Do you think Brexit has affected your mental health?

[Turniptracker]

Was discussing in the car with my partner yesterday about how I feel like Brexit is a constant low level source of anxiety and depression for me. The uncertainty, the lack of clear positives, it just feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel and I have no control over it.
Just wondered if other people felt the same way? That it's actually having a negative effect on their mental health?

Yes in a very literal way as my medication is having supply issues already. They are not sending my medication outside of mainland Europe for the foreseeable future I have been told !
It has affected my relationship with my leaver family and friends too

Have you tried getting help for your anxiety? You can get some workbooks on CBT which are very good.

Not in the slightest. I’ve barely given it any thought. I do expect there to be some upheaval and I am hoping that medicines will be ok as my DH is reliant on them but I don’t worry about what may or may not happen.

Yup.

It's a constant background dread. I, at 56, am in no position to 'start again'. All of our retirement plans are on hold; we have two young adult DSs whose prospects don't look great any more; we have a government lead by that cold-eyed bastard, Cummings, who has just openly revealed how he is going to, via timing alone, force through No Deal. He could not care less that he knows most people don't want it.

We now have all but no choice.

We live among people actually, genuinely do not care if other people's lives are fucked as a result. This whole sorry mess has revealed us for who we are under our blustery, 'tolerant' scaly skin.

I also worry for people like soola who do not understand what No Deal means.

Oh yes. I am now British, not by choice but by force. Just to ensure we are still able to live here with no consequences after Brexit.

While I don't understand that people voted Leave I do respect the decision. What I do not understand and hardly respect at all is the mayhem the government made of it.

And that politicians do not listen to all the people, people who know what they are talking about, what mess will happen if they don't stop a no deal.

Every time I open the papers and see headlines that a certain minister suddenly discovered the channel, others blaming the EU for lack of negotiations despite not doing anything themselves apart from a) blaming everyone else and b) thinking the UK is above everyone and they should bow to them.

I worry about my DD's future. She is bi-lingual and has theoretically two nationalities so she can go back to Germany for studies and the whole of the EU is open for her to work and live. But still, she sees the UK as her home.

And obviously all her other friends with only UK passports have been taken all chances away from them.

The NI/RPI border situation is a mess on its own. It's so bad that even the lobbyist in the US congress try to ensure no trade deal is made if the hard border is back in place.

It doeesn't say a lot for an education at Eton and Oxford based on the behaviour of our politicians.

Argh, rant over.

We have two young adult DSs whose prospects don't look great any more

Why don’t their prospects look good?

No. I'm very much a remainer, and I think Brexit is stupid and will have detrimental effects on the country. But affecting my mental health? Nope.

No, it hasn't affected my mental health. Were I reliant on medicines I'd certainly contact my GP if I could get an appointment or talk to the surgery.

I'd also ask what foodstuffs might be in short supply. I can't understand why the supermarkets (R4 today) are saying Christmas products will dominate their warehouses if food is what is needed.

Totally feel the same OP.

DH is from another EU country and we currently live in a third EU country. The idea that being able to live together is potentially going to be more complicated is stressful. Not knowing whether I am going to lose rights in the country we live is stressful.

We have put the kids on passports from his country which means he now has to provide a motorised permission letter for when I travel alone with them.

It is the trying to prepare something when nobody knows what it actually is we are preparing against which is really stressful.

Nope. I never worry about things I can't control. Waste of energy if you ask me!

We have two young adult DSs whose prospects don't look great any more

Why not? What do they do? I’m not worried about my kids future. If they stay here they’ll get a good job and if they want to work in Europe any decent company will get them a visa.

Yes, some, it's just more mental load. We can't predict what life will bring us, but this a huge area of uncertainty. I've been affected by medication shortages in the lead up to the March deadline and I feel sad and at times worried by the huge uprising of racism, hatred and the thought that we are led by people who appear to believe that fascism is the way forward.

Yes, like other others have said, I have a constant low level anxiety and worry about what's going to happen.

The feeling that there's absolutely nothing any of us can do about it makes it worse. And knowing that the for the people who want it it's like religion, they have blind faith based on no facts so there is no chance of reasoning with them and possibly changing their mind.

Worried about our DCs future, the effect on jobs, cost of living.

And am so angry that the people who are driving it, politicians and wealthy individuals behind the scenes are purely and only in for personal gain and they don't give a fuck about the country and the population, including the people they conned into voting for it.

I have to take regular breaks from the news, because I can't bear hearing about it day after day, it's just too depressing.

I've created my own little bubble where I don't think it will actually happen and I'm not going to burst it by facing reality however stupid that may seem. I've convinced myself there will be a miracle and Dominic Grieve et al will stop it at the 11th or 10th hour.

No not worried. No point in worrying about what you have no control over.
Don’t think it will be a unmitigated disaster. Certainly don’t think it will be sunlit uplands. Probably somewhere in the middle.

Nope, hasn't affected me in the slightest. There's sweet FA I can do about it, and I've trained myself to ignore the whole thing now.

And knowing that the for the people who want it it's like religion, they have blind faith based on no facts so there is no chance of reasoning with them.

Wow.

No - why worry about things you can't change, some people like to have something to fret about and if Brexit wasn't around there would be something else.

Applepieicecream - why would a company bother with UK candidates when they could just employ someone from the EU who doesn't need a visa?

Serious question. 2 candidates, equally qualified. UK candidate needs a load of paperwork. One doesn't need a visa. No ongoing hassle. Which do you choose?

Not worried at all, which surprises me as I have anxiety.
As a pp has said, it'll probably turn out somewhere in the middle between an unmitigated disaster and sunlit uplands.

Why worry over something none of us can control?

Nope, not in the slightest and I doubt my DW has even given Brexit a second thought let alone worry about it.

I feel pretty depressed - I think we’re heading for a recession. We (personally) really suffered from 2008 and the thought of similar happening again is awful.

We've noticed a massive upsurge in trade thanks to Brexit.

It's been really positive for our business.

Hopefully that will continue.

Peonies, I guess you're alright Jack?

*Experience of other major upheavals over the years helps to stop the headless chicken effect.

What sort of other things would you say were comparable, out of interest?*

The threat of nuclear annihilation via the Cold War ( practicing hiding under desks in schools, dear god the pointlessness,Protect and Survive leaflets distributed in 1980 to everyone ) the shitstorm that was 1970s politics ( 3 day week,no electricity, supplies actually running low in the shops rather than may, bodies not being buried) Black Monday when the ever onward growth of wealth was shown to be an utter illusion ( I turned up for training for a new job one day and it had vanished by the next.) Being next to and only
knocked off my feet by an IRA bomb, DH going missing for hours during one of the Tube bombings in the 2000s. The global banking system falling like dominoes in 2008 .......

Has made me realise that security of any kind is a bit of an illusion and literally what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

This is not a good for our country, for any of us, but the hysteria is ridiculous.

No, not at all.