I’ve been on a sponsorship visa for five years. I was allowed to come here to the UK to take a nursing job. The UK visa system is complicated — completely different from the USA’s. For five years, I’ve been on a restricted visa. That means I’m only allowed to do the work described on my sponsorship. We can’t take different jobs. We have to stick to the description on our visa. (We’re allowed to take extra work, but only if it’s on the shortage occupation list, outside our contracted hours, and limited hours at that.)

It’s been a tough five years, to be honest. It felt like my worth was based solely on the service I provide. Your life depends on your boss — your sponsor. If they decide they don’t need you anymore, you pack your bags and move on. My whole identity became tied to the service I provide.

I went through a hell of an identity crisis. Depression, isolation, then acceptance — though I’m still struggling with the acceptance part.

I often ask: who am I outside the service they constantly want from me?

And yet. If not for this opportunity in the UK, I would never have experienced living independently, truly on my own. I couldn’t have practised autonomy in the Philippines — not with how small the salaries are. I wouldn’t have developed the principles I now hold so strongly, because here, I finally have the means to. I can make my own decisions because I can afford to. 

More than that, the way I see things has changed dramatically since I moved here. I see things in systems now. I’ve come to understand the complexity of care — how each place is unique to its setting — and how to find balance within it.

Right now, on my own, I’m still rebuilding who I am with the resources I have. I’ve discovered that I love learning. I’m fond of documentaries far outside of nursing — finance, economics, even those independently made fun-facts videos on YouTube. I love learning the piano score of River Flows in You, even with how stiff my fingers are on the keys. I love walking through parks. Nature has been healing me.

And I daydream, often, that maybe one day the system will change. That we won’t open our borders based solely on the value of a person’s service, but because they are welcome here as a human, too. That my home country will rebuild itself so that Filipinos leave only because they want to experience life outside the Philippines — not because they have to survive. I dream that a Filipino won’t have to leave his/her family behind just to live a decent, comfortable life.

I wish that I am the last of my kind — forced out of my country, enduring the loneliness alone, sending home strong currencies to give my family stability.

I hope, someday.