Feelings of panic after visiting Highgate Cemetery

Oh, I love Highgate Cemetery. It makes me feel the opposite to you, OP. Those who are buried there really get legacy with visitors reading the inscriptions on their graves every day. I did a guided tour, and they said people used to take picnics to the catacombs to sit with their relatives in a positive way. The cemetery was a big attraction at the time, people walked there for pleasure. It was about cherishing family and also keeping them safe at a time when grave robbing was a thing.

I don't like cemeteries at all, they feel like hovering at the edge of things and disquieting, but I love Avebury and find it very peaceful even in the middle of the night.

Highgate cemetery and perhaps the whole of Highgate itself does have a bit of a funny energy but instead of being unsettled by it, try and lean into it? I find it a bit campy and fabulous! For a cemetery, there’s quite a lot of witty and amusing graves in Highgate - my favourite is Sally Hunter - hers says ‘LAWYER’ and then underneath ‘should have been a marine biologist’.

Death is just part of life as much as anything else.

Your mother was / is a monster.

Unbelievable. Sick.

old cemeteries are amazing places, they force you to consider so many feelings about history and the transience of everything. I love visiting them, but I can see how they are we unsettling.

Highgate is one of the best UK cemeteries for sure.

I love the architecture too. This YouTube Chanel is worth a look if you are fascinated by these places https://youtube.com/@deadgoodwalks?si=ngP5MiBis7_7sfVw

I've seen a few programmes on the Necropolis - looks fascinating particularly with the views

I have a feeling like this about lots of places in Italy with relics preserved.

and there is one place in Siena underground where monks used to flagellate themselves and my Dh wanted to stay there a long time but I had to get out - I couldnt get out quick enough. it really disturbed me. later in my life I ahd psychosis so I don know if im very sensitive to things

thats very strange and sick thing to do

My sister lives near Abney Park and we often walk through to get to Morrison's!

It's a lovely peaceful place - not creepy at all

Abney Park

I've never been to Highgate but I like to walk round the Necropolis in Glasgow which is a similar age and built for much the same reasons. I find it an evocative place but not frightening at all, it's quite serene. It isn't overgrown like Highgate looks though - a lot of the Necropolis is quite open land, a bit exposed in fact.There are fantastic views over the city and beyond. I wonder if that makes a difference. In some of the photos I found of Highgate I really get the sense of nature taking back over which is somehow simultaneously quite reassuring and disquieting. It looks like it might feel rather claustrophobic. I'd like to visit though, this thread has piqued my interest.

I have this. im extremely sensitive to places. im very empathetic. and I ended up having psychosis so don know if that is connected.

I've just googled too - oh my goodness!

I’ve just googled the Capuchin catacombs @Teenthree and oh my word, what a sight!
I don’t blame you for the swift exit.

I went to the Capuchin catacombs in Sicily with my chap. I’m not much given to woo or squeamishness, have sat in on archeological digs and cleaned up bones etc. The Capuchin place is only just underground, with lots of light coming from high up windows, and not particularly spooky. DP was very interested, and read everything slowly and took his time whereas I wandered ahead. I ended up about 100 yds ahead of him and realised there was no one else there, just me and walls of incredibly well preserved bodies, all looking out. The bodies are hanging from the walls and are in their original clothes. The skin is very well preserved and some famous ones look like they are asleep.

Well for no good reason I had to get out and found my legs going faster and faster, and sprinting up the steps to get out and get some air. I gave a very British “oh yes I’m fine” as I shot past DP and then sat outside near a souvenir seller who looked not in the least bit surprised or concerned so it must happen regularly.

It felt voyeuristic and disrespectful and I felt all squirmy all day.

“I don’t believe in ghosts. But what about the ghosts?”

Yes! It's the over crowdedness - it's like you can't escape the over crowdedness in London even in death. It's also 'messy' looking with overgrown bushes and built up graves and the gigantic memorial stones and crosses make it all overbearing.

Another cemetery explorer here.
My great grandfather used to be a grave digger in Kensal Green. I've got relatives buried there and it's sobering to think he may have dug the graves for his wife and three young children who died within a month of each other.

It was about 40 years ago that I visited Highgate Cemetery with my mother and brother, both now gone. I remember too the Julius Beer Mausoleum. What I took away from it was how important busy and powerful this man must have been, how many others he must have trodden on, but in the end his big important grave is just a curiosity and visitors say "who.?" Like another PP I find it gives perspective on the strivings of this life, so many of which turn out to be pointless.

I visited with my DD when she was having cancer treatment in London - she wanted to visit. She said she found it very calming and beautiful. I agree i found it a calming place.

DH who had an odd sense of humour took a photo of her and put a comedy ghost picture on her shoulder - she found it funny - she shares his sense of humour!

That is a properly creepy book….

I understand how certain places can make you feel this way. As a teenager (13-15) my mother regularly forced me to go to the cemetery with her and read the headstones in the baby garden. It would distress me massively every time (she was emotionally abusive) I wasn’t allowed out alone but at 15 realised I could refuse to go anymore as it made me so unhappy.

I have had such a creepy feeling every time I have been to Berlin because of all the Third Reich history. I haven’t had it in graveyards but places that remind me of extreme human cruelty are just far too depressing.

I want to get to the stage of being at peace with dying. It must really help as you age. I’m in my 50s and think more about death now, and sometimes it sends me into a panic. The thought of just disappearing and an infinity of not existing scares me. I want to embrace that dying is part of living, and to feel accepting and calm about it.

You would have to pay me a LOT of money to visit any catacombs. I can’t even watch scary films so this would probably unhinge me.

I might be weird, but I love walking around cemeteries. I just find them quite soothing and cathartic. It sends you to a place in your head of peace and comfort, but I think you have to be in the right mindset whilst there as it can send you spiralling into depressive thoughts. I’ve been to Highgate when I lived in London many years ago, but would never have visited alone in certain parts.