World's Best Seller: – I had panic attack after panic attack

“I didn’t think I would write again. I didn’t know if I wanted to be a writer,” Briton Matt Haig, 49, tells Dagbladet.

He was praised for his openness about his mental illness in “Reasons for Execution,” and went straight to the New York Times bestseller list with “Midnattsbiblioteket.”

However, Haig really wanted to do something else. Something “real”. Maybe travel the world and meet people again.

Now he still loves books. Near the end of the month comes “The Impossible Life.” But he promises it won’t be “just another book about mental health.”

– Complete collapse

The Impossible Life is set on the party island of Ibiza, where Haig himself lived for three years until 1999, and where, unlike other holiday-loving Britons, he suffered perhaps his greatest personal crisis.

The writer and journalist suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts, and was a heavy drinker and drug user.

“It was the most depressing thing in the whole world; to be a place where people go to enjoy life, and to experience that nothing could be done about my mental health, because I was in my own hell,” Haig says, continuing:

– I had panic attack after panic attack. I had to take anti-anxiety medication to get on the plane back to England. It was all a big mess.

Best Seller Well Oiled

In the book, retired maths teacher Grace Winters inherits a rundown house in Ibiza from a friend. She can't resist going there, and quickly stops by with a one-way ticket; on her way to the popular holiday island, in search of answers about her friend's life and how it ended.

However, along the way she discovers something strange about what she dreamed, but to find out what really happened, Grace must come to terms with her past.

He admits it's something that Hay had to do in his life.

– The impact of acting childishly, not sleeping properly, partying for four years, and knowing I had to go back to London and get a proper job? My little mind couldn't handle it and I had a complete breakdown.

Even after several years as a writer in England, he could not come to terms with the harsh past of the Mediterranean island. It was easier to say that the problems arose because of Al Jazeera – because he can leave from there.

– For several years I couldn't think about Ibiza.

challenged fear

But during the pandemic, something happened.

Like many others, his mental health was not at its best, so Haig decided to go to sound to treat.

“The therapist was great! We talked about facing the issues head-on, and I decided to go back for a few days off-season to see the place where I almost took my life,” says the 49-year-old.

In the middle of winter in Ibiza, he encounters an island completely different from the one he has known since his twenties.

The contradictions with the outspoken party and the subsequent crises could not have been greater. Haig spent time in nature, ate well, and enjoyed a “quiet experience.”

While he had previously not known whether he would continue as a writer, he was now, once again, having a kind of literary epiphany.

“Writing came naturally, and became a natural part of the therapy,” Haig says.

– I had to get away from him.

After publishing Reasons for Living in 2015, Haig became known for his commitment to mental illness as well as for writing books.

Almost, anyway.

In “The Impossible Life” he also addresses the issue of mental health.

– Aren't you afraid of becoming “the author who writes about mental health”?

“My books will always have elements of that, because I use writing as therapy,” Haig says. “But I’ve ended up writing nonfiction about mental health.”

Simply because it will dangerousHe believes.

“Weak people see you as an expert,” says Haig, who says he often emphasizes that he is neither a doctor nor a therapist.

All he wants is to make people feel seen and understood, but now it's time to explore other topics.

– For my mental health, I have to stay away from it. Because you have to be special to have people texting you and emailing you all the time, talking about their illnesses and how you helped them, or how you could have helped them.

– Annoying writer drinking juice

Matt Haig is open about how ideas often come to him during difficult times.

He refers to the writer Graham Greene, who is said to have said something about “childhood being a writer's bank balance”. Haig himself did not have a bad childhood, but a turbulent youth certainly gave him the waters of the mill as a writer.

– Did taking drugs and drinking make you a better writer?

-There's a lot of romance about it, with Hemingway writing drunk and editing sober, for example. It would never have worked, Haig says.

However, like many contemporary writers, he believes in “being healthy.” At the same time, he points out that the more life experience one has, the better a writer becomes.

– It's often bad experiences that help spark creativity, says Haig.

The contrasts with the party island of Ibiza, where he himself suffered several breakdowns, and where his latest novel is set, could not be greater in his life today.

– Now I'm that annoying, juice-drinking writer. But I know the other side, too.