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?