to be heartbroken

[MonnaLIza]

It's a beautiful, sunny day. I am healthy. I have a new job, which I love. I also love my DH and kids and I am loved by them. We own a good home, a 'machine for living in', with room for everyone, and we can afford food and occasional treats such as days out and holidays. We bake bread, make muffins (which sometimes turn out to be edible) and go support our local football team. We are all reasonably educated and articulate, fully tax solvent and in socially meaningful professions (that's me and DH, our kids are in education).

And yet, there is a definitely low mood in the house today, and this is not just because I am recovering from clinical depression. Today, even if nothing seems different, is the first day of my life as an 'outsider'. I am no longer a EU citizen in my own country but officially an 'other'. An immigrant.

I am now somebody who needs to prove their right to be here, in their own home. Another layer of bureaucracy, more practical struggles. But it's the change in my 'status' that breaks my heart. I am no longer part of this country which I have made my home for the last twenty years.

Yes, I have 'settled status', an invisible document, which I have obtained in a much less easy way that the government would like you to think (for instance I could not use my iPhone to register as it only worked on android phones). An invisible document which proclaims to be valid until it's valid. No doubt in the future there will be more hoops to jumps, more papers to fill and i just hope these hoops and jumps will come when I am fit, young and tech-savy enough to be able to jump them.

I will, of course, snap out of this, but at the moment I am, I think not unreasonably, heartbroken.

And my biggest heartbreak is not for me - Katie Hopkins compared immigrants to cockroaches for our resilience and, ultimately, I am resilient. When I realised the industry I was in was getting destroyed by Brexit and austerity I got another job. I have qualifications and skills. I will survive in my immigrant-coackrochy ways.

No, my biggest heartbreak is for Britain itself, for the people who have been interviewed on TV who are celebrating Brexit without being able to articulate one single benefit of it to their life. I have lived in this country long enough to have seen another Britain, a multicultural, vibrant, accepting country, where having an accent and coming from somewhere else was considered an exciting, interesting thing. I can still see that in some enlightened places, which are increasingly engulfed by the darkness of 'patriotism'.

I guess I am heartbroken because I had not only imagined a brighter future, I had seen how great things can be, and now the lights are going off.

We are discussing moving to Scotland or Ireland. It would be easy for me and my DH but harder on their kids. They are born in England, they are English. What to do - stay and resists? Move?

I do not know yet. I will know soon, we will talk and make plans.

But today I am heartbroken.

I have also to make another clarification. I came here in the early years of the new century sponsored from the Italian government to do a year abroad as part of my professional training - the plan was to be here for a bit and then move on, to Italy or somewhere else. But I met someone! Because I speak English and being younger my career was still flexible we decided to stay in the UK, also there was Berlusconi in Italy and Tony here so the choice also politically was a damn sight lovelier in these shores.

More importantly, at the time what you call 'immigration' was not an issue. We felt we were the same. Like different regions of the same country. We still feel the same. The same love. The same kinship. We are still Europeans.

You are welcome here OP and you are a valued member of this country and that hasn't changed. If you live in a part of England where you feel unwelcome, I am sorry about that. Where I live in the SE life is very diverse and almost everyone is either from somewhere else, married to someone from somewhere else, or at least have friends and neighbours who were born outside the UK, but who have chosen to make this country their home and raise their family here. I feel sad too and I understand your despondency, but many of us (arguably 48% of us), didn't vote for this, still don't it, but have to go along with it. That's almost half.

Katie Hopkins is lower than a snake’s belly, comparing immigrants to cockroaches.

How on earth can a person who emigrates to a new country, leaving behind the culture they’ve grown up with, customs, family, friends, even familiar foods be anything other than admirably strong?

I wish I had half the resilience of people like you OP!

I'm heartbroken too today and was born here 💔. So sorry for you OP, I cannot imagine how horrible it must feel 😢🇪🇺❤️

We are still Europeans.

Yes we are! We may be out of the EU (which is a trading block), but we're not out of Europe.

I know I’m going to get totally flamed, but all of my Italian friends are having the same reaction as you. And one has got so emotional about it she’s refusing to do the paperwork, in some kind of odd defiance. Tears and shouting from a few of them, taking it EXTREMELY personally. ( I seem to have a lot of Italian friends)

All of my German friends are much more pragmatic and fine with the paperwork. I have 4 German friends

My French friends/ colleagues haven’t even really mentioned it.

But these are just my friends 🤷‍♀️

The rules have changed but you are as welcome as ever. Sorry you feel like this.

I’m not sure if the “you” is me, OP, when you say “at the time what you call immigration”.

Why do you think you, and Italian, should be allowed to jump through no hoops to stay in the UK, to “feel the same. The same love. The same kinship” versus someone from (let’s pick a recent example that you’ll be personally aware of, living in the UK) the Windrush countries?

You’re talking about “the same love”. The people of the Windrush tragedy are talking about lost livelihoods, fractured families, deportation, homelessness, loss of identity, decades of taxes paid rendered meaningless, broken hollow promises, decisions the consequences of which reverberate down the generations - cruel, heartless, brazen racist immigration policies.

It really doesn’t compare. You’re a much luckiest immigrant than they.

I don’t blame you for being depressed OP. My Mum has been here over 60 years (from the Netherlands originally) she settled her because she fell in love with and married an Englishman. Last year when applying for pension credit and a council tax reduction due to her husband suffering dementia and being in a home she had a humiliating three hour interrogation at her local council offices in Cumbria.. As well as personal stuff about her relationships, she was asked ridiculous questions about what the weather was like on her second visit here in 1959 etc. Basically treated like an illegal immigrant.

However the vast majority of people here in London at least are accepting of everyone and welcomes their contribution. My husbands niece recently moved to London from Ireland and already feels accepted as a Londoner and not an economic migrant or ‘blow in’.

Please stay you’re welcome and we need you. Don’t let the views of a few bigots who are either terminally thick, selfish, racist or all three shape your view.

I have, of course, full solidarity and respect with the Windrush generation. I am aware of this kind of things. They happen frequent enough in history. My grandmother was called the Italian equivalent of Sarah Cohen in Italy in the 1940s... I can tell you a long sad story of my family's various losses in Italy. We should join together and not make a competition of who is being worse off.

@7salmonswimming why is this a race to the bottom? The OP has every right to feel as she does, the fact that the Windrush scandal happened doesn't mean she should just suck it up!

But potentially she needs to be slightly less dramatic and a bit more pragmatic.

Why would you root up your children because you feel upset you don’t feel wanted (even though it’s not about you) and you had to do some paperwork

It’s fucking sad we are leaving but this country has always had its current attitude it’s nothing new. And this country is still a great place to live.

Hand hold. I also feel incredibly sad too and cried when I saw the footage projected on the white cliffs. My dh is french. He said it wasn’t a time to cry. But to sit back and watch them fuck it up. Hopefully in several years, we will get a different and more tolerant government.

Don’t do anything rash and move away so soon. I get it’s tough for you. But this is just a blip and it will get better. Dh has changed jobs and is surrounded by a lot of Europeans at his work. So in a way he’s finding it easier, I think. Do you have any like minded friends or colleagues?

@7salmonswimming
Your contribution is really shit. Everything is relative. You have no right to tell op what to feel and that she shouldn’t feel bad.

I'm so sorry this is happening to you OP. I'm ashamed to be English and we're an embarrassment right now.

My partner is also an EU citizen and feels so uneasy and unwelcome every day, despite the contribution he makes to society.

We're tapped here unfortunately because I have shared custody of my children with my ex husband, but as soon as they're adults I'll be leaving. I can't bear to be associated with this bullshit.

Get a grip.

In Australia we are unaffected by Brexit (although we are back twice a year), however I am happy it has occurred and am watching (along with the rest of the UK) to see what happens in the next year or two.

Not that I'd wish what European Citizens are feeling and experiencing on anyone, but just for a moment, imagine the Australian Government changes to one that has got there on the promise of getting rid of all those Brits who have put house prices up, taken Australian jobs, etc, etc - and your original right to live there, given perfectly legally and through going through the correct and legal procedures, is revoked unless you go through a new, sloppily-executed application process. You have to additionally apply for the first time for any children you have at the same cost for a six year old as a working adult (including any that have born there), you have to both have jobs paying more than you earn and your 17 year old will have to get a job paying the same whilst still in education. Oh, and if you ever got a parking ticket or paid tax a day late, you're a person of dubious character and will fail the application.

Mind you, if that happened and you no longer had the right to reside in the country you have made your life in, there's a good possibility that you could be refused reentry into the UK as you are now an immigrant here, too.

These things are often seen as 'nothing, all a fuss' until they affect the person saying that. Then all of a sudden, it's bad and unfair.

OP, YANBU. And I (and half the country) are desperately sorry that you are being treated like this.

OFGS I am sat in a hospital with my 17 year old in intensive care with a head injury. That is heartbroken!

Remember that Scotland welcomes New Scots as we need immigrants. If you live here and contribute to the country, then you are a Scot. There is even a group of English Scots For Yes!

@mitzkick
WTAF
I think you might be living in a different country to me. Because last I heard no one with any power at least and certainly not the government wants to get rid of those awful Europeans.

The op isn’t being treated badly. She’s been made to fill out some paperwork. Nothing will change for her. Nothing at all.
You’re all sounding batshit now.

Nothing wrong with being upset, I am, extremely so, it’s horrible to be British and no longer European
But seriously get a fucking grip.

"Don't you see that if we allowed uncontolled [sic] immigration in the UK then non-Christians like you (and me) would be unwelcome in the UK too." - ? I don't get this! - ?? I do not think it is 'uncontrolled immigration' but the inflammatory press and social injustice that creates hate amongst the poor.