I’ve just got off the phone with my boyfriend. It’s close to midnight. I’m feeling at ease, cheerful, content.

But it hasn’t always been this way.

Before I met Salah, I’ve had countless nights where the world has felt heavy and intimidating. The downward spiral starts and darkness infiltrates my blood, spilling into my positivity and engulfing it. I am by no means a depressive person, so to lose control over my mind like this feels terrifying. I know I will wake up the next day reeling, so I’m desperate to fix it immediately, to go to sleep in a sound manner.

I have a psychiatrist, but he’s not available late on a Friday night.

I live near my parents and have often ‘solved’ the problem by talking with them. However, there comes a point where the issue goes in circles and I must learn to find my own way back to the surface.

So, what to do?

How can I fight my own mind when I live inside it?

There is plenty of cliché advice out there. “Count sheep”, “don’t think too much”, “put down your phone”. I’m no farmer (despite my name meaning farmer in ancient Greek) and, on my one attempt to count sheep, found my mind wandering constantly, which meant they all escaped the pasture. No use …

As for screen time, paradoxically, I’ve found it’s the only thing that works consistently for me to fall asleep.

Breathing exercises? Calm music? Think happy thoughts? When you’re having an anxiety attack of sorts, what you need is action taken now. Not something you have to wait for, get out earphones for, or try to overcome with positivity that could just risk being polluted by the already-established negativity of the situation. You need an instant remedy, a jolt of understanding, a word of comfort.

It just rarely happens to materialise at midnight.

Anxiety is distressing. Your body goes into fight, flight or freeze mode; either attacking, running or stiffening up, or all three at once. Attacking your own mind, running from the discomfort, freezing physically on the spot, unable to function. This is possibly passable at night, but what about when you’re expected to perform at work? Concentrate in school? Socialise? This all contributes to the fraught urgency of fixing the problem, but adds more pressure in an already tense situation – and so the vicious cycle persists.

I take medicine daily, otherwise I would have 200+ voices in my head. I suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, which I was diagnosed with at 18 years old following a seven-month-long hospital stay. I’m 31 today and have heard voices all my life. So, I know what it means to feel distressed, especially with anxiety on top and a side of unfulfilled ambitions. Not a good cocktail for sleeplessness at midnight!

However, today, I continue to move forward in my recovery. I have had two books published about my life with the illness, one in Danish (“Georgias Stemmer”) and one in English (“Voices Off: Talking About Schizophrenia”). I am an artist and illustrator with four books under my belt and am working on a fifth. Having my creative outlets has helped me tremendously, especially writing, when I was most ill. I went to ceramics with my Danish grandfather for 11 years, and have recently taken up working with clay again, following his death in 2024.

My trademark ceramic piece is a little white mouse …

So, perhaps the “word of comfort” I mentioned before should simply be: mouse. A grounding technique that brings me back to calm. I can write and write and write, but sometimes the most effective remedy is a quick, sharp, vivid reminder of reality – that things have been good before, and they will return to normal again, even after a horrible spell of unease. I can return to staring at my phone without fear, listening to music without apprehension, and breathing without feeling like anxiety is punishing me for it.

Night can be a very lonely place. Let’s make it safer.

I’ve been dying just from trying to seem cool

But I’m not a bad bitch, and this isn’t savage …”

— Taylor Swift, ‘Eldest Daughter’

I’ve now watched all six episodes of ‘The End of an Era’, the docuseries chronicling Taylor Swift’s epic Eras Tour and all the behind-the-scenes work that went into it. Phenomenal.

Now, I’m sitting here, quietly, on a Sunday evening, having worked on my latest pencil portrait (Zara Larsson, another popstar powerhouse!), thinking about how we went from ‘A Place in This World’ to … well – global superstardom, billionaire status, and musical mastermind. I still clearly remember listening to Taylor’s debut album all those years ago, thinking about how I one day wanted to touch the world with my words the way she was touching me with her music. How she was such a breath of fresh air; relatable, interesting and different from everything else on the market. My classmates, crushes and bullies were fickle, but Taylor’s music remained constant, understanding, and gentle.

I’d found my idol.

With her immeasurable success, this really gives hope to all the girls all over the world who – like me – didn’t find success in the schoolyard. Those of us who were always just a little soft, far too sensitive, considered uncool, and refused to sharpen our elbows. Look at Taylor – she’s still her kind, sweet, goofy, generous self, despite everything that’s happened to her. That takes mettle. She knows who she is, and what she has to offer – and we’re lucky to be a part of it.

As for my own development, I used to listen to all her love songs with a yearning for my own ‘Love Story’ one day.

“It’s the first kiss, it’s flawless, it’s really something … it’s fearless”

— Taylor Swift, ‘Fearless’

Years and years went by.

I waited and waited. Did my best, too. Hoped and prayed (I’m an atheist).

Started checking my invisible wristwatch …

Well … was a fairy tale in the cards for me?

Ever?

I’d endured enough. I was sectioned at 17 years old after a psychotic breakdown shattered our world. Diagnosed with schizophrenia at 18, during my seven months in hospital. I’d been bullied horrendously since moving from London to Roskilde, a small town in Denmark, and it just never seemed to stop. As a result of my illness, I couldn’t work or study, and after much effort from my parents, who were my voice when I couldn’t articulate what I needed, I finally got my early disability pension. I’d been hearing voices for as long as I could remember, but didn’t realise it wasn’t normal before I went to hospital. I’d suffered from trichotillomania since I was nine – and, once I regained some control of the condition, I hoped I’d have more luck finding my ‘happily ever after’.

I turned 30 without having had my first kiss.

30 was the year I went to the Eras Tour in Stockholm (Swiftholm).

Later in 2024, I met my boyfriend.

That tour is magical …

To be continued

The hurt was indescribable, and I didn’t know what to say. Or do, once I’d returned to my room. I wanted to scream and yell, or curl up in a ball and stare into space. But there was no-one to offer a hug or comfort. I was back in the room where my ex-roomie had angrily almost kicked the door in just weeks before, and no-one else wanted to move in with me. Not one.

But they wanted to hang out with everyone else.

The above describes some of my experiences being at “efterskole“, a one-year boarding school you can choose to attend in Denmark between finishing Year 9 and starting high school (“gymnasium“). I had been bullied relentlessly in “folkeskolen” – from when I started in Year 5, to the end of Year 9 – and these experiences I have mostly covered in my book, “Voices Off: Talking About Schizophrenia”.

So, I hoped that attending a different school, far away from all my classmates, would be a sigh of relief.

It wasn’t … it was worse.

My roomie from hell lasted a week. There was a window in our room where she invited all the guys in – of course, to leave muddy footprints and leaves all over MY bed, not hers. Then having the audacity to tell her father I was “being mean to her” at an activity day at the school, after having called me a foul bitch and telling me she was going to beat me up just days prior.

Another girl in our corridor who loudly criticised my taste in music at every given opportunity, on one occasion coming into my room to switch it off. I was listening to Taylor Swift and doing no harm. What was her problem?

In fact, I could ask this question many times. What’s your problem? With me? Why are you targeting me? Why am I the ONLY ONE without a roomie, without a partner for the school gala? I had to walk down the red carpet alone. Why did you push me away repeatedly? What had I done wrong? You didn’t do it to anyone else. I never saw others get pushed down the stairs, or have photos taken of their private notebooks that you suddenly burst into my room and flipped through with cameras aimed at the pages.

What was I supposed to do?

Eventually, I had an emotional breakdown and left the school early. My ex-roomie stayed for the remainder of the year.

“Why does nobody want to talk to me?”

I asked my psychiatrist again and again and again. I couldn’t understand why, even after five months at the psychiatric ward, nobody was approaching me despite all being perfectly capable of approaching each other. Sometimes she’d say, “Are you approaching them?”, other times she’d just listen to me rant, but I never felt satisfied with the answer or outcome. I was walking around, trying to make eye contact, smiling, doing my best in my severely mentally ill way – and, after learning that people are so capable of being systematically nasty to each other, then surely, people must be able to be systematically good, too?

Even after being discharged from the ward and attending OPUS, I didn’t make any lasting friendships. Despite, again, everyone else from the group seeming to hang out with each other.

It was torture.

Later in life, I heard through the grapevine that someone I knew from folkeskolen AND someone I knew from efterskole had spent their first days at gymnasium talking about “how weird” I was. You may think that this was rotten information for me, but I’m glad I found out. PROOF! Proof that my intuition was never wrong – that these idiots were doing exactly what I had thought they were doing; spreading the word about me so that no-one else would want to hang out with me.

If I had been depressed, that would have pushed me over the edge. I’m not, and I’m still here – but does that make it any less hurtful? Does that make it any less unfair? What is the point in saying these things about me?

The majority of peers I met during my first years living in Denmark were not kind. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong.

I didn’t feel protected. Not by teachers, headmasters, fellow peers, or anyone. There was no sense of responsibility or care. I wasn’t crying and making a fuss, but I had pulled out all my eyelashes.

Did nobody think that something was wrong?

Or even, perhaps, think to ask me if I was okay?

No.

(You may need to redirect to your local Amazon site, as this link leads to the UK site.)

The answer to that question depends on a lot of things, not just your outlook.

Good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people. Life is gut-wrenchingly unfair, arbitrary and random. Tomorrow is impossible to predict.

I don’t believe in a lot of things, but what I do believe in is effort. Kindness. Impact. Optimism. Fairness. Good. Curiosity. Honesty. But yes, mostly effort. The drive to be a good person, improve your world and leave no litter behind, figurative or otherwise.

I recently watched a series called The Good Place. It was the first series I watched from start to finish of my own accord. And I loved it. It’s a gem of a series on Netflix that I would recommend to anyone looking for a quirky, feel-good watch.

I don’t believe in dwelling on the negatives. This sometimes means I don’t cry over things that would be perfectly normal to cry over. Maybe I just feel like I used up enough tears in my teenage years …

Joking apart … I have so much I’d like to get out of life, and so much to be happy about. People treat me nicely, my daily life is manageable, I have amazing family and friends, good things on the horizon, and talents that I enjoy using. I couldn’t ask for more.

I will always strive for more, but never expect it.

I find it fun to challenge myself within reason, which may be part of the answer as to why I’ve come so far in my recovery (medicine, too … medicine!), and yes, I’m in a good place. I still have to be so careful, and use my voices as my alarm system. There’s no point in risking any flare-ups.

But for now, I’m going to watch the handball match between Denmark and Argentina.

Let me take you through the Eras.

TAYLOR SWIFT: My favourite song from the album is A Place in This World. Upon the release of Taylor’s debut album, in 2006, I was 12. I was being bullied relentlessly at school, which was causing me to pull out my own eyelashes and eyebrows due to the stress. Suddenly, Taylor Swift entered my life like a whirlwind, putting into words exactly how I was feeling, and expressing other feelings I didn’t even know I had yet. I absolutely love her debut album, which I still have as the CD.
Cold as You, The Outside, and A Perfectly Good Heart helped me process my feelings about being tormented and excluded. Teardrops On My Guitar introduced me to heartbreak, Our Song introduced me to romance and butterflies, and I’m Only Me When I’m With You instantly made me think of my bestie, Miranda. She’s been my bestie for over 20 years and is coming with me to see Taylor Swift in concert. When I learned that Taylor’s long-time best friend is Abigail from high school, I warmed even more to this curly-haired blonde country singer and saw myself – and my friendship with Miranda – in her.

FEARLESS: My favourite song from the album is You Belong With Me. I fell in love with the music video instantly – it was so creative and funny, with a happy ending. “She wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts, she’s Cheer Captain and I’m on the bleachers” and “I’m listening to the kind of music she doesn’t like” resonated perfectly with me. I also adored Love Story; I listened to Fearless on repeat while on holiday in San Gimignano; and Change was a gamechanger for me, inducing a sense of hope that things would eventually get better.
By now, I was 14. Soon I would be leaving Danish primary school behind and “starting afresh” at a new school. Or so I hoped. I didn’t know that it was about to be the worst year of my life. This was when I started getting bullied by my classmates for listening to Taylor Swift; classmates who apparently only listened to “indie records much cooler than mine”. I ended up leaving the school early and having an emotional breakdown that saw me isolated in my room with the blinds shut for a month. Needless to say, Taylor Swift’s music got me through this.

SPEAK NOW: My favourite song from the album is Mean, although The Story of Us, Better Than Revenge, and When Emma Falls in Love (From The Vault) are close contenders! I didn’t actually get to listen much to Speak Now at the time of its release (2010), as I was slowly slipping into psychosis. I would later be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. However, I have caught up with all albums now, of course I have made a friendship bracelet for every Era, and Speak Now is no exception – it’s purple and fabulous …

RED: My favourite song from the album is Red. “Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street, faster than the wind, passionate as sin, ending so suddenly” is probably my all-time favourite lyric. The emotions, speed and rush it evokes, and, of course, as someone who loves colour, Red perfectly suits my taste. At the time of this album’s release in 2012, I had just been discharged from hospital (after a seven-month-long stay) and was reeling from the chaos and confusion of my breakdown and diagnosis. I could barely string a sentence together, let alone write about my experiences or think about listening to all my favourite music. Everything was just so overwhelming, and I was feeling sadness, frustration, and a great sense of loss. People were making parodies of Taylor’s songs, and I hated it. I felt they were attacking me personally (not in a paranoid way, just feeling great sympathy for my new idol). I love All Too Well, the upbeat 22 rekindled my love for Taylor’s music, and Ronan (Taylor’s Version) recently made me have to sit down and cry like a baby. All in all, Red made me feel all the feels – happy, sad, and everything in between.

1989: My favourite song from the album is Shake It Off. (Thanks, Mum! :-)) I also absolutely adore Wonderland, but as the first one I heard of the two, Shake It Off is epic. I still struggle with shaking off what my bullies did to me, but every time I listen to “I stay out too late, got nothing in my brain” (when I know I have an official IQ that puts me in the top 0.01 percentile of the population :-P) and the rest of this irresistible song, it all just gets a little easier. 1989, from 2014, produced a lot of the pop hits we still all sing along to today.

REPUTATION: My favourite song from the album is Look What You Made Me Do. Oooooooh, how I love this album! What a comeback. Every song is a triumph. …Ready For It?, I Did Something Bad, and So It Goes… are also among my favourites. The music video for LWYMMD is fantastic. I love the snakes, diamonds, red lipstick, and power. In 2017, I was taking back my own power by blogging and also in the process of writing my first book, “Georgias Stemme(r)”. Things were finally starting to look up again, and once again, Taylor got me through it with a smile. “I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time; honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time; I got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined …”

LOVER: My favourite song from the album is Afterglow. I Forgot That You Existed made me feel good, The Man is clever, Soon You’ll Get Better is poignant, and Cruel Summer is currently on repeat. Oh, and of course, ME! has a fantastic music video. So colourful and imaginative … right up my street. In 2019, I was working on my second book, this time in English, which would later become “VOICES OFF: Talking About Schizophrenia“.

FOLKLORE: My favourite song from the album is Cardigan. This album came as such a surprise to all of us, back in 2020. And, perhaps, partly for this reason, I keep going back to it as my favourite album of Taylor’s. It’s such a wonderful album and I love every song on it. Betty, The Last Great American Dynasty, This Is Me Trying, Mad Woman and Hoax are favourites of mine. Taylor showed that she could do indie as well as country and pop, making her even more of a superstar.
But, as those of you who know me will know, I will not be wearing grey (this Era’s colour) to the concert I’m simply too much of a colour fiend for that. I do, however, have a grey cardigan from Taylor’s The Tortured Poets Department merch line … so, I guess that’s my tribute

EVERMORE: My favourite song from the album (again, 2020 – does Taylor ever sleep? :-D) is Coney Island. Another amazing album, another beautiful song. No Body, No Crime is also highly addictive, and Marjorie delivers lyrics such as “Never be so polite you forget your power / Never wield such power you forget to be polite”. Classic.

MIDNIGHTS: My favourite song from the album is Anti-Hero (but I could go on: Maroon, Snow On The Beach, Karma, Mastermind, The Great War …).
2022; just before the publication of my first English book. Life was going much better for me at this point, and I was soaring in my recovery. Now, I loved seeing Taylor excel and succeed, instead of “just” hanging on to her songs as a lifeline. I smiled knowing she was winning … and so was I.

THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT: My favourite song from the recently-released album is Clara Bow. Along with the beautiful music video for Fortnight, with Post Malone, and other amazing tracks such as I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can), The Manuscript, and So Long, London, this is yet another bull’s-eye from Swift, who deserves every bit of hard-earned, billionaire, pop icon success she gets.
The most famous person in the world.
What a star.

And that’s why I’m a Swiftie.

See you at the concert.

I’m happy to announce that my book, “Voices Off: Talking About Schizophrenia”, made it to BookAuthority’s Best New Schizophrenia Books:
https://bookauthority.org/books/new-schizophrenia-books?t=qagc39&s=award&book=1913615685
BookAuthority collects and ranks the best books in the world, and it is a great honour to get this kind of recognition. Thank you for all your support!
The book is available for purchase on Amazon.

13th March 2023

I’m watching Taylor Swift’s “Reputation Stadium Tour” movie on Netflix as I type.

(Yeah, I’m slow at getting around to things – it adds a certain je ne sais quoi to life, I think.)

…

Anyway, I was just reminded of every single reason I call myself a Swiftie.

Right from the very first minute of the movie.

I love all Taylor’s albums, but Reputation now has an even more special place in my heart.

As soon as I started watching, I was brought all the way back to one of my darkest times.

A time when I was deeply unhappy, struggling, and Taylor’s music was my lifeline.

A time when I felt like nobody would ever want to be friends with me again.

A time when I felt like I’d lost everything.

A time when I was 15.

No teenager should EVER have to go through what I did.

But they do. Every single day, all over the world, in endless ways.

Especially when it’s just allowed to happen.

I felt an overwhelming and terrifying loss of control. I had an emotional breakdown and didn’t leave my room for a month … I was unable to face the outside world. Thanks to a handful of young people who thought it was fun to break me down, I felt like my reputation was ruined.

My reputation.

I was 15.

The way I saw it, an ever-growing number of my peers had rallied together with the sole intent to completely ruin me. (Again, I was 15 – maybe not the most rational and mature of thinkers.) I could see the things they wrote on social media and the way they interacted with me – how different it was from the way they interacted with each other, and how my name popped up in various unflattering ways. “I think Georgia looks really hot in that picture! Ha-ha, just kidding, Georgia….”

As time passed, more and more of my peers seemed to join in. I heard that some of them were talking about how weird I was – sharing this with new people, people I hadn’t even met yet.

People I hadn’t even met yet.

Ultimately, I felt like I would never be able to win. How could I? How could I possibly reclaim my reputation? There were dozens, if not hundreds, of them and only one of me – and I seemed to be doing a pretty bad job at simply existing. (I was 15!)

My confidence was at an all-time low. I was mortified to my core. Eventually, I deleted all of them from my Facebook “friends” list and blocked a lot of them, too. Slowly, I managed to get myself outside again. It was hell. I was furious. So overwhelmingly, utterly infuriated by the fact that I had done NOTHING to provoke this, yet here I was, crushed and humiliated, crying my eyes out and feeling like the villain in my own story.

This is where Taylor Swift comes in.

While watching this movie, many years after my dark times, I found myself witness to a young woman with her own host of “reputation struggles”, yet here she was, standing tall, smiling, and absolutely SLAYING on stage. Few have achieved what Taylor has achieved, and that stadium was full – over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND people in attendance (out of 3 MILLION for the whole tour). I could say something trite like “there will always be haters”, but I’d rather say this: Taylor Swift had her struggles. She was hurt by the haters. And yet she was still up there, out there, singing her heart out and showing up. That takes courage. Poise. And she did it with such humour, charm and grace.

I have been a loyal Swiftie ever since I first heard her song “Love Story”. I have never been afraid to hide this – on the contrary. I immediately got tickets to her 2020 concert at Roskilde Festival (before COVID blew that out the water). I have drawn her. I have written about her. I have watched her journey from her earliest, more innocent, country days – to her hard-hitting pop era – to the magical indie “lockdown” years and beyond. I have enjoyed “All Too Well: The Short Film” – and the fact that I’m not the only one who loves wearing snake rings.

(Above: From Taylor’s music video for “Look What You Made Me Do”)

(Below: Georgia’s own jewellery)

All in all, if I was to mention one thing I’ve learned from watching the “Reputation Stadium Tour”, it’s that it takes enormous strength of character and courage to get up, dress up, and show up, even when it feels like your reputation is ruined beyond repair. Taylor’s concert is a demonstration of power in this respect … she hasn’t let those who tried to bring her down succeed, instead channelling her experiences into a full-blown amazing album and tour with millions of ecstatic fans screaming her lyrics and crying at her every word.

Taylor hits the right notes. She’s massively successful for a reason, and it’s not plastic surgery or sleeping with exes on TV. To me, she is a true inspiration, ever since I could relate to her first music and now, with her superstar status.

And guess what?

She’s won.

Proven them all wrong.

Made her “haters” look silly.

I’m eagerly awaiting the announcement of her international tour dates, as I’m sure many others are, too.

This brings me to this chapter of my story …

I felt like I’d lost, back then. That I’d been defeated.

It’s hard to type that.

But I see things differently now. I’m happy to see that school was a temporary nightmare, and grateful that I never became friends with any of them, even though it felt awful to be excluded at the time.

Because you know what?

I’m winning, too.

I’ve reclaimed my reputation.

I’ve put things into words from MY perspective, not allowing any jerk to dictate how my story reads.

Anyway, if you’ll excuse me. I’m off to underline your name in red.

Today, I live independently in my own flat. I have done so since September ’21. This was by no means something that just happened naturally. I was very fortunate to be in a good place in my recovery, so I could handle the process of moving. We took it very slowly so I wasn’t under undue stress. And, despite my practical skills being a long way from stellar, I have so far managed to stay on top of my daily chores and housework.

There have been days in January – weeks – where I’ve just prayed to myself nobody turned up uninvited (i.e., it was messy!). February, too. But I always manage to get my act together eventually. And I take pride in looking after my own space.

It wasn’t always like that.

I used to struggle hugely with keeping my room tidy. It seemed like a massive, insurmountable task. And maybe it was. I had so much stuff – not helped by the fact I was terrible at throwing out. I really, truly couldn’t do it.

Why not? Because it was painful. And it seemed stupid. I didn’t want to throw anything out because I knew I might need it later. It’s often the case. Say you’ve never used that measuring tape, so you decide to finally throw it out. Two weeks later you’re online shopping and need to take your measurements – bam, what do you need? Your measuring tape! This may not be the best example as it’s generally handy to have a measuring tape (and it’s not the largest item to keep), but I hope you get my point.

So, out of fear of regretting it later, I held on to stuff. I also wasn’t as far in my recovery, so my brain wasn’t in the right zone for “huge” tasks. I would motivate myself to work on a bit of my room – e.g., my chest of drawers (which was full of stuff) – only to space out after five minutes and stop. I couldn’t move forward with it. I am not by nature a slow person, so it exasperated me, but I also felt powerless. I would stop because I didn’t know where to start. Because I couldn’t bring myself to throw any of it out. Because I found my ambivalence too difficult to deal with. And, sometimes, I just stopped because I was exhausted, and went to sleep (surrounded by stuff).

I kept trying. I kept that hope that this COULD and WOULD change. It took many monumental efforts to start feeling and seeing a little difference. I eventually cleared my chest of drawers. Got rid of half a bin bag’s worth of stuff. Discarded drawings (not “good” ones), old birthday cards, a bunch of magazines, random paper clips, receipts … all stuff I knew I was never going to need again. It was difficult, and with some more sentimental stuff, I sometimes changed my mind at the last minute … but, the next time I targeted an area of my room, I managed to fill more than half a bin bag. So that, to me, signified progress. And with that, my “hope-metre” rose a little.

And then we moved house.

For me, the impending move suddenly meant I had a rock-solid reason to throw things out. A fresh start.

To not end up swamped with cardboard removal boxes in our new house, my mum and I went to our local Shurgard (a self-storage warehouse) and signed me up for a storage unit. This way I could transfer everything I didn’t need immediately to a secure space – billed monthly – and sort through it in my own time.

It worked. Inspired by the prospect of a new adventure, comforted by not having to deal with it all straightaway, and motivated by the fact I was paying for my storage unit (it was a fair price, but still money I could be using on other things), I started tackling the massive, insurmountable task. Once we’d moved, I regularly went out to Shurgard – with my mum – to sift through my old ceramics works, endless childhood books, magazines, things of sentimental value, tennis racquets, schoolbooks, old notebooks, folders full of old artworks, ornaments I’d gathered throughout the years and much more. My storage unit was full in 2020 (before we moved) and, by the end of the summer in 2022, I had cleared it.

Apart from a couple of boxes of books that I know I want to keep (but currently don’t have room for in my apartment), everything was sorted. I reckon 2/3 of it went out. Mostly taken to the dump – my mum drove there and back several times, the car packed full each time. We moved the boxes of books to her storage unit, and I could subsequently go to the reception desk with a smile on my face and terminate my contract.

No more money “out the window” every month. No more clutter. No more weight of too – much – stuff! It was a good feeling.

I finally felt like I was on my way to not feeling ashamed of my own space. I’d previously felt embarrassed inviting friends over; it didn’t stop me, but I was constantly self-conscious about my inability to have a “nice” room. When I didn’t have friends over, the mess could be appalling. It looked like an explosion in a knick-knack factory next to a bookshop and an office … there were decorations, books and paper everywhere, and plastic boxes full of stuff I’d never looked at for years. I hated it. Absolutely hated it. But I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it.

I was likely suffering from avolition – a symptom of schizophrenia which can be described as low motivation, but is a little more complex than that. Specifically, it means you want to achieve a goal, you know what’s required to achieve the goal, but you cannot motivate yourself to do it – no matter the consequences. I.e., you could have a “carrot” (a positive outcome of achieving a goal) or a “stick” (a negative outcome of not achieving a goal), yet still not act. Nobody wants to be fired from their job, and everybody loves a reward for good effort, but imagine if you can’t get yourself to take the necessary steps to pay your bills, lose weight, or even just make your bed in the morning. Imagine how out of control this could become. A snowball effect with the potential to negatively affect every area of your life.

… Well, darkness aside, and to get back to the subject of this post: I had avolition, and it was unbearable to deal with. I wanted to achieve so many things, but had no “drive” to get those things – including a tidy room.

I think I’ve trained myself to become more structured.

I say this because I also struggled terribly with isolating myself. I would never leave the house – literally, never. Social anxiety and low confidence meant that I found it too stressful. I relied heavily on my parents. I wouldn’t even consider going for a walk in my neighbourhood – and as for supermarkets or shops? Forget it! Way too stressful.

The world was a daunting, unpredictable place (in my mind) back then.

However, those of you who follow me on Instagram may have noticed my many “walk photos”. Photos I’ve taken on walks. In my neighbourhood. Outside.

I actually leave my flat these days. I often go to the supermarket. I sometimes go shopping in town (when I can afford it, that is). I’m living a relatively normal life. And I like to think that, knowing my history, this is a tremendous victory.

And now, I’d like to share my tips with you.

If you’re struggling with clutter, here are things you can do to help yourself “slay the beast”:

1. Take photos.

When you’re struggling to throw something out that you know you’re never going to use/wear/look at again, ease the process by taking a photo of it on your phone and keep it there for a while. When you start to find it easier to throw out, just keep taking photos – of every item you are considering.

That’s how I felt “in control”, while still getting rid of stuff.

2. Delay.

For a week/month/set amount of time. Again, when there’s something you know you should throw out because you’re never going to use it, but you’re still finding it too hard, set yourself a time where you have to decide – that way you give yourself a little “breathing space” before getting rid of it. If you don’t look at it within that time and still know you’ll never use it, it should probably go out.

3. Easiest stuff first.

Deal with the “easier” stuff first. Disposable water bottles, plastic bags, clothes with stains or holes in them, thing that don’t have sentimental value. Whatever “easy” means to you, tackle those groups first. Do the things you find most difficult last – that way, you’ll train yourself until you feel more able to deal with the “difficult” stuff.

4. Sort into piles.

Keep – charity – bin. By sorting your belongings methodically into piles according to what you want to do with them, this can help you see how much you’re holding on to that you don’t actually need.

5. Reflect.

I eventually realised that – philosophically – holding onto the old stuff didn’t allow me space for all the good new stuff. Not just physical things, but in life generally.

However, do still be patient with yourself – it takes time and effort.

Oh, and one more thing – what others can do for a loved one who’s struggling with clutter:

1. Don’t throw out for them (i.e., without them agreeing to it).

This often just causes immense stress and sets them back in their progress.

So, that’s my advice. I am not a psychiatrist nor an expert. But I hope that, perhaps, this post could reach people who may find my personal experiences useful.

Now I’m off to sort my wardrobe.