When do you think it will feel better?

[FlopIsMyHero]

I know lots of you will want to say: "get over yourselves already", but please be kind (or say nothing!).

But for those of you for whom this is genuinely devastating, emotionally, morally, practically (if you or partner is non-British), or job-wise - when do you think it will start to feel better?

I'm waking every morning feeling as if, yes, the sky has fallen if, or as if I've experienced a personal bereavement.

I anticipate feeling awful for months yet. Especially as every day heaps more shame on us (Farage at the European Parliament). My mum had a dream about being naked in front of the builder and I told her that was loss of identity and being shamed in front of people.

I can name the heavy feeling I have and it's fear and sadness. And actually mainly I feel sad.

But here's what's helping. We are taking some big growth orientated decisions at work that will require investment over the next few years. The natural thing is to pull in your horns and retreat but actually we need to make bold, positive decisions where we can, based on the idea of the future you want. My business has potentially been devastated by this decision but we are being bullish and forging ahead. Partly because we have to show leadership for the team. Even if things look very uncertain, if you have any decisions ahead of you, think about taking the bolder route if at all possible. In our case we are taking a risk but it's made me feel better.

It's interesting because in lots of countries in the past - say authoritarian countries such as china or the ussr, random, unpredictable arbitrariness was a feature of the way people lived their lives, no matter how hard they studied, worked, invested etc - but by comparison to date in the uk, there has been a strong sense that if you study and work hard, you won't be subjected to irrational or capricious arbitrariness. Sure, there may be economic shocks, job loss etc, but it will usually have a rational explanation, even if you don't like it.

It's interesting that referenda, as a decision making tool, feel so irrational and arbitrary - unlike parliamentary democracy - even when it doesn't go your way.

I do wish politicians would stop talking about implementing 'the will of the people'. It sounds alien and despotic - and not very British!

Yes that's it Figment. My Romanian nanny is very unbothered. She grew up under Ceausescu and so for her it's to be expected that you might have your way of life and your certainties expropriated at the whim of someone else.

I can live with a PM I didn't vote for as that feels legitimate but this feels so completely accidental, or perhaps criminally negligent on the part of our politicians that it feels like my house has been burgled.

There is currently no end to my disbelief and anger here. It is a nightmare with no end.

My DD1 will be graduating with a degree in European languages in less than a year. Her career ideas and dreams all disappeared that night as the final results were declared. She also has friends who are experiencing racial abuse for the first time ever. It is awful.

I voted remain and truly believe it is right. DH voted leave. I think he is now realising that so much of what the Brexit campaign claimed just doesn't add up, but he is very stubborn and slow to admit when he may have been wrong. He seemed to see it all as a bit of a game on results night was a bit gloaty with DD until I told him firmly to stop.

It has been a hellish week in this house. DD and DH were always pretty close. Suddenly, in one fell swoop that seems to have changed. Slow signs of a slight thaw perhaps now, which I hope continues. She sees him as having voted against her future and then gloated as the results became clear. I have been stuck in the middle and it has been horrible.

Backing vocals yes - exactly - and I do think this is at the root of my inability - well actually refusal - to come to terms with it.

When I get my sleep back together, it will be easier to deal with I expect, but I don't expect the anger and sadness - and puzzlement and sheer sense of WTF'ness to go away ever, realistically. It's one of those moments in your life. Fundamentally it's about trust and predictability. I suspect this deep sense of 'where the fuck did that come from' will have a profound impact on the electorate for many years, moving forward.

figment that's interesting that within the financial world it's being referred to as Lehmans 2. I have read so many things dismissing the financial impact and am not in the finance world at all so couldn't really know for sure whether they were right/wrong. Obviously by 'interesting', read 'terrifying'.

I too am feeling worse not better. I have been stuck in the DS with chicken pox so it hasn't helped, but I can feel my anxiety returning. I am just looking for a glimmer of hope.

I have so much anger and some tangible idea of what people voting leave (the non racist ones) thought would improve. I really haven't been able to find anything now that the lies in the campaign have been debunked.

It's a shambles, my DHs job has an uncertain future, the country is deeply divided and we are not being presented with a clear way forward.

Yet I'm a glutton for punishment- I have been reading across all newspapers to try and get a full view of what the public is being told. In the daily mail the comments on articles such as the eu will not allow single market without free movement are terrifying - full of people saying lets get completely out and trade with the rest of the world instead. Please please please let's hooe the government are going to put the wellbeing of the majority of its citizens ahead of the notion that we all want to stop immigration.

Waiting for some news that makes me feel better

I'm in financial services and yes it's devastating for us and for my business in particular. What makes FS different is that we cannot just trade across borders by observing the relevant regulations as you could if you had a factory in the UK and were selling your product into France. As long as it's legal you can sell it, basically. Even if we were out of the single market, for most products you'd be able to sell into Europe, perhaps at higher cost and perhaps with more complexity but it would be possible.

In FS you cannot sell cross border unless you are regulated in the EU. Currently this means if you meet your own country's regulatory regime and it is part of the EU, you have a passport to sell across the EU. Almost all UK financial services will be regulated by the FCA and passported that way. If we are no longer in the EU the FCA won't be recognised and no one from here will be able to sell into Europe. It just won't be legal. It's not a question of higher cost or more complexity. It just won't be legal. So we'll all have to go and find another EU jurisdiction to get passported through. For the banks it's fairly easy to switch to Frankfurt and carry on as before. For smaller firms like ours we'll have to look at opening an operation in the EU for passporting purposes.

I think lots of people thought the banks were sabre rattling but thflats because lots of people don't know about the regulatory regime we work within.

I thought, actually, that there was a glimmer of hope in what merkel's representative said on the Today programme this morning - it wasn't the part of the interview the news then picked up on. He said that obviously it was up to British institutions, most obviously parliament, to reflect on whether this was the right way forward - effectively a parliamentary debate and vote - echoing Kerry - and that there would be no hurry in which to do that - but that if they then went forward after a reconsideration, there would be no negotiation on free movement.

Cameron is saying a second ref would be suicide - I agree with that - but he hasn't ruled out a parliamentary rethink - and anyway he won't be with us for much longer, so he's really just 'containing expectations' (and has lost the trust of the electorate, but that's separate issue). Brave old lammy - the only one to stick his head above the parapet - except hunt - what a world we live in - who would imagine waking up one morning and finding yourself cheering leading jeremy hunt.

I have written to my mp (a leaver) but only to tell him what I think of what he has done. We need a coordinated list of the pro remain mps in the most vulnerable seats across all parties and then lobby them - they don't have to be your constituency mp - and hope for a free vote.

My MP is pro-remain. I will be writing to him, to say what Ken Clarke (and others) have basically said - that parliament is the final decider on this, and has a duty to do what is in the best interests of the country. Regardless of the results of a referendum based on lies.

I mean, it's not unreasonable, is it? The Leave campaign has unravelled with shocking speed since the result - there is no plan, and it was all based on outright, cynical lies. That's not democracy.

Our MP is marginal, and remain.
Some of the Leave MPs are STILL saying "people were voting on freedom of movement and will feel betrayed if it doesn't change". E.g. Liam Fox.
Frankly I think that's like saying "oh people voted Leave because they wanted all foreigners to leave overnight". You can't always have what you want, and you can't have things that are both Just Plain Wrong and bad for the country.*

*well except we know politicians frequently give us both, but I Want Doesn't Get.

'Political stability: invisible when you have it, and very obvious when you don't.'

I go through all the stages of grief on a daily basis. It will probably even itself out eventually, but predicting when eventually will arrive is impossible. And life won't be the same for many of us even when it does.

Is there a list of the English mps in marginal seats who supported remain?

Political stability: invisible when you have it, and very obvious when you don't.'

Very true, AuntDotsie

Figmentofmyimagination Wed 29-Jun-16 23:24:14

I could maybe understand it better if it had a rational explanation. Even if it wasn't one I agreed with, I could come to terms with it if it had a rational basis. I do find it hard that a bunch of people have come along and taken a sledgehammer to my life - which wasn't particularly wealthy, but was predictable and rolling along quite nicely and quietly - for no rational reason and apparently to no great potential gain for them. I didn't think this would happen in the uk.

Last year I read 'the guns of august' by Barbara Tuchman, which is a really gripping account of the months leading up to ww1. It was gripping even though I knew how it was going to end, but what was striking was the randomness of it - the series of events, none of which, each on their own, necessarily signalled disaster - don't know where I'm going with this except that we do tend to just bumble along assuming everything will be just fine, but actually this is the longest period of peace for a long time. I can't really wrap my head around the fact that this seems to have been put in jeopardy just because a random group of mps got exercised over the jurisdiction of the European court of justice over, say, holiday pay, or working time. It just makes no sense to me."

I agree with every single word!!! My thinking and emotions to the dot.

backingvocals in this article it says we could keep the passporting bit if we went with the EEA. But I don't know anything about finance, so please correct me/fill me in if that's not right. I'm desperately looking for positives.

www.adamsmith.org/evolution-not-revolution

I don't think it will get better until the ball starts rolling and we see what sort of negotiations happen. I truly believe that so many are still shocked because the leave voters were made out to be a small minority of nasty 'little Englanders' instead of being a large portion of UK citizens who had different reasons for voting than simply immigration.

"Life has been havoc for me and many like me for years due to the madness that is the EU."

What "madness" , and how were you affected? RainYourRottingMyDhaliaBulbs
I'd really like to understand it would help come to terms, maybe.

Today's news feels catastrophic. My anger towards Boris Johnson is so overwhelming, that I don't know what to do with myself.

I think it will be a while. It's still the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, and the continuing saga of the 'power hungry morons' as my 8 year old has called them, is not helping things settle.

This has been floating around the interweb the past few days, and it has helped.

I also read a great quote from Lisa Anderson, the outgoing President of the American University in Cairo, which opened very quickly again after closing briefly in the Arab Spring. She said that she did this because 'when nothing is ordinary, ordinary is very important'.

So I am doing in the ordinary in the best way I can.

Sorry, cross post with Flop. Back to anger now, with the news that Mr Johnson will not be around to clear up the mess he's made.

.

I was so angry. I'm feeling more hopeful now. I don't think we will leave anytime soon and I think negotiations will be protracted and I hope successful, in that we won't leave. Or we will but retain so many rights and privileges, and maybe regain or gain some.
I've also been doing a lot. Signed the petition for a second referendum, attending the march on Saturday, talking to like minded friends, wearing a safety pin, rejoined a political party, written to my MP, and got a satisfactory response.
for you though. There's a lot of reactive depression about amongst my friends and family.

Is this an ok thread to say just how utterly disgusting I find the Daily Fail? They have always been terrible, I know, but before and since the referendum I feel they have turned up the shit stirring to sickening levels. I literally hate the DM and am appalled by the people lapping up the hateful shit they publish.

but what was striking was the randomness of it - the series of events...

Yes to that. The older I get, the more I learn about things, the more I realise how random everything is, how so much happens by chance, by some individual's naked ambition, how little things are actually planned. This exemplifies it. Nobody can predict how this is going to turn out - it feels like possibly years of uncertainty ahead.

I realised it when reading the story of the War of the Roses - the White Queen etc. When a chance event such as the fog over a battlefield, or a flood in Wales massively affects who the King of England is. Things are much the same now and only slightly less weather related

Anyhoo, I'm feeling worse than ever today - and thinking I'm going to have to follow David Mitchell's thinking: "Well that's that then. There's only one thing for it: I'm going to try and pretend I don't mind."