Is Seattle Depressing?
Question:
I moved to Seattle to renew my life, yet I’ve been as depressed as ever. Shouldn’t I be less vulnerable in a beautiful place like this?
Answer:
I encounter people in this situation regularly. Seattle is a city of transplants, and the adjustment is not always quick or easy. Here are several reasons we could designate a special “Seattle depression” for newcomers in the the Emerald City.
First of all, moving sucks. You may have escaped a messy family situation and a doomed marriage, a rotten job and hell-hole physical setting, but you’ve come to a place where you don’t know many people. Isolation correlates with depression. Often, being with irritating people who you know may still better for your mood than being alone. Seattle has a reputation as a place where people are generally insular and hard to get to know. Whether or not the reputation is deserved your feeling blue and insecure will not help your efforts to integrate.
But I’m an introvert, you may say. People are a pain, and I like to be alone! Just the same, being human, you have tribalism in your genes. You don’t have to change you personal nature, but you might benefit by adjusting your patterns of affilliation.
Besides the isolation that comes with moving, you have disrupted your usual routines. Routine is good for your mood, plain and simple. Humdrum activity is still activity. It gives a sense of purpose it keeps you in motion and it lends structure to your day, whereas now that structure may be hard to come by.
The reduced light that comes with our long winters is undeniably a factor in depression, but an overblown one in my opinion. The problem with winter is not just the reduced sunlight but the fact that we don’t move around as much. Physical activity is good medicine for depression and it just doesn’t come as easily in the Seattle winter. If you get a boost from taking walks in the summer, get a good parka and don’t let the went winter stop you.
All the disruption, lack of routine, reduced activity, seperation and isolation contributes to a sense of anomie – a breakdown in the usual social norms and standards that give us a sense of regulation, stability and belonging. Even a slight sense of dysregulation and weakened structure adds to anxiety.
As I have mentioned several times before, depressed people ruminate to try to find answers. Ruminating is a vortex. It gives the allusion that we are seeking answers when in fact we’re moving farther from solutions.
You can place all blame the nature of the city if you wish. But if depression is the fault of this locale, we would have a measurably higher rate of depression. We don’t. Incidentally, the only city with a measurably higher rate of suicide is Los Vegas.
So what is to be done? As Mark Twain stated, “It takes a heap of livin’ to make a house a home”. You may need a plan to direct your activity more productively, to find more connection, gratification and pleasure, and tune your thinking to be less depressive. Then, you can begin feeling like you belong, perhaps even like it would be depressing to leave. CBT or cognitive-behavioral therapy is a practical way to do this.
April 13th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I used to live in Florida and often heard the “it will be depressing in Seattle due to the rain and lack of sun”. After I moved, I still get this question from friends back in the sunshine state. Honestly, I completely agree with your comments that the effects of the winters here are overstated. It rains much more in Florida, Miami in particular – and the rain in Florida is dangerous rain with lightening. Here, it’s like a gentle mist. You can go out with a raincoat and not get drenched or electrocuted. I also don’t miss the sun. It’s so hot in Miami, you usually spend lots of time indoors or in malls – just to escape the heat. I think the weather her is just lovely.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I’ve seen to Seattle, and I really liked it. It has somewhat of a European vibe, the kind you’d find in Scandinavia: relatively cool climate, high technology, coffee drinking, modernistic architecture, and excellent combination of city and country. At the same time, I think it’s safe to say that Seattle is *a lot* more forgiving socially than Miami, Florida could ever be. In Miami, there seems to be a lot pressure to be the best, with all the glitz and glamour surrounding you all the time. (But I’m sure it’s much worse in southern California.) Seattle seems very laid back. I’ve been told I can be eccentric (my friends’ word) at times, and I felt comfortable the minute I stepped off the plane in the Seattle airport. In Orlando, Florida, I was harassed by strangers on the street with no provocation on my part whatsoever.
My advice to you is to give it some time. You’re not going to feel right at home in a new city right away. Take some classes on a topic you enjoy, like Asian cooking or Rumba dancing, for example. Join a few political organizations that you agree with. Basically, don’t spend time at home unless you really want to, as opposed to when you have no other alternatives. And if you’re really getting depressed, see a shrink (just not one of those who won’t say anything other than “I see” and “how does that make you feel”).
September 3rd, 2009 at 6:52 pm
I came upon this question a few minutes ago, and damn if you didn’t take the words out of my mouth. I’ve been here three years now, and there’s something I’m not getting. When you do get close to someone, they rip your heart out for sport. No matter how cool you play it. No matter if and when you choose to be vulnerable. It feels like a bunch of people who never got to be in a clique growing up, now starting a clique where new kids aren’t welcome. Whats more, they know what they’re doing. They want you to feel their insecurity. And the dark and cold is rough. Thanks for putting the question out there. I’ve been wallowing for a couple days now and the question answer and my little rant hepled.
October 10th, 2009 at 8:01 am
Are you serious? Is this the best advise this site can give? Go to New York, Miami, Boston there are “transplants” there as well and you know if you care to visit those towns are not nearly as cold socially as Seattle. The problem here is the locals or whatever you want to label them relocate here to be away from the rest of our normal fellow countrymen. People here are extremely clique, introverted, self-absorbed and continuously deny that their are serious social issues with its inhabitants. Example hold the door for someone, dont expect a thank you. Example 2 have a conversation for an hour expecting to make a friend or acquaintance but when its over people here act like they dont even know you. Neighbors are very unfriendly and people push a liberal political agenda on all the residents. Its a very disturbing place to live and its full of mentally ill individuals everywhere. I look forward to leaving and never returning. People here dont have the backbone to take an true perspective on their city so I hope my comments prove there is hope for a free independent evaluation by a 4 year + resident…….
March 9th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
I moved here form Colorado in 2003… since then my lfe has been abosolutelu miserable. I was a very happy, carefree person… loved the outdoors and loved life. Since moving to Seattle I have been depressed and find it hard to enjoy hte manyu activities I loved so much at one time in my life. The people here are evil and Christianity is very rare here the Emerald City! You can have it back… I hate it here and will be glad to leave!!!!!
April 11th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
I completely agree with Joe Reality’s comments about the door-opening and the hour long conversations that lead to the forced awkward anonymity the next time you meet . This is because of one notion that permeates Seattle. It’s the unbelievable sense of entitlement and the cheap thought that one should get something for nothing.
I owned a floral delivery business for a couple of years, had a few employees, and I can honestly say that there were fewer than a dozen tips.
The ‘cute flakiness’ that Seattleites employ when they find that they can’t get something for nothing is revolting, and the fact that I have lived at the same address for the last twelve years, and know three neighbors surfacely is proof of community social retardation.
Okay. I have lived in Seattle most of my life now, and I feel as though the last little bit of buffer I have between myself and the raw nerves that have come from being in such a geek/$/uber leftist clique of a city, with all of its sub-cliques, are just about threadbare. I have tried to conform myself, at least enough to be comfortably uncomfortable, and it’s like living a lie. Every damned day I deal with seeing how much time I have spent trying to create friendships, build community, and generally try and imrpove the ill-manneredness of a place where this is not only not a concern, but the main message seems to be that if you have enough money, you don’t have to connect to anyone for any reason.
People swarm here because with all of its ‘liberal, pc’ exterior. Yet, there is a sad amount of personal responsibility not being taken to actually create and foster a human base, common sense politics, and the realization that relationship is everything—all else is furniture.
Sometimes people come here because they know this is the way it is here, and they know they can live in peace here because it is the social norm to be an etiquettedly challenged politiclly correct mannerless drones.
Others find out sadly after they invest time, money, energy and nerve moving here. They are the most unfortunate of our lot, as they are shocked into reality. I cannot begin to expound upon how many people I have met throughout the years that are angry, bewildered, or near tears about their own feelings of being mysteriously ostracized, and segregated for seemingly rampant, yet confoundedly unknown reasons.
As well, people complain about being lonely here, they go to docs to get pills, or they lavish you with all sorts of self-involved blathery, when in fact, the real truth is that we are not alone, we are all human, and if we spent a fraction of the time developing social skill and manners, along with the perimeters and boundaries that naturally come with them, as we do devising ways to avoid others, we would be a better place.
This being said, I am almost done with my attempt at developing myself in this environment, and I have been, until now, so reluctant to let go of my idea about this classist, socially unevolved place. A place where the subculture is mitigated by the sub-clique-ture. I realize this may sound like I hate Seattle.
I don’t.
I think there are a great many things about a place this beautiful—but the social culture is not one of them.
I don’t hate Seattle.
No.
I am just…heartbrokenly disappointed.
IF you are someone who has the urge to employ your precious life energy into a cause, think deeply and thoroughly about whether Seattle deserves it. I am all for Seattle transforming, but I have to say that one should make an INFORMED decision when one can.
-MC
June 9th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
I’ve always dreamed about going to seattle….I work on it everyday, trying to get there. I’ve lived in new york for most of my life and I hate it. The only positive thing here is the city. Thats it…..people are horrible here. I’m hoping they will be better in Seattle….i can only hope though.