To not know how to accept what's happening?

[PeachStone]

Yes this is a post about the EU referendum but I don't want to discuss the rights and wrongs of the decision or why people voted as they did. This is about how I'm feeling and wondering if anyone else is in the same position.

First of all, I voted to remain. I've long been interested in politics and hold very strong socialist views. Im accustomed to disappointment in the outcome of elections, the Tories getting in twice was obviously upsetting and worrying to me and has been an ongoing concern with the way I feel they have treated us with austerity and cuts. But there was always the hope that a new government would be elected, one that would reverse the damage and serve the people properly, if we could just ride the storm. This feels different.

When I woke to the news that Brexit had scraped through, I can only describe my response as devastated, shocked and worried. I'd read a lot of material from both sides of the argument, Brexit, Lexit, Remain. I decided on several different points that it would be better to stay in the EU for now, get behind a movement to reform it, but however things panned out, it was too dangerous to leave now with a right wing government in place and a leave campaign backed by extreme right factions. I listened to the economic forecasts if we were to leave. I believed, still do, the many experts and institutions that lay out the economic fate in a case of Brexit.

Right now, this feels huge. I genuinely feel that the course of the future has been changed, that this is just the start and we are headed for economic ruin, civil war and potentially a world war. I know some people will be reading this and thinking I am catastrophising, have bought into the 'scaremongering' of remain, I'm ill informed etc. but whatever the reason for feeling like this, it is absolutely what I feel. And I am terrified. I genuinely do not know how to accept what is happening. I don't know how to carry on as normal when I feel like I've woken up in a different country. This has changed everything. I can liken it to a form of grief but a kind that I've not experienced before. But it's there in the pit of my stomach, fear, sadness, despair, anger. Without any idea how to move past it.

I'm not angry with the people who voted leave, I know that, like me, they voted in the best interests of the country. I am disappointed though, that many placed economic uncertainty over concerns about immigration when research suggests that at worst their burden is neutral and at best they are huge contributors to our economy and society. Every single person I spoke to that was voting leave cited immigration as their main reason although I know people voted leave for a variety of reasons. I reserve my anger for the politicians who called this referendum. I think it was too complex an issue for us to decide as a people. They don't consult us on other major issues such as taking our country to war. Why this? Why now? I feel like we've been sacrificed for the political aspirations of those hell bent on screwing us over.

I'm finding myself wanting to spend all my time on social media, clinging desperately to my fellow remainers, trying to make sense of it, understand it, prepare, hope against hope that this isn't really happening. But then you get called a cry-baby, sore loser. Or that you're unpatriotic for not being happy about this and believing that Britain can flourish alone. Told to accept it, move on. I don't know how to do that when I think that this will be the moment that historians pinpoint as the unraveling of this country, the moment the world irrevocably changed for ever. I feel like I'm watching it happening with the rise of xenophobic attacks. I'm watching and feel powerless to do anything.

It's not something you can talk about though. How do you admit that you're so frightened that you are regularly in tears? My family have heard enough, my Facebook friends have probably hidden me. I can't go to my doctor and say, 'I'm depressed because of the referendum result. It's playing havoc with my anxiety. Is there counselling available for Brexit?'.

How do you move on?

[Patapouf]

You have summarised how I feel very well. Usually when shit hits the fan politically i know that it could only last a parliamentary cycle. This will change Britain, if not Europe, irreversibly and the effects will endure beyond my life time. I feel as if I am grieving for my future. I'm mid twenties, a graduate. The world should be my fucking oyster but my rights will be stripped away from me because of politicians ambition, Tory infighting and rampant xenophobia.

[Cocoabutton]

meglet yes, being a single parent is truly an isolated and isolating position at times

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Party :( keep focusing on the flowers then and the birds. Things that are (at the moment) totally unaffected by this.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

what makes you think that Kerberos?

[Kerberos]

I voted remain.

But I'm starting to think actually we may end up in a better place as a result of the Leave vote.

It's mayhem right now but I'm starting to feel more optimistic that things will settle down.

[megletthesecond]

cocoa another working single parent here. I was vulnerable under the tories but it just got a whole lot worse.

It's hard only really having MN to bounce ideas off and chat. The lack of real life conversation doesn't help in situations like this.

[Cocoabutton]

I understand how the OP feels. I am a single parent and we rely on my income. I have no other support. My job just became a whole lot more uncertain, and that affects me, yes, and my ability to parent my children. Brexit also limits their options.

Plus there are all the issues of the underlying hate, deceit and lies which fueled this and are now being laid bare. Who wants to live in that world? The referendum was an internal Tory political exercise, which has unleashed economic and political turmoil. That is not hyperbole. Those at the top have enough money not to be affected. People living day to day don't.

That said, I too suffer from anxiety and it is a case of doing what you can, where you can. There are things you cannot control and things you can, so I try to work with that for a level of certainty. But yes, it is hard.

[Lottielou7]

Some of the comments on this thread are nasty - I wonder if they are from people who voted leave and want to minimise the car crash that is now playing out?

Op, I do understand how you feel entirely. It's one almighty screw up that I didn't see coming.

[PartyFants]

Bad kitten, this is one of the problems, things that stay the same: family love etc. I still love all my family but I know my two older brothers voted to leave and now I'm scared to speak to them until things calm down a bit, scared it will start a row we can't get back from. Which has literally never happened before, we all get along usually.

This is shit. Thank you David Cameron for smashing us to smithereens and then fucking off into the sunset! "Somebody else's problem"

[megletthesecond]

First day in the office since the result tomorrow. Out of our pod of four I suspect two or all three voted leave, so I won't dare to raise the subject. I might stick my headphones in all day.

I did have a few minutes of calm at the gym this morning. Pushed myself quite hard which always helps.

[messalina]

I understand where you are coming from. Some moron commented that you needed to get out more and wondered whether you had nothing more important to worry about. Given that one of the threads currently trending on Mumsnet is about whether the OP is unreasonable to not bother changing sheets in between guests (and another separate thread is about how to keep bedding looking fresh) I am relieved that someone is actually worrying about things that are genuinely important rather than the stupid things most mothers seem to worry about - school gate dramas, fucking bed linen and how to conquer the PTA.

Like you I voted Remain. And I am also worried about how populist political movements led by demagogues like Boris Johnson are now gripping not just the UK (for as long as we still remain the UK) are gaining credence amongst a misguidedly angry and disenfranchised electorate. Boris said the other day that he did not think people had voted Leave because of immigration. That is an unbelievable statement. Of course many people voted Leave precisely because they (mistakenly) believe that they have been adversely affected by immigration. Notice it's often places with very few immigrants that are terrified of immigration. Since when did Lincolnshire have 'swarms' of migrant workers?

So no, OP, you are not being at all unreasonable. I hope you have signed the petition.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

When feelings are overwhelming me, I try to look at what will still stay the same; family love, good friends, flowers growing, that sort of stuff which can be quite stabilising.

[365isalot]

Peachstone i have no 'anxiety issues' and i feel exactly the same as you do, i feel like the bottoms dropped out of my world , especially on my childrens behalf. Last week i lived in a country i loved, this week i dont recognise it, its a very scary transition to make in a few days

[Effic]

Honestly right now I just want to stay under the duvet and never come out. Or rant and rave :(

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Effic, I'm really sorry. I wish I could think of something to say that would help.

[FlumptyDumpty]

for Effic. Sorry you are being subjected to so much compassionless, boneheaded needling.

[Brokenbiscuit]

Effic

[FlumptyDumpty]

Lighteningirll you are unspeakably naive if you think people's worries are based on nothing more than propaganda. The negative repercussions from this will be MASSIVE.

I speak as somebody with over twenty years experience in both the corporate world and government, having been involved in finance and risk. What are your qualifications to blithely dismiss the real concerns of many?

[AllegraWho]

Effic, I'm so sorry.

[Effic]

My DP has no job. At 55 years old, has NO job. Do you understand that lightning ???? NO JOB. It's under press embargo but the company he works for employs over TEN THOUSAND PEOPLE in England and they are leaving. The rest of his industry will be following suit. Watch the fucking news, it'll be in there soon along with many many more.
Without a job, we can't pay the mortgage. The tiny amount of saving we had are wiped out by the stock market. So forgive me but I'm FUCKING FRIGHTENED.

[AllegraWho]

I also wonder how everyday 1930s Germans would have reacted to the events around them if they'd had the Internet - would it have helped stop it all, or just sped things up do you think? (Pointless question maybe)

They might not have had the internet, but people left written records of the times, and it would appear that the reaction of ordinary Germans was broadly two-tiered.

The educated, and the well off with access to foreign currency and black market were laughing their heads off at the funny little Austrian clown and his scaremongering rhetoric.

The have-nots, meanwhile, those who had to pay a million deutschmarks for a loaf of bread, or do all their shopping on payday, assuming there were any goods to buy in the first place, because by the end of the month inflation would have rendered their money worthless, they saw in the Austrian clown someone who was prepared to accept responsibility, someone who had identified an "other" to blame, and who promised them a way out. They would get rid of the "other", and they would take their country back.

In the Yugoslavia of the 1990s, prior and just post Slovenia and Croatia voted for independence, the haves - the countries that took away their income which used to be diverted to the central government in Belgrade - laughed at the funny clown Milosevic and his nationalist scaremongering.

Meanwhile, the now desperate people of Serbia, and the strong national minority of Serbs living in Croatia, listened to a man who had identified a threat - their next door neighbour making off with their money - and believed to the promise of rivers of gold when they took back the productive land that should have fed them all if those horrid Croats did not keep all the money for themselves.

Death camps were one of the results of both the above situations. I do remember "Turn Left". One wrong decision, and...

But it's the same every time, isn't it? The human race never learns.

[PartyFants]

So you don't think there's going to be recessions? Do you think we'll be better off?

[InShockReally]

We need an eye-roll emoticon on MN.

[Lighteningirll]

Because there is nothing to be frightened of. The Leave voters didn't buy into Project Fear.

[PartyFants]

Why aren't the leave voters frightened? I don't understand.