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Original poster

Anyone ever felt depressed driving through somewhere?

255 replies

beddingwedding · 07/05/2022 10:18

It was so odd!

I drove through the centre of somewhere yesterday at around 7.30pm.

I got this strange feeling, like a strong depressive state and low mood. It just felt really off! I have never felt like this anywhere in my life. The whole place 'just felt wrong'. And do you know what? I can't tell you why, I've no idea

I use to live in a rough part of east London. It's nothing like that. It just felt eerie

OP posts:
Snoopsnoggysnog · 07/05/2022 10:23

Yes I get this with certain towns, don’t want to name them here as will offend someone but I definitely feel it.
I’m lucky to love where I live so I always look forward to coming home and seeing familiar surroundings.

Original poster
beddingwedding · 07/05/2022 10:25

@Snoopsnoggysnog Thank you, good to know I'm not the only one

I live on the outskirts of Luton of all places, and I feel very familiar and safe here.

This place just felt odd

OP posts:
HRTQueen · 07/05/2022 10:28

Yes

the day of the riots in London (2011) I was driving through parts of Clapham. Just an odd felling it was very strong. There wasn’t any talk of rioting then.

i think you are noticing things but not acknowledging them but your brain is trying to make sense of the situation

I do believe that a person/people can leave a feeling in a place not sure how long that feeling stays

Thetoasterhasbroken · 07/05/2022 10:28

We had a touring caravan and travelled extensively around the U.K.
I have felt an awful deep feeling in my gut driving through some places, just hard to explain but it hit hard on the senses.
On the flip side I recently drove through Royal Tunbridge Wells and had a wonderful feeling about the place, it was gorgeous. Never been before but hope to visit again.

thecatneuterer · 07/05/2022 10:30

Dagenham makes me feel like that. But really only because it's horrible and is just a depressing place. It also has a claustrophobic feel to me. I go to lots of other horrible places in London and surroundings (it's part of my work), but it's only Dagenham which I can't wait to get out of.

CorsicaDreaming · 07/05/2022 10:30

I get it on a stretch of the M25 driving south, going anti clockwise between the A3 junction and the one for the M23. It's very specific.
It's a long, odd desolate stretch for me...
I always wonder if there's been a really bad accident on it, as it is just such a woo feeling (and I'm normally not at all woo!)

I used to do it several times a week for work. But as soon as I got on the M23 for Brighton, I'd feel fine again.

Original poster
beddingwedding · 07/05/2022 10:32

The place I was driving through is what I think was near Bedford town centre?

Not the town centre itself as obviously I was driving

Passed these Polish shops with loads of flats on top. The flats made me feel all funny, and people were hanging out of them smoking

Then I felt strange again passing their cinema, and one of their schools that actually has a swimming pool

Just overall a strange experience

OP posts:
Original poster
beddingwedding · 07/05/2022 10:33

thecatneuterer · 07/05/2022 10:30

Dagenham makes me feel like that. But really only because it's horrible and is just a depressing place. It also has a claustrophobic feel to me. I go to lots of other horrible places in London and surroundings (it's part of my work), but it's only Dagenham which I can't wait to get out of.

I'm from Poplar. I feel uneasy in Dagenham too but I know a few people living there who will tell you the same Grin

OP posts:
thecatneuterer · 07/05/2022 11:40

😂OP. Although Dagenham Village is surprisingly lovely. Such a shame it's been engulfed by such a dystopian horror of a place.

Dagenham somehow manages to combine the feelings of a windswept wasteland with claustrophobic, oppressive grimness.

I go to so many other awful places (my work is needed, almost by definition, in the worst places), such as Clapton particularly around Murder Mile; the worst parts of Tottenham; the worst housing estates in Seven Sisters, and while I always feel thankful that I don't live there they don't have the same effect on me.

Undecicive · 07/05/2022 11:43

beddingwedding · 07/05/2022 10:25

@Snoopsnoggysnog Thank you, good to know I'm not the only one

I live on the outskirts of Luton of all places, and I feel very familiar and safe here.

This place just felt odd

Hehe, I was going to ask if you were in Luton. 😀 The town centre there is horrible hut not in an eerie way.
I guess there are places like that, especially at night.

PuppyMonkey · 07/05/2022 11:46

I thought this was going to be about Stoke on Trent.Grin

ElenaSt · 07/05/2022 11:58

Hull. A drive to the football stadium through areas of poverty.

fairylightsandwaxmelts · 07/05/2022 12:01

Barnsley town centre.

mistermagpie · 07/05/2022 12:06

I get this in an Italian town where my PILS have a holiday home. It's all perfectly pleasant and lovely Italy but whenever we have been (in laws not there so that's not a factor!) I've felt down and cross and me and DH have ended up arguing which we never really do normally. There is something about the place, I don't know what, because on paper it's very nice, but it gives me a bad feeling.

We never visit there now and have to make excuses to the in-laws because it's just sounds a bit weird saying 'your town makes me depressed'!

lapasion · 07/05/2022 12:07

beddingwedding · 07/05/2022 10:32

The place I was driving through is what I think was near Bedford town centre?

Not the town centre itself as obviously I was driving

Passed these Polish shops with loads of flats on top. The flats made me feel all funny, and people were hanging out of them smoking

Then I felt strange again passing their cinema, and one of their schools that actually has a swimming pool

Just overall a strange experience

Wasn’t Clophill was it? That’s near Bedford and is seriously creepy. Graves were desecrated there in the 60s and there were all sorts of rumours about satanism and stuff like that. I don’t believe in woo but it’s admittedly a creepy place.

There are some really sad areas of Bedford. Some of it has really gone to shit which is a shame.

Oblomov22 · 07/05/2022 12:12

@CorsicaDreaming , I live that stretch M25 - A3 to M23. How odd.

I have to go to Kings Hospital in Denmark Hill for my diabetes, from Surrey, for 20 years, normally the train to Waterloo and then bus, which I love. But driving up, for both births, gave Dh and me the Heebie-jeebies.

Purplehonesty2 · 07/05/2022 12:13

As you drive out of Edinburgh towards Musselburgh - the wee towns are just awful, depressing and make me shudder! Cockenzie and port seton I think. And it's so unexpected! The first time we went that way I was 😳 what is this???

onitlikeacarbonnet · 07/05/2022 12:28

Culloden. The saddest most oppressive atmosphere I’ve ever experienced. And it’s just a field in the middle of nowhere.
Glencoe similarly but not even close to it.

AmbushedByCake · 07/05/2022 12:30

Edmonton (london) is like that. Especially on a Sunday afternoon. There's always loads of groups of middle aged men loitering, smoking and staring (where are all the women?) Oppressive and unpleasant atmosphere.

maddiemookins16mum · 07/05/2022 12:35

Greenock. It just looks so grey and depressing (despite the views over the Clyde) - many of the houses are grey and scruffy. I can never wait to leave.

Mistlewoeandwhine · 07/05/2022 12:39

Rochdale. Plus London as a city gives me bad vibes. I love the rest of England though.

rc22 · 07/05/2022 12:41

onitlikeacarbonnet · 07/05/2022 12:28

Culloden. The saddest most oppressive atmosphere I’ve ever experienced. And it’s just a field in the middle of nowhere.
Glencoe similarly but not even close to it.

I went when I was only 11. It was fascinating and sparked a life long interest in history. However, it was very eerie. Felt like the ghosts knew we were English and were trying to make us feel uncomfortable.

LowbrowVictoriana · 07/05/2022 12:42

I used to feel this driving along the M50 to or from MILs house
Horrible, oppressive, lonely feeling. The road feels so desolate and abandoned, less looked after than most MWays, and there's no civilization to be seen.

Was always glad to get off it.

CarriesHandbag · 07/05/2022 12:43

We felt the same when we visited Clovelly in Cornwall. It felt really depressing despite the wonderful sunshine. I can't put my finger on it. I couldn't wait to leave, I felt as though I was intruding.

Hollyhocksarenotmessy · 07/05/2022 12:45

A part of Kent, I think on Sheerness. Not in a woo way but it was such an odd bleak marsh landscape with an odd little metal bridge and I remember thinking it defined the word 'godforsaken'. Not a picturesque Marsh, just mud and ditches and disused industrial buildings.

And then we ended up in a dead mining village where my then partner was singing at a social club. 9 women to every man and one told me the mining had killed off most of the men young. 1 lady kept requesting a Barry White song because everytime she listens to him, she has an orgasm, which her friends confirmed! 1 lady kept doing sexy hippy dancing right in front of my ex, asked him to stay for the night and invited me over too when he politely said no as he had a girlfriend. She kept chatting him up and doing this really cringy dancing.

It is funny in retrospect but so depressing at the time. There's a whole village of sex-starved women trapped in a shit hole.