Taking pride in household chores really can ease depression

There are many books about what it’s like to live with mental illness and the aftermath of child sexual abuse. Most of them, though, fall into that deeply off-putting category of ‘misery memoir’: greyscale covers and cloying titles such as ‘The Child Who Everyone Hurt’ and ‘When the Darkness Never Lifts’. You’re unlikely to want to read 300-odd pages of pain porn when healthy, let alone find yourself looking forward to the next page if, like me, you end up reading the book when you’re depressed too.

I Never Said I Loved You isn’t like that. It’s funny. It’s not egregious: every time Rhik Samadder tells us more of the repeated sexual abuse he suffered when growing up, or of the graphic things he did to himself or to small creatures such as snails and bees as he was trying to comprehend quite how much mental pain he was in, he carefully flicks us away to something lighter.