I’m suffering from a serious case of Sydney Syndrome, and I don’t think I’m alone.

What, you’ve never heard of it? Think of it as a reverse version of its Swedish cousin, Stockholm Syndrome, in which captives infamously fall in love with their captors.

Sydney Syndrome, on the other hand, involves falling out of love with the city, rather than a person, that is holding you hostage.

It wasn’t always this way, of course. My childhood memories are filled with sepia snapshots of the hours spent in the back of a Holden Commodore, sandwiched between my two older sisters as we headed north in search of summer-holiday bliss.

I’d find myself looking out the window (a lot; this was the early 1990s, and Steve Jobs was still knocking out desktop computers the size of hatchbacks, not iPads) at the little beach towns we’d pass along the way.

Places like Forster, Coffs Harbour or Nambucca Heads would stroll past, and I’d always be struck by the same thought; I’m so glad I live in Sydney.

I don’t want that to sound conceited (I was too young even to spell that emotion) because those towns are beautiful, and so are their residents (except for that one Nelson Muntz-type who, swinging a flotation noodle like a baseball bat, ran me out of a motel pool he’d claimed as his own – I haven’t forgotten you, Mr Green Shorts).

It was more that the wide-eyed wonder I saw in the faces of local kids when I talked about life in the big smoke always filled me with a swelling pride at living in the most exciting city in Australia, if not the world.

And for a long time, it genuinely was exciting. But more importantly, there was perhaps no other truly global city on Earth where life was quite so kind to its residents – what with the endless sunshine, laid-back lifestyle and a cost of living that hadn’t yet ventured to a place where illicit organ dealing felt like a reasonable way to break into the property market.

This year, however, I turned 35, and Sydney Syndrome hit me hard, as I realised I wished I’d been born anywhere other than the cramped, expensive, traffic-clogged city my hometown has slowly, but surely, devolved into.

The reasons are many, but let’s start with the median house price of, as I type, $1,101,532 (that’s about 10 times the average family income in NSW). My chances of paying off any kind of home in a single lifetime are so microscopic it would be easier to spot an angel dancing on the head of an atom.

And there’s more, of course; Sydney is becoming overly ugly, it’s outrageously expensive at every turn, and you can’t travel more than five traffic-clogged kilometres without encountering another monstrous toll that has your wallet whimpering.

The truth I’ve come to realise is that I just don’t recognise the place any more.

Ours had always felt like a city electrified by an endlessly positive attitude. Now we seem to trudge around, shoulders slumped under the shared weight of our impossibly hefty mortgages or rental agreements, and from one of the worst work-life balances in the developed world to pay for life in Australia’s most expensive city.

Yes, I know how these things usually go. Just another whinging millennial complaining about life in Sydney. If I hate it so much, why don’t I pack up my avocados and leave?

But that’s the point; I can’t.

For one, I am an uncle to a beautiful niece and nephew, brother to two sisters and son to two parents who, as they accumulate years, I want to spend more time with than ever. My entire social network exists within greater Sydney, too, as does my work life.

And by some combination of dumb luck and an eye-watering mortgage, I have somehow found myself clinging to the lowest rung of the property ladder by my fingernails, and I’m afraid of never being able to re-enter the market should I choose to leave.

But I still flashback to those car trips, and those picturesque towns, and find myself wishing it had been me staring back with wonder at a stranger’s tales of Sydney life.

Because I’d now find myself surrounded by friends and family somewhere smaller and nicer; an across-town trip wouldn’t involve two hours of powerless, punishing rage. And with a median house price hovering around $400,000 in our coastal towns, actual home ownership might be an achievable dream.

So that’s what Sydney Syndrome is – the feeling of living in a city for which your love is fading, but which is now holding you hostage. Now, tell me, who else is suffering?