To be ashamed of these awful feelings?

[lecreusetpeppermill]

I do feel ashamed, and loathe what has become of my mind in this situation. It is to do with where I currently live. I'm sure many could hack it, but I simply can't, and I know that I need to change how I'm dealing with it.

Grew up quite privileged, went into a creative career, then self employment for past 17. Have a DP of 10 yrs, we are happy but not too fussed about marrying yet. No kids, and both of our parents are no longer with us.

Problem: About 5 yrs ago I moved town to be close to a relative who was unwell. As I wfh, this was no problem. I had previously lived in a village in Shropshire, then a larger village in Lancashire. I have also lived part time in Keswick on and off with partner.

This latest town is my problem, but due to a dip in income recently I may have to hang on a while to make the move (and DP could do with waiting a good year or two for work related reasons). We are renters by choice, so thankfully free to go, but this place is so awful it has made me ill and depressed for years now. The relative we were assisting passed away, so whilst nothing is keeping us, we don't want to risk moving at the moment.
I do have good savings but prefer not to decrease them.

But what I am so ashamed of is my thoughts and opinions. I never used to have them, and suspect they have grown this way due to feeling low and trapped.
The place has become run down, town centre almost derelict. A lot of drug and antisocial issues but not on our doorstep. We do have close neighbours with dogs trapped in gardens day and night who bark constantly, nobody is bothered, and trash piles up all around.
All I can hear, day and night is screeching, loud bike and car exhausts. The atmosphere is very male, aggressive, a lot of drink related issues and mental health stuff here.
Someone planted a warehouse 20 feet from the front door, so excessive impact noise from 7am-6pm every day. A car garage opened a few doors away and people go in and out, speeding, revving engines and so on.
It isnt the kind of place one keeps a window open.

We sold our vehicle when we moved here as we are central, and prefer not to invest in another just yet, but there is literally nowhere to go, no safe or nice walks, it is just one concrete street after another, hemmed in by busy roads. We have bikes which we love but the decent paths are filling up with dog crap and more asbo stuff.

But worst of all is how i have come to judge the people. I know that my better self doesn't think these things, and never did before, but they are so unfamiliar to me and perhaps this is the issue? People shout, scream, slam, allow dereliction to pile up. The streets stink of skunk and the pavements are full of spit.
I have come to loathe them with such a passion, yet they do me no direct harm.
I have begin to loathe them for being working class, and this is fucking dreadful. Every sound is aggressive, people thrown cans, wrappers down with no shame. There are never nice sounds, like birds, laughter, fun, music, just shouting, neglected dogs, occasional police sirens.

I've come to judge them for not caring about education, about keeping stuff nice, about them being such a huge majority - and that's the issue isn't it? I suppose we are outsiders. It's like they shit on everything good.
And I know it should not be about class, I never even thought about bloody class prior to coming here. I know people are NOT all the same, but sadly they are here.
I know we will move back to Shropshire eventually, and I need to calm the hell down, but right now it is really taking it's toll on me.

The guy at the back of us keeps 2 handsome german shepherds trapped in a 6x6 yard, they have never been walked in their lives. They are so nervous and stressed out that they just bark savagely all day and night. He only comes home for a few hours and is back off again. He allows them to shit in shared areas and has been reported to council but still does it again.
My life is just watching other people's neglect, listening to pallets smashing as i wfh all day, the stench of revving cars comes in through the hallway.

How do you cope with this and not loathe the fuckers?
I can't understand what kind of life that is, to just throw money on fuel and scream around small terraced streets. To keep aggressive animals and ignore them. And everyone is apathetic, they don't care, and when we offered to get together to report the spilled rubbish we were looked at as if we had three heads.

It is very difficult to do the Eckart Tolle calming shite in this kind of environment
I stopped doing yoga, i used to meditate, I never judged people and now the disgust and anger is consuming me. How to stop this?

I am ashamed of this, I don't like it, and wish I could do something to change how it affects me. I am happy with everything else in my life, we are healthy and love our careers, but having got stuck in this shit pit has shaved a lot of that from us.

Why would you feel ashamed , it sounds like a cesspit.
For the sake of your wellbeing you have to move .

@PonyPatter44

You have money, you have options, and YOU feel depressed and stressed living in a shit hole. Stop making excuses and move out. There is no virtue in living somewhere horrible when you have the ability to go elsewhere.

Working class doesn't mean scummy. I imagine you loathe your neighbours because they are scum, not because they are w/c.

Totally this .

You rent… move! ASAP. Forget about the impact on your savings etc. just do it. Your health is more important.

I'm working class, grew up around the underclass. Made damn sure my dc never.
You have to remember if you've never had anything nice, you don't learn to respect it.
It's sad, lack of education, decent upbringing, living in ways such going new places or trying new things, experience in general, just don't happen for people living in poverty stricken areas.
Youre able to leave the situation if you wish, you've known a nicer life.
These people aren't and haven't.
It's hard to not dislike people who live this way when you haven't.
I remember the culture shocks I had moving away from the council estate I was raised, it seemed so posh to not have neighbours who chased each other with meat cleavers and didn't openly nonce their kids.
Be grateful this isn't your always and take many trips away.

It seems as if what is really upsetting you the most is the constant intrusion of offensive sounds making you feel under attack in your own home.

I would suggest playing music whenever possible to drown out the sounds or at least muffle them, in order to change the overall atmosphere in your home. Preferably through headphones unless that makes you feel unsafe when you're alone.
There will be decent people living nearby who are trapped there for various reasons, you just need to find them. Maybe there is a local community centre holding yoga classes.

Oh and reframe your self-pity. You're leaving in a year or so. What of your neighbours who hate it just as much, but who don't have your resources and are stuck there? Reframe your self-pity as empathy for them and their predicament.

Anger is often a byproduct of depression, which you should try and avoid at all costs. That's a spiral you don't want to go down.

I would talk to someone. See if your council runs a Time to Talk program of which you can refer yourself to see a therapist and talk about your mental health. It's free. I think this change in you, may have come about because you are experiencing depression.

Personally, if I was in your position, I'd use those savings to find a better place to live. Just the continuously barking dogs would be doing my head in. Savings are for rainy days and this def sounds like it.

That sounds v depressing O.P
I would look to moving away, perhaps close enough so your partner can still commute to work for the next couple of years...
Also, please please report your neighbour to the RSPCA, that is complete neglect of two animals.

People like that would certainly be judged in most other Western European countries, why there should be no similar judgement in Britain I don't know, but perhaps it goes some way to explaining why it is so prevalent here.

I expect a lot of those people are desperate to move too, but don't have the ability or haven't seen a different way of life and so try to fit in. But I doesn't do any good vocalising how you've got an escape plan and will be free of the riff raff

You're not describing working class people. You're describing people living in deprivation and the social issues that causes. Yes it's not pleasant. But I don't like the idea that this is what working class people are like.

Sounds awful. I know you're reluctant to move but I think this is a mistake given how badly affected you are. The Lancashire countryside is some of the most beautiful in England- get out there!

Move somewhere else and get a car for dp to commute. This is what savings are for.

I'm w/c and wouldn't live in what you describe.

@Widmerpool et al Yes, I thought this was a zombie thread, sounds very like that one. OP, did you post before? If not, search for that thread - you may make a friend!

You obviously need to move. No amount of saving money is worth your mental health and happiness. If things are as horrific as you say, move. If you won’t move purely to save money, when you could afford to, then things either aren’t as bad as you say, or you are being very very silly.

It's natural to feel trapped when your home has become a stressful place.

But more generally, I think the kind of situation you are in is the place, metaphorically speaking, where real compassion and wisdom begins.

How do you love people who seem so unlovable? It's easy enough to be a sort of paternalistic socialist with a rather romanticized view of the less well off as victims. It's harder when you see people who are nasty, don't care for their neighbours, exploit others, have a degraded sense of culture, even where criminality is common. (And of course not everyone but that is what you are seeing all around you.)

But that romantisized view of perpetual victims is naive, and ultimately I think it is what produces the kind of paternalistic middle class Labour voter that calls people chavs for piercing their kids ears or having the wrong kinds of dogs or wearing tracksuits. They have to see those people as "other" in order to avoid the guild of letting go of romantic notions.

Yet, I would argue, and in part it's my religious tradition speaking, that we are in fact required to love all these people, even when we recognize these negative things that are at work in parts of the culture of the poor. It does raise a lot of questions, not least being, how do I do it, and without being a patronizing prick? But also, why is it like this? What's gone wrong?

Something that always strikes me as a good pop culture treatment of that question, in another setting, is the film Dead Men Walking, with Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. It's most well known as being about the death penalty, but I think it also addresses the same kind of problem. How do you see the humanity in someone who has tried very hard to extinguish it? Is it possible for such a person to regain it, even in part? What causes people to live that way and what could be done to help them? When we respond, how does our response shape us, what kind of people do we become when we are touched by that kind of problem?

@Waxonwaxoff0

Can we PLEASE stop describing anti social behaviour as "working class", absolutely grinds my gears as a working class woman, I don't bloody throw litter and spit in the street.

Exactly 👏

@ExtraOnion

Stop being such a martyr … nobody is stopping you from moving, and the people who live near you don’t need your judgment or approval.

If you don’t like it move, the only person stopping you is yourself, and stop looking for validation from random people on the internet - it’s bizarre.

This. Just move. Buy a car and your partner can commute from somewhere nicer to this shit hole. Tomorrow isn't promised. Don't waste your life if you have the means to change it.

@MangyInseam

It's natural to feel trapped when your home has become a stressful place.

But more generally, I think the kind of situation you are in is the place, metaphorically speaking, where real compassion and wisdom begins.

How do you love people who seem so unlovable? It's easy enough to be a sort of paternalistic socialist with a rather romanticized view of the less well off as victims. It's harder when you see people who are nasty, don't care for their neighbours, exploit others, have a degraded sense of culture, even where criminality is common. (And of course not everyone but that is what you are seeing all around you.)

But that romantisized view of perpetual victims is naive, and ultimately I think it is what produces the kind of paternalistic middle class Labour voter that calls people chavs for piercing their kids ears or having the wrong kinds of dogs or wearing tracksuits. They have to see those people as "other" in order to avoid the guild of letting go of romantic notions.

Yet, I would argue, and in part it's my religious tradition speaking, that we are in fact required to love all these people, even when we recognize these negative things that are at work in parts of the culture of the poor. It does raise a lot of questions, not least being, how do I do it, and without being a patronizing prick? But also, why is it like this? What's gone wrong?

Something that always strikes me as a good pop culture treatment of that question, in another setting, is the film Dead Men Walking, with Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. It's most well known as being about the death penalty, but I think it also addresses the same kind of problem. How do you see the humanity in someone who has tried very hard to extinguish it? Is it possible for such a person to regain it, even in part? What causes people to live that way and what could be done to help them? When we respond, how does our response shape us, what kind of people do we become when we are touched by that kind of problem?

Are you practicing your Sunday sermon.

Hmmm what do you expect for £300 rent a month

I’m sorry but there’s just no way in your circumstances that I would decide to live where you do.

Luckily you have a choice.

Can you not even rent a room with your dp in a better part of the town?

This has been posted before. I remember the detail of the garage opening opposite. Wigan.

You don’t want to dip into your savings and move but you hate everyone around you? You hate the working classes? You have the privilege of the option to move. Many don’t.
I grew up in a working class area where everybody took pride in their homes and lived respectfully and I tell you that there are more drunken middle class sloths around where I live now in an affluent part of london, who don’t work, have learned to play the system, get rent paid on a nice Victorian conversion, on sick benefits and they swan around telling people they are writing a novel or composing a piece. Nothing ever gets written. They hide it well but they are all drunks and all shagging each other’s husbands. And their homes could do with a good deep clean. But it’s okay, they may be pushed all day but they the region that the wine is from so well.
Then they look down on the grafting working classes.
It’s disgusting and I’m glad you’re ashamed - you should be.

Where is Jeremy Kyle when you need him?

Are you practicing your Sunday sermon.

The OP seemed distressed and guilty about recognizing that many of the the people around her were anti-social. That's a real thing that has to be integrated in some way if we aren't going to become dickheads that just wash our hands of them.

Unfortunately the political solutions on offer tend to be either that, or social programs, the former dehumanizes people and the latter romanticizes them and really neither is very effective.

Reframing, as someone said above, is one way to let go of the stress of that kind of guilt.