To think a place can cause depression?

[Kittycattenklump]

I am wondering whether I might need a change of scene.

Appreciate that I am ‘lucky’ to live in a lovely place, I live and work in Windermere, Lake District, and have done for the past 6 years. I am 2 yrs single and happy with that, have some nice friends and am happily self employed, but recently I am coming to feel that the place itself makes me feel this weird depression, like a hopelessness, that I don’t feel when I visit other places or stay with my longer distance friends.

I left for a year during the pandemic, and it doesn’t feel the same since coming back. Even the people coming here seem different somehow. But I can’t explain. There was previously a kind of nature lover/alternative vibe which is now missing.
I rent and the prices seem to have flown up in the past year -although that’s an issue everywhere, there’s a sadness to it here as what’s left of the market is dated or drab for a very high price. Local friends are depressed with the housing situation as many are sold off to airB&B.

I am comfortable financially but the manic switch of quiet grey gloom then heavy tourism has begun to put me on edge, something hard to explain.
Perhaps the balance has shifted and it’s no longer the right place for me, no matter the grandeur of the landscape. It feels like a giant commodity, bland and soulless recently.

other areas of my life are great, so i do suspect I might be up for a move. Would you consider it? Would you live here? Would love some thoughts on this as I haven’t discussed it with anyone yet.

Oh and I'm sorry if it comes across as tourist bashing, it's not meant to. I love being a tourist myself! The money that is down here now is phenomenal, the huge cars, the houses. It's just so very different.

Interestingly, another place that gave me the creeps was Cairns in Australia! I felt very claustrophobic there.

I don't feel depressed because of where I live, but I feel utterly exhausted in Summer. Our roads can't cope with the volume of traffic, and the sheer amount of people makes me feel anxious.

I know exactly what you mean. The larger towns in the Lake District have changed enormously over the last 30 years. We only go through Windermere and Ambleside to get to the other side, now.
Could you work elsewhere in the LDNP or do you have to be based in Windermere?

I feel like that. I came off my sertraline about 6 months ago. Think I need to go back on it. But coming off it was really hard!

Hoping once spring comes I'll feel better.

I know exactly what you mean.

There's this small town where I have relatives so visit at least once a year.

The town high St is nice enough but the residential areas around it....grey houses matching the grey sky, tiny gardens all with 6ft fences making the tarmac streets feel even darker. The streets all look the same and the general impression is of a never ending maze hemmed in by tall fences.

I can't last 2 days in that place before I noticeably get incredibly depressed.

Interestingly that small town has one of the highest use of antidepressants and highest rates of premature deaths anywhere in the country.

Psychogeography is a thing. Time for a move.

It sounds as though you have the freedom to move, so if I were you, I would.

@ashitghost

I’ve been searching Glastonbury+doom+dread but just getting she-pees and assorted festival chat 😂 I’d be interested in reading, if you had any idea where to find them?

OP, someone else already said, your post is so eloquent and evocative, reading it makes me feel quite eerie. Aside from the socio-economic aspects you’ve described, the idea that the atmosphere of an objectively beautiful landscape can be off-putting is reassuring. For 17 years DH has been saying I am over-sensitive and denies that feeling foreboding when visiting other places is a phenomenon commonly experienced by others. He is immune and as such seems actively compelled to drag us to visit the most straight-from-the-mind-of-Arthur Machen towns he can bloody find😂

Yes a place can really affect your happiness, all else being equal. I previously lived in several places on the coast and in the capital. Happy, at peace, loved my surroundings and felt at home despite some challenges with MH. Moved to a small Midlands city to retrain as locations were very limited. I've met the kind of man I never thought I would meet. Huge retraining opportunity I never thought I would get. I don't want to slag off the Midlands but despite all this i hate it here. It affects me and drags down my mood. Nothing about the environs excites me and I can't wait to leave.

Lake district can be vilely packed with people or intensely gloomy.There is also some evidence that large hills or mountains can cause depression.No idea why.Yet in Kerry with its mountains I never feel the sadness.Could be the Uk is one giant s.....hole and its not u at all.

I think a place can do that to you, yes, though like others I think other factors are probably contributing too.

I wonder if you're looking around Hereford. I love that landscape but it's not overdramatic. I do think the housing situation is so distorted everywhere in the UK that society feels out of whack everywhere.

I get it, OP. I love the Lakes (and yes I've lived there; not just been during summer!) and particularly love it in the winter when there are fewer people around.
But other places give me that same gloom and heaviness and sadness which makes me feel an overwhelming urge to get out. The worst for me is North Norfolk - I can see the seaside towns are pretty enough in theory; but the flatness, the business, the crampedness gives me a "trapped" feeling that makes me feel physically panicked.
Different people suit different places, and that can change throughout your life and circumstances. Maybe this feeling means you're ready to move on?

Hi OP
I was in Cumbria over Christmas - it was beautiful (I have been there many, many times over the years and know it well) but as a tourist I could see how terrible the impact was. There were people flooding the small towns, parking was incredibly difficult and I guess in summer it is worse. I can completely see why you feel like that.
I visited the South East coast, Hastings and Kent and loved the light and arty parts of some of these places, perhaps go for a complete change? Or maybe Liverpool/Crosby and that area?
Sounds like you need to get away from there for a bit.

I'm with you OP.

I hate where I am, I am massively depressed. When we moved here 10 years ago it was nice. I'm not a country girl and prefer a bit of shops and other things nearby. When we came here we were close enough to the big centre to be handy but had some small shops on a little high street. We were lucky enough to have three excellent secondhand shops, an independent butcher, a very old DIY shop that had been here for about 60 years, a grocer and a hairdressers. I actually felt spoilt!

The area was voted 5th best place to live at the time, lovely parks at either end, good bus links, very low crime.

Now? Shithole.

The worse it gets, the worse the attitude of people who have moved in. So many have left now who we met when we moved here. There are now so many HMOs crammed full of people and they look a mess. Most of the homes with lovely established front gardens that must have taken years to achieve by a proud home owner have been bought up and now tarmacked over as drive ways for multiple cars instead.

A good friend left the area as they parked their car up on the next street as there was no parking on her road. It's all permits and she had the correct permit. She works away so commutes by train and stays in London for a few days. She came home to find her car had been smashed up, and signs super glued to her windscreen saying "don't park here" and other more disgusting language. One of her neighbours told her they do it if you don't live in that bit of road as a family who own 5 houses have "claimed" the road and the police do nothing. She wasn't parked near or across a drive way, or in anyone's way. They just didn't like her parking there. Literally wrote her car off with the damage.

All the dealers and gangs have moved up from the other side of the centre as the Police presence there is huge. Most of the independent shops have gone. The hairdresser was attacked in her shop just before the first lockdown and left shortly after. We constantly have section 60s put on us by the police but yet it makes no difference to actual police presence. Two of the secondhand shops closed as a new landlord took over and raised their rents to a ridiculous rate. They now have a very dodgy burger bar in one and a vape shop in the other. The rubbish is disgraceful as we've become a flytipping hotspot. The shops have mostly changed hands and become international stores and each one does nothing to stop rubbish piling up from their deliveries, there are rats everywhere.

Yet rents go ever higher. We are hoping to move in the next few months and will be leaving the area.

I don't even bother going down there anymore, it's just so depressing as I remember when we came to look at our rental here the first time and driving through that bit and thinking wow and how lucky it was to have this so close.

I think collectively there’s a bit of a downer everywhere at the moment. I’m definitely affected by my surroundings. Mine is more specific, I can’t bear dark spaces, I need lots of light to live happily. One of my old houses didn’t really get a lot of natural light and it affected me hugely so every
house since has had to have lots of windows and it genuinely helps my mood.

I find that my mood lifts hugely at the coast. I think it's to do with being able to escape and not be hemmed in and surrounded by land. I would hate to live in a valley!

Also the weather can be a huge depressor - gloom and rain, combined with short days are a dead cert for misery for me.

I lived in Greater Manchester and I just felt flat. It was always grey and extremely closed in. It always seemed like there was a permanent cover over me and if we went away on holiday I dreaded going home.

I was scared that if I moved I might take the feeling of gloom with me, that maybe the way I was feeling wasn't down to where I lived, but was something else entirely, it got to the point where the thought of staying was worse than leaving. I moved to Shetland and it was an instant change in my mood. I love the big skies and open space. The air feels different to breathe and if I go away I often cut it short so I can go home early.

We did a Lake District holiday six or seven years ago. I found Ambleside a strange place, although it was very busy something lifeless about it like a film set, little to commend it other than some nice shops.

I think anywhere that is reliant on tourism can feel like that. I live in York and have watched its decline in recent years. Hugely congested roads and pavements clogged with tourists. Genuinely unpleasant atmosphere when the races are on with anti social behaviour. Council who don’t care about local but concentrate on pouring their money into York bid to attract yet more tourists. I recently met someone who lives here but hasn’t been into the city centre for ten years as parking is so expensive and difficult, she could live anywhere!
The Welsh border are lovely but there areas of West and South Yorkshire that are quiet and beautiful too.

I do know what you mean about the Lake District - we have kind of a similar thing here in Bath and I prefer it out of season and I'm going to be really honest and say I've preferred it in recent years without masses of Chinese tourists going round poking you with umbrellas , piss poor driving and being rude to people in shops. The problem is as we've found that the towns that have a decent tourist element have remained at least modestly vibrant whereas so many other places without a tourist angle have become really dull and down at heel - so I find I end up drawn to the more vibrant places and then get peed off by tourists!! One reason I like Guildford and Winchester was that they didn't seem mega touristy and yet still had 'life'

ReformedWaywardTeen very descriptive post. I know the type of area you describe, sadly repeated all over the country. It's like everything is becoming geared towards promoting greed, crime and drab uniformity.

Such an interesting thread. I grew up in the Lakes and it felt exactly like this. Heavy, brooding, eerie. For a few weeks holiday it could be magical but not a place to live. I'm in a Midlands town now which is not exactly a dream location but it is functional and feels more "alive".

Interesting to read about the pp who moved to "dream" location and regretted it. I fantasise about living on the South coast but I suspect it's actually a holiday I want! 😅

Windermere has always felt a bit grim to me - I live just outside the Lakes on the coast and it feels much nicer here - we have the ocean air and far fewer crowds even in the height of summer the beaches are deserted.

It's not really a local town for local people - it's built on tourism and that's what sustains it. There isn't much else there really.