked out to the edge of the cliff and looked at the sea, and at the rugged limestone coastline, dotted with deserted beaches. I was living in Ibiza at the time, in a very nice villa, on the quiet east coast of the island. When I was 24 I very nearly killed myself.

Give me one reason to stay here