I don’t think I can stomach two more weeks of the EU referendum. Each day I feel like I have to justify my existence. Making breakfast with my boyfriend, someone on the radio tells me that I’m taking British jobs. Having dinner with the people from my local charity shop, a fellow volunteer tells me that I’m the reason her grandson’s school didn’t put on a nativity play. At the supermarket self-service checkout, a couple debates whether houses might finally be cheaper if I just went away and vacated my room. It’s making me feel like a fraud, like I’m somehow taking a British person’s place, doing their job, living in their house.

Sometimes I try to explain this to British people, and they always say the same thing – “oh, but I didn’t mean you”. I’m white, middle-class and I have a posh voice: of course, you didn’t mean me. I’ve graduated, worked for five years, paid taxes and National Insurance, and now I’m back for some more education. I’m the paragon of ‘good’ immigration.

But we should all know by now that the ‘bad’ immigrant doesn’t exist. I’m not the exception: I’m the rule. Immigration is good for the economy. If Britain has more money because it has more immigrants, it should be able to build more houses, schools and hospitals. My existence here shouldn’t make me feel guilty, and yet it does.

I know I won’t have to leave the UK if Britain votes Leave. But what about me 10 years ago? Here’s an alternative history: I would have cheerfully gouged out my right eye for a place at a British university, but that doesn’t mean that my parents would have let me at 17 years old take out a student loan for overseas fees, which add up to about three times the average UK wage.

And if the fees for EU students don’t rise to overseas levels? A friend from the US wanted to apply for a librarian traineeship after our course is over – similar to my first job, it doesn’t pay much, but it would be excellent experience. When she entered her details on the online application, the website shut itself down and locked her out. She wouldn’t make enough for the university to sponsor her visa. That’s her story now; it would have been me then.

I can’t pretend I’m in the UK out of the goodness of my heart, because I’ve taken pity on its economy and want to sacrifice myself to donate 20-40 per cent of my income to the HMRC. Nor can I expect anyone to vote Remain because leaving would make me sad; everyone can educate themselves on the benefits the EU has for Britain. But the discussion still stings.
I’m here because I love it here. Teaching secondary school English isn’t a very glamourous calling, but it’s mine. I love my boyfriend. I love my field of research. I love the UK; I just don’t know how to make it love me back.