Discussion The suburbs

[hurts2b]

Anyone else feel like the suburbs are a huge theme in your suicidal thinking?

I grew up in suburban environments (but without all the privileges and riches that normally entails, my childhood was complicated).

I feel like suburban environments are so uniquely dystopian in a way that's hard to articulate for people who haven't experienced it.

I'm currently stuck there in the suburbs (trying to escape). It's not the same location I grew up in but it's exactly the same, if that makes any sense at all.

 

[eggsausagerice]

after moving from a dingy miami apartment with rats and roaches to a texas suburb, i think i genuinely prefer the rats and roaches. it's so miserable living here and having no license or job makes me feel socially stunted. everyone that lives in a suburb needs to be driven around, otherwise they can't leave their house at all. it's miserable, isolating, and incredibly lonely. if i just lived anywhere else or somewhere with more people i'd be able to build a community, but i can't. suburbs breed paranoia, self-loathing, and despair. you never see the people that moved away ever again because they never want to step foot in your neighborhood once they know what the real world is like. if reincarnation exists i just hope i won't be forced to live in a suburb again. i've had suicidal urges since high school and it feels like living in a suburb only heightened the feeling that if i started screaming or ran into houses no one would care, but everyone would see me as a nuisance.

 

[stopMotionSickness]

I keep hearing this take, but idk I found it to be exactly opposite. I grew up in a suburb then moved to a city (a pretty good city at that, according to livability indices) for university. In the city, I feel constantly watched. Even when I'm alone in my apartment, the walls are thin enough that any noise I make I know will be heard by at least like 5 people. Any club (like debate or geology) I go to is filled with super social and successful people that just make me feel like a complete alien. There's no trees, no singing birds, no wind through the leaves, and no stars out at night. It doesn't make sense to keep a car here, and even if I did, the streets aren't anything relaxing to drive through. I used to love cruising around to ease my nerves back home, but the traffic and noise never stops in the city. I used to love hiking with the clubs back home too, and I loved how cozy the community felt, even if everyone lived further apart at home. Not to mention, food was a lot cheaper to get at grocery stores compared to the city. Idk maybe I've got some kind of terminal introversion or something.

 

[hurts2b]

I keep hearing this take, but idk I found it to be exactly opposite. I grew up in a suburb then moved to a city (a pretty good city at that, according to livability indices) for university. In the city, I feel constantly watched. Even when I'm alone in my apartment, the walls are thin enough that any noise I make I know will be heard by at least like 5 people. Any club (like debate or geology) I go to is filled with super social and successful people that just make me feel like a complete alien. There's no trees, no singing birds, no wind through the leaves, and no stars out at night. It doesn't make sense to keep a car here, and even if I did, the streets aren't anything relaxing to drive through. I used to love cruising around to ease my nerves back home, but the traffic and noise never stops in the city. I used to love hiking with the clubs back home too, and I loved how cozy the community felt, even if everyone lived further apart at home. Idk maybe I've got some kind of terminal introversion or something.

What year were you born? I'm an 06' and grew up with universal surveillance, thin walls, and global surveillance already implemented and normalized, even in rural places.

 

[stopMotionSickness]

What year were you born? I'm an 06' and grew up with universal surveillance, thin walls, and global surveillance already implemented and normalized, even in rural places.

Without saying too much, I'll say we're similar enough in age. I agree public surveillance has been huge, but not in your own home, no? Also when I go exploring places, I've found plenty of local parks and gaps of undeveloped land, which don't have surveillance. Also I didn't quite mean "watched" as in surveillance, I mean more like I have to restrain my behavior from doing anything even slightly "weird" because it will be heard/seen by people immediately around me, and prompt a painfully awkward social situation. If I can choose to not be around people, I find it makes it a lot easier to then choose to be around people.

 

[hurts2b]

Without saying too much, I'll say we're similar enough in age. I agree public surveillance has been huge, but not in your own home, no? Also when I go exploring places, I've found plenty of local parks and gaps of undeveloped land, which don't have surveillance. Also I didn't quite mean "watched" as in surveillance, I mean more like I have to restrain my behavior from doing anything even slightly "weird" because it will be heard/seen by people immediately around me, and prompt a painfully awkward social situation.

Fair enough. I guess I'm just less sensitive to social pressure and more sensitive to automated privacy violations.

I never thought too much about what my immediate circle wanted from me but I always felt uniquely recorded in a suburban environment. Sort of like recordings were public records and reputations were private ones. All while neither were beneficial or escapable. It wasn't in my own home but many neighbors had ring cameras and there were signs everywhere reminding me that I was being watched.

I used to have a patch of forest I felt safe in while I was living in my hometown. It got sold off and privatized.

 

[stopMotionSickness]

Fair enough. I guess I'm just less sensitive to social pressure and more sensitive to automated privacy violations.

I suspect it's more of a me problem; yours is the opinion I've heard a lot more, even among suburb people.

It wasn't in my own home but many neighbors had ring cameras and there were signs everywhere reminding me that I was being watched.

Which is kinda funny to me, since ring and security cameras are actually much denser in cities (like they caught almost all of Luigi Mangione's escape by pulling a bunch of ring/security camera footage). But I think I know what you mean, maybe it really is more insidious when everyone treats strangers so defensively when it comes to their own home.

I used to have a patch of forest I felt safe in while I was living in my hometown. It got sold off and privatized.

That sucks! Everyone should have a good patch of forest to retreat to :(

 

[hurts2b]

That sucks! Everyone should have a good patch of forest to retreat to :(

That's the saddest thing imo. The whole town used to walk their dogs there and now it's just some rich asshole's 3 acre lawn. A lot of trees got bulldozed.

Also, full disclosure, I'm not from the states so the environment is a little bit different. But paranoia around strangers is very real here culturally speaking.