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Sydney's Living Space Is Depressing Her
6/25/2012 6:00:16 PM
Dear Dr. Archer,
I'm a young woman in my mid 20's with a strange phobia for certain places. There are certain places that just depress me. These places don't necessarily have to be eye sores or in bad shape. I just have a general dislike towards them; they can be either residential or public places.
 
For example, when I lived with my parents I was depressed most of the time because, for some unexplained reason, I just didn't like our house. My crazy reason was that it was situated near the mountains and very quiet. For some reason, that depressed me. It was a beautiful house, well decorated, but I hated living there.
 
Now I'm living on my own. I loved the first place I lived for the past six months, but I moved to a new place yesterday. I thought I liked, but now am starting to feel depressed and I'm already dying to move out.

It feels like a prison cell, and I miss my old place. Last night I had to sleep at my boyfriend's because I didn't want to sleep at my new place because of the depressing atmosphere.
 
I haven't told my boyfriend I'm already hating the new place for fear of him thinking I'm crazy. I only moved in a day ago and he went through all the trouble of helping me move my things. 

Don't get me wrong -- there are places that don't depress me, like my last place. I only moved because of a minor electricity issue, but I'm hating this new place, though when I first saw it I was happy about it. Now I'd do anything to get out of this prison.
 
Is this normal? Am I normal for feeling this way? Is there something wrong with me? If someone asked me why I didn't like my new place, I don't have an answer for them. It just depresses me! 

I'm at work right now and am not looking forward to going home. I'm starting to think I'm crazy because it doesn't make sense and people would say I should be thankful that I have a decent place to stay.
 
Can a residential place affect someone's mood this much? The thought of being stuck in this place for the next few months is depressing me already. Also, finding a new place in this area is not easy. Help!
Sydney
 
Dear Sydney,
You are clearly a highly intuitive person, and are very sensitive to your surroundings. Energy is all around us, and when you learn to balance the forces around you within your given space, you can become the master of your life. 

Using the ancient art and the science of Feng Shui can help make your home and work environment your place of well being, contentment and peace.

Feng Shui is the art of balancing energies within any given space. What we want you to have is balanced energy and a comforting flow within your new apartment. 

When furniture, light, air and accessories are placed strategically, you will be able to feel a sense of well being every time you walk through your door. That is your objective here. 
   
Check out Your House & Home Feng Shui: How To Get Started which gives you the seven initial steps in creating peace and balance within your living environment. Never overlook the benefits of good quality air and light. These two elements are essential for good energy. 

Open windows, air-purifying plants or an air purifier can help. Get the benefits of as much natural light into your home as possible. 

Check out Feng Shui Furniture Placement. This site will walk you step by step how to place your furniture and accessories to best guide and control the energy within your living space. For a highly intuitive person like yourself, how you arrange your furniture can create the coziness, calm and contentment that you're seeking. 
                                                                                           
As I said before, Sydney, you're highly intuitive, so be in tune with your inner voice. After you make some changes within your apartment to balance the energies within it's walls, you might actually decide you love the place. Feng shui can make all the difference in the world and you might end up living there for a long time. 
 
However, if you do decide to move again, look ahead and spend some time in the next place before actually moving in. Visit the apartment several times and feel the energy within the walls. 

Ask if you can spend the night there before moving in. Your gut will tell you if it is right for you. Follow your instincts, Sydney, because they are strong! Folks with strong intuition such as you need to listen to that inner self.
 
Remember, "What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you do now.”  ~Buddha. All the best,
Dr. Archer
Posted by: Dr. Dale Archer | Submit comment | Tell a friend

Categories: Anxiety  |  Depression  |  Stress

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4 Comments
Lola
6/25/2012 6:38:02 PM
Great advice, Dr. Archer! I agree it's very important to visit the place at night before deciding if you like it. Many places are made downright creepy once light is no longer coming in the windows. Also, aside from Feng Shui, she may be intuitive and empathic enough that she is picking up some bad energy in the home from past tenants. The residual energy may still be very strong.

One thing to remember is that sensitives say clutter traps bad energy, and creates it as well. If you just moved in, my guess is you have boxes everywhere and the place is in disarray. Unpack as soon as possible, do all that stuff Dr. Archer said to do, plus open all the windows and give the place a good airing out. Have people over for a fun evening as soon as you have it all arranged, because having your friends and yourself in there doing fun things will change the energy of the place immediately.

This may sound a little crazy, but I have a talk with a place as soon as I move in. If it seems sad, I tell it I'm going to make it happy again, and I have faith that my strong energy will dominate once I get all my stuff put up and take over and that any bad energy will have to fade into the background. I ask the house not to do anything that scares me and if it needs to tell me anything, to do it in a nice way in a dream.

As you can tell, I'm quite what most people would call superstitious about these things, and I've always been very careful what I moved into. It could be perfect but if the vibe is off, I won't go there. The house I eventually bought and have been in well over a decade had a depressing past. I bought it without being allowed to look into one of the bedrooms a young woman had locked herself in. I knew the father had recently died because the wife told me in her broken English.

It was after I'd moved in and began looking at the physical evidence and talking to neighbors that I pieced together why the house was sad. At a shopping center, the father had shot and killed the sister-in-law for corrupting his daughter, the one locked in the room. Then he killed himself.

When I arrived, the bedroom door the young woman had been in had (I counted) 100 nails driven into the door and door jam and wall from inside her room trying to keep her father out. Only a few of them were placed such that they held the door shut. The door was in splinters in the center where he had tried to break through it. One window wouldn't shut all the way (was 2 inches down from the top and is still stuck there!) Outside that window, I found a prybar and icepick used to try to force the locked window open.

There were little slide locks added to the OUTSIDE of the bedroom doors, as if someone was locking the grown kids in there.

The most peculiar thing was outside. There were dead branches wired to the chain link fence all around, for privacy, I assume, or maybe to discourage climbing over? A tree out front was totally topped (something you should never do to a tree, cut it horizontally off high up), and neighbors told me he was always trying to get them to let him "trim" their trees. He needed more branches for the fence, you see.

There were a few fish still alive left behind in a disconnected aquarium, left to die.

So it was a sad house, indeed, and just as I do when I take in a new animal, I vowed to make it happy again, and I feel the house has worked with me to put its dark past behind it. I believe by bringing joy into your home and light and air and life, you will make this place your own. Just keep having fun there until there's more good energy than bad!
DDA
7/1/2012 12:05:45 AM
Sounds like the place was a true challenge, Lola and I’m glad you were successful in resurrecting the happiness within. Great story!
Lola
7/3/2012 6:04:55 PM
You know, after I wrote about it, I was reliving the first day I looked at my house. I had been looking for two years, was on a tight budget, so it wasn't going to be fancy. I had had a contract with a realtor to help me look. She kept trying to shove me into homes I didn't want and said I'd never be able to find what I wanted at my price. I had just gotten finished with her and decided since it was late spring and I didn't want to move in 100-degree weather, I'd stop looking for the summer, but thought first I would make one drive through my two preferred neighborhoods. On impulse, I decided to ask spirits to help me, and I was mostly addressing my many deceased pets. I asked them to help me find a home good for me and my dog.

The next day I drove to a neighborhood, and the first "for sale" home I came to was a "for sale by owner." That's why the realtor wouldn't have shown it to me. I went home to call the number on the sign and made an appointment to see the house.

I walked into the living room (roomy and wood floors), through to the kitchen (old), then through the kitchen to what was a converted patio, now a rough room with windows all around. They were using it to put their trash in and had not fixed the very leaky ceiling. As soon as I saw this broken down back room where my office now is that looked out onto the back yard, I knew I was buying the house. I hadn't even seen the bedrooms yet. As I mentioned in the prior post, there was some talk about her deceased husband, and I remember the sadness of the house and another energy, a sort of weak but frenetic energy -- but underneath it there was a different energy, a more serene energy. It was like the sun behind clouds. Within 10 minutes of arrival, I made a verbal contract with the owner.

I now think the other energy I was feeling was probably the original owners of the house. From time to time, when I'm laying in bed watching TV, I will smell a floral perfume right next to me. I think it's the woman visiting her old home. It never seems intrusive, and I don't intrude back.

I always believed my dead pets led me to this house. They knew what I needed to accommodate future pets. My old dog at the time was positively rabid about squirrels, but the house came with a pet squirrel out in the cedar tree right out the back door who had no fear of her or me and would lay on a low branch unperturbed, even if I leaned on it right up next to him with my head level with him, and he didn't flinch when my lab mix would leap up trying to scare him. He would lay on that branch draped over it like a sack of feed, limbs dangling. I always secretly thought that squirrel might be where my pets got some of their info, their "informant," if you will. At any rate, he was with us for many years and I watched sadly as he slowed down while continuing to try to run his route, and then finally just ran out of steam. I keep a little squirrel portrait in my office in memory that I found at a garage sale nearby.

I haven't had the money to keep everything up with the house as I need to, peeling paint and need a new flat roof, but one thing that never changes is how much I enjoy sitting at my desk typing as I am now while looking out at the back yard, now blooming with magenta and pink crepe myrtles and watch the birds and squirrels, cat, and dogs laze and play in this room that apparently meant nothing more than trash storage to the prior owners. People are funny, aren't they?

DDA
8/5/2012 7:03:16 PM
Your home sounds interesting, Lola. Great job!
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