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.

Thank you Sarcelle that is such a lovely thing to say. I think you are special too.

Oh that is such a shame. I do seem to be stuck. You are so right. It's all that form filling and jam making. I was stirring the jam like Nigella Faragella whilst filling forms to reside contemporarily in 27 EU countries + Britain and Norway and Iceland (I also added in a Green Card lottery for good measure) when the hot jam fell onto my forms and there I was stuck, stuck to the form, stuck to the floor and stuck in Britain forever.
The end.

I suspect you might find the NHS is under more strain once EU immigrants leave than it was before.

If they all leave you might be right, but that’s a very big if.

No one will be making them go anywhere. I’ll assume they still earn more in the UK and have a higher standard of living overall than wherever else in Europe they came from, hence why they are here. No one gives that up lightly once they’ve become accustomed to it. Certainly not completely voluntarily on some sort of offended principle. Those who do were probably always intending to go back home after a few years anyway and were just here riding out a period of austerity in their own country.

As the OP has demonstrated (and many non EU immigrants for that matter) you can still be very contemptuous and critical of the UK and the people in it, but want to stick around anyway, for your own self serving reasons. Principle is often what people say, not what they do.

in places like the gulf states virtually all their nurses, doctors, teachers and emergency service workers are expat with absolutely no rights to stay permanently and take citizenship. They stay for as long as they keep the job then they are obliged to leave the country. They go there because the money and in some respects the lifestyle is much better than at home. They know the deal and they go anyway. Believe it or not that’s how it works in many parts of the rest of the non EU world. It ticks over just fine, there are no massive staff shortages and the country doesn’t implode or wither and die for lack of freedom of movement. 🤷‍♀️

If we need to recruit NHS workers from outside the UK it will be done via the points system with equal consideration given to people from all over the world.

If EU citizens working in UK healthcare all leave in a fit of pique or suddenly become too principled or offended to want to apply on the same basis as everyone else, I can assure you there will be nurses from other non EU countries who will be very happy to plug that gap.

Also, OP are you feeling quite well?

Things have taken an odd turn. Maybe you were just on the the wrong end of a few Limoncella and Nightnurse cocktails last night but you seemed to be a bit delirious and er....weirdly verbose.

What makes me sound entitled? The fact that I am concerned that my destiny may be like a considerable amount of my Italian family who died because they had the wrong belief?

OP, Do you genuinely think this? Or is it hyperbole? It's a disturbing thing to say.

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

As someone who has lived in many different countries due to my job, this is rubbish. Countries that have zero immigrants are the most curious ime and the ones that have loads couldn’t care less

Totally agree Mango

I think it’s quite a few years since anyone in any area of England no matter how provincial or parochial has been remotely surprised or intrigued by a foreigner.

EU vets not otherwise connected to the UK are tending to move on/not come over. Recruitment crisis is getting silly - almost no experienced vets are applying for most jobs, let alone taking them.

Government plan is to recruit non-vets for public health roles and steal as many as possible from India...

in places like the gulf states virtually all their nurses, doctors, teachers and emergency service workers are expat with absolutely no rights to stay permanently and take citizenship.

That, frankly, is my idea of hell. It's exploitative and not anything we should measure ourselves by. We are infinitely better so let's not lower the bar to that eh?

I imagine the OP gets up, shouts a cheery Good morning fellow idealists, citizens of the world greeting, and tootles off through the day whilst the moronic hoards gasp in amazement of the sheer exoticness of somebody from another country. Oh how she brightens up the lives of the stolid and dense "locals" with her otherness.

I think this thread title needs to change from to be heartbroken to being hysterical. Talk about an over inflated sense of worth.

It’s not always necessarily exploitative song although I agree that sometimes it is. But for many people with a much needed skill or qualification that exploitation goes both ways. Everyone is in it for what they can get. If they don’t pay highly compared to home (whenever that is) then they don’t get the calibre of staff they need. Few people have any romanticised notions of assimilating and belonging to the country or the culture. They are there temporarily as a paid guest, nothing more. It’s purely a mutually beneficial contractual arrangement that suits both sides and everyone knows where they stand. Much like any other business arrangement. Obvious underhand practice and true exploitation apart, so see
no problem with it.

I’m not suggesting it’s a system we should adopt wholesale. I’m just pointing out that the NHS will not collapse once freedom of movement is removed and other countries manage to employ sufficient numbers of foreign healthcare staff without it. That’s all.

I was stirring the jam like Nigella Faragella whilst filling forms to reside contemporarily in 27 EU countries + Britain and Norway and Iceland (I also added in a Green Card lottery for good measure) when the hot jam fell onto my forms and there I was stuck, stuck to the form, stuck to the floor and stuck in Britain forever.

You really sound heartbroken OP

Surely OP you wouldn't need, as an Italian, to fill out a form to reside In Italy, and have FOM for the other 26? You would have to fill out forms for Belgium though.....

To the PP woulda d Belgium would complain if everyone moved there, some politicians are already speaking about how migration is changing Belgium, and how the state cannot cope.

That, frankly, is my idea of hell. It's exploitative and not anything we should measure ourselves by

The execution of their immigration policy might be not desirable but plenty of migrant workers are able to save loads and start businesses in their home countries.

Seems like a win-win to me.

I was stirring the jam like Nigella Faragella whilst filling forms to reside contemporarily in 27 EU countries + Britain and Norway and Iceland (I also added in a Green Card lottery for good measure) when the hot jam fell onto my forms and there I was stuck, stuck to the form, stuck to the floor and stuck in Britain forever

🙄 I think a blog is brewing...... 🤓🤓

I lost a very well paid job in 2017 and three people very close to me died, yet Brexit broke my heart more than these three things

👀 Really?

Do you really mean that or is that hyperbole too?

You are more upset about Brexit than about the deaths of three people who you were very close to??????

I lost a very well paid job in 2017 and three people very close to me died, yet Brexit broke my heart more than these three things

I think what you said previously is probably true, it probably is the compound effect. Plus you said you've just come out of a bout of clinical depression.

I imagine if the first few things had not happened you'd have been able to accept Brexit with a bit more rational and stoic perspective. It's been the straw that's broken the camel's back for you in a generally shitty couple of years but sometimes the thing we think is the main problem is not actually the main problem, we just project our anger/sadness onto something convenient.

Oh for goodness sake, those who are at OPs latest post.
She clearly has a great sense of humour, and is giving as good as she gets.

Either that Funky or she's on glue in the best MN tradition.

Please don't think every Brit feels negative towards immigration, OP. This is your home as much as it is ours, and I love it when I hear that people from overseas want to make their homes here. We must be doing something right.
I live in Scotland and I find it no different, in these respects, to when I lived in England. However, the narrative here is just nastily about independence and there is a massive sectarian undercurrent. No part of the nation is problem free, sadly.
You are part of the fabric of this nation. A piece of paper doesn't change that.

Thank you @Bella2020

& thank you @funkycat!

I did a bit of head shake (privileged class hair tousling) at the mention of "hysterical" that old sexist insult (hysteron = womb = woman).

And on the drama... I mean I have got algae in my pool, damp in the servant quarter and you can't find a decent butler anywhere this day. Then you say your life is hard?

Anyway I may be facetious but yes, I had two shit years and yes I am heartbroken because if Brexit but I ain't gonna (you see I can do pop lingo too) give you the pleasure of my tears. You Nigellas Faragellas are going to do Remainers Salty Caramel with it.

I have literally no idea what any of that is supposed to mean. 😂

@whereweshallmoveto: thank you for your perceptive message. I think you are right. Also it's difficult to be angry at death. It's natural and it will come to all of us but Brexit could have been avoided. That what hurts. It was so close and it could have been different. But you are very right, stoicism, acceptance are truly the signs of maturity and wisdom.