What Brexit means to me

What does Brexit mean to me?

It means quite a lot of things. It triggers a lot of my emotions. Negative emotions. A lot of people are getting mad at the political system, as the population do not wish to leave EU, and they don’t want things to change for the worse. For me there is a completely different reason to feel this horrible way.

Its because I am not even from here and the risk of me being deported if my application, which has no guarantee of passing, gets rejected, which would stop me staying! Wrong move of a pen, or pen colour, small incorrect detail, or a mistake in looking through it and my application can be rejected on the spot.

It use to be, just a day or two ago, that the application would cost me and my family quite a bit of money -£65 each to be precise- until Theresa May decided to make her only good decision and scrap the cost as a whole. But that still doesn’t change the fact that I still have to apply, and I still have to go through that nightmare. The worry, the stress.

I’ve been asked “Why are you so worried of going back if its still your country, filled with your family members and friends, and people that speak your language?”.

See, I know all of this, but almost 9 years ago, there was a reason for me leaving in the first place.

My family decided that living in Poland was not a great choice of ours, and living in Scotland would make our lives better. And it definitely has. At this moment in time, the only person in my family that would be more than willing to go back is my dad who knows that, while coming back to Poland, he has a life there, waiting for him.

And I certainly don’t.

I made, possibly, lasting friendships and relationships here in Scotland. Now I actually have a successful life and people that care about me. In Poland I did not feel a strong connection with people like I do here.

In Poland it is hard to survive if you aren’t highly paid. You have to pay for healthcare. Here it has been much better for me.

Also, Polish people don’t just come here to take things and leave. Actually most immigrants bring so much more to this country. Being Polish I know people from Poland and we are hard working people that only give more than we take. We take jobs that British people and Scottish people do not wish to do.

However, now knowing that my life can be ruined because of horrible decision making skills of some of the politicians and because of the way people have voted on the topic of Brexit, it makes me disturbed and outraged, and I am still hoping that at the end, I won’t have to experience any of this negativity.

By Wiktoria Orlicka