Mark Haddon Quotes

I want to be good all the time, so I feel anxious. But if you weren't like that, you'd be dead, wouldn't you? If you went out happy down the road, la la la. I've never been like that. I don't want to be.

I'm trying to stay as calm as possible and focus one day at a time, but when reality sets in, I feel everything: anxiety, excitement, nerves, pressure and joy.

What I work hardest at is just trying to not let things get me crazy.

I don't put myself under pressure.

I'm a very emotional person. If I've got something on my mind, that would stop me from giving my best.

I think things hit me very hard, and I wish I had allowed things to roll off my back a little bit more.

Now, if some panic hits me, you have to sort of be friends with your body, it's like your body will work against you.

I found out that I couldn't have a nervous breakdown. I tried a couple of times, but it just didn't work out. My mind, my body wouldn't let me.

If I could change one thing about myself I'd be less highly strung. I find my sensibility quite high maintenance.

Every day there's a lot of things I block out, because if I start visualising things, I tend to go completely insane. I've always had anxiety issues, and it can totally overwhelm me and suck me under if I'm not keeping focused. I just think and think until I have a panic attack, and then it dies down.

I think there's a danger, for me at least, in retreating and going inward and depression. I have to stay diligent against that tendency.

I'm not looking for pity, I'm really not, but I'm constantly uneasy and every day it is pretty much like getting up and going to war. Once I shift into the mindset of 'Yeah, you're alive. It's tough. Let's do what we can today,' it's easier.

How nice it would be to breeze through life and just brush things off. I never read reviews because I hate to lose more than I like to win; I experience negative emotions far greater than positive ones.

When I say manage emotions, I only mean the really distressing, incapacitating emotions. Feeling emotions is what makes life rich. You need your passions.

I'm much calmer as I get older, but I'm still just as capable of getting that strung-out stressed-out feeling of mental and spiritual unwellness.

If you're not balanced, your mind's not balanced... my fuse went.

The only thing to know is how to use your neurosis.

Once you know the emotional building blocks of anxiety, you can influence them.

My therapist taught me why I behave in certain ways and not to feel so pressured.

Some days, 24 hours is too much to stay put in, so I take the day hour by hour, moment by moment. I break the task, the challenge, the fear into small, bite-size pieces. I can handle a piece of fear, depression, anger, pain, sadness, loneliness, illness. I actually put my hands up to my face, one next to each eye, like blinders on a horse.

Dealing with chronic anxiety has taught me to better understand the nuances of mental illness and the very individual nature of it.

Everyone contacts me with the same questions: how can I be more confident? How can I get over my anxiety? And, without being preachy, I do believe that diet is so key.

I still have difficult days when I lose hours to anxiety, feeling my throat swell and my mind race with paranoid thoughts. But - thanks in part to ongoing therapy - they're happening less and less.

Like many artists, I have issues with anxiety and depression, so I try to live in a way that supports my mental health.

I'm learning what triggers me. What to stay away from. What I do like and what I don't like. To me, I've learned so much about myself that now I'm a stronger person. But I still deal with anxiety. Anxiety doesn't go away.