I warn you my dear readers, this is a long read, but I couldn’t possibly make it shorter. I am so upset, really I am. I am upset at the injustice of this world for women like me. I am upset at how unfair life is to women like me, that we get to be oppressed, yet we can’t even have the PRIVILEGE that comes with being a victim in society. I am upset because that privilege of being a victim is something I have never had, yet women like Meghan Markle get to have the privilege of “victimhood” handed to them on a silver platter whilst the ones who are actually oppressed, and go through the “struggles” she claims when it works to her advantage cannot claim those struggles, because it will work against them.
For Meghan to even sit down with the world’s richest woman, and get to tell her “story” that she was “PREGNANT AND SUICIDAL” is a luxury that real women, who are actually pregnant and suicidal can never have. A woman who is actually pregnant and suicidal doesn’t even have the luxury to say she is suicidal, because in today’s real world, that can cost her everything.
Right now I have black people descending on me like a tone of bricks, they are calling me an attention seeker, house nigga, coconut, and they always tell me that I can never be where Meghan is, black people always remind me that I am not as blessed as Meghan, as beautiful as her, as rich as her. Black people, especially Zimbabweans always tell me what a pathetic low life I am, and what is my crime exactly, having a cruel upbringing, being rejected by my mother, having a painful life, and trying to get my own therapy through writing it all. Now the very same people who abuse me for being a victim of life, are the same people scolding me now, telling me to leave Meghan alone because she was “Pregnant and suicidal”.
Now when I watched her interview with Oprah, and heard her throw the ultimate cliche “I was pregnant and suicidal suffering racism at the same time” which would make her untouchable and bring the black world at her feet, I felt so offended and hurt. I was looking at her thinking “Woman, do you know it’s even a luxury to openly come on TV and say you were pregnant and suicidal”. In the real world, you can’t even say that.
Seven years ago, I found myself pregnant as I was going through a divorce from my ex-husband. During that time, when I was pregnant, I was a single mother of 3 young children, I was going through a custody battle with my ex-husband. During that time, I found myself homeless as my ex-husband got the house repossessed. I was also in a very painful ordeal with the members of a cult my ex-husband had exposed me to, where I was sexually abused by the pastor and when I reported the pastor to the police, my ex-husband divorced me and put me through a very public humiliation, getting the members of the cult to torment me. They created blogs about me, and said the most inhuman things about me to the world to humiliate and shame me. To make matters worse, I was pregnant as I went through all this.
Because my ex-husband knew how fragile I always was emotionally, he made it a point to drive me to complete desperation and despair, having played his cards well, he knew I would be suicidal, as I was completely on my own without any support system. At that time, even my own mother took my ex-husband’s side. Now because I had a known history of attempting to take my own life, in fact months before my husband divorced me for reporting a pedophile to the police, I had tried to jump off a bridge to oncoming traffic, I was only saved by a midwife, a white woman who was walking from a shift. I remember her words to me as she was almost crying, “I am a midwife, I have had a shitty long day at work, but as I was walking now thinking what is my purpose on earth, I saw you, please don’t jump darling, whatever it is, it will be better. I am so glad I was here at this very moment to talk to you.” As she was saying this, shaking and pleading, and as I stood there about to jump, crying uncontrollably she grabbed me and pulled me.
After that incident, a few months later, I was a single mum and pregnant. Now having a history of being suicidal was actually a WEAPON that was used against me in a court of law, where my children, my only reason for living where about to be removed from my care. My ex-husband had every fine detail of how suicidal I was, and he used that to try and get the authorities to take my children, as he said I was never fit to be a mother. He also knew how much I loved my children, that I would never be able to live without them, so he knew that whatever he was doing would actually make me more suicidal. Also in the Zimbabwean community, if you struggle with mental health, you will suffer the wrath of the community, my own mother always called me a mental nutcase, my siblings do, so my ex-husband would go online and write blogs saying I was a mad woman, so that the Zimbabwean community would attack me online.
I have been pregnant and suicidal, yet the only person I could tell was God.
During that season, God sent me a midwife, an older Jamaican woman. During my first antenatal appointment with her, as she sat down in my kitchen she asked me, “How are you Jean?” I couldn’t hold my tears back and I cried, and cried and cried. Because it had seemed like a lifetime since I had had anyone ask me how I was. I told her that I couldn’t go on anymore, I told her my ex-husband was going to have my children removed from me, so I had no reason to live. I told her I had a very wicked and unjust judge, a black woman who was taking my ex-husband’s side, and had said if there was any ounce of evidence that I was suicidal, the children had to be taken into care. I told her that my own mother was rejoicing at my suffering.
So this black midwife had mercy on me, and her heart was moved, so she risked her job and became like a mother to me. She could not even write in my notes that I was in despair. She knew that if she told the authorities the state of my mental health, I would actually end up worse than I was. She told me straight that she was not going to refer me to social services, or to the GP, because it would make things worse for my court case.
She told me to be strong, and held my arm and prayed with me. She would say, “Jean this baby you are carrying will be your favorite child, the child who will love you the most. Yes right now life seems so dark, with no sign of any light, but you will come out the other side, and you will be okay.” And she was right, I love all my children, but Fadzi is extra special.
Because my midwife had to hide the fact that I was suicidal for my own survival, she felt responsible for me, and would come to my house more frequent than she was supposed to, and she would pray for me, because she understood that there is no justice for women like me. Unlike Meghan, we don’t get the victim privilege.
I told her that the courts required a written witness from her, of how I was as she was my carer at that time, so she wrote a witness statement, and lied that I was not suicidal, but happy and thriving. She always reminded me of the midwives who had to lie to the Pharaoh to save the Israelites.
So I want women like Meghan Markle, the privileged women of this world, to know that if you are in a place where you can even say out aloud that you are “suicidal” especially as you sit with a billionaire to tell your story, it is a luxury real women in such a situation do not have.
I had to actually DENY that I was suicidal. My midwife, who saved me and my children, had to write a testimony denying I was suicidal so that at least I can be a mother to my children. Below is a snippet of my court documents at that time, where having to deny that I was suicidal at a time when I was in the darkest place of my life was the only way for me to make it. I downplayed the extent of my mental health ordeal.
During that time, I had no luxury to “break down”. I had to wake up, and bath the children, give them breakfast, walk them to school, clean the house, pick them up, cook dinner, do homework with them, then when they went to bed, as I sat alone in my living room, pregnant, knowing that maybe the next day I was to be in court, I would weep and cry, and the only person I could talk to was an unseen God. Then I would cry myself to sleep.
Heavily pregnant, alone I would go to court, and stand up, compose myself and smile, and deny that I was struggling to a black female judge who had no mercy for me, as my ex-husband was there surrounded by his family who loved and enjoyed every moment of my pain. When Meghan says the British Royal Family treated her bad, I dare her, come and see what I endured in the hands of my ex-husband’s family, your in-laws treated you like a Goddess.
Oh watching Meghan get worshipped by black people, who tell me over and over that I am a pathetic excuse of a human being who will never be as wonderful as Meghan is beyond hurtful to me. Watching Meghan get hero worshipped for a walk that I have walked, whilst I get called derogatory names for actually walking that walk, is the reason I will use her privilege to shout my story from a rooftop, even if no one will hear me I will still shout, for my own vindication. As black people accuse me of trying to use Meghan Markle to have my 5 minutes of fame, I laugh at how cruel they are to me. Do I not also deserve just a little “victim privilege” in my life, which in grand perspective of things, is only the crumbs which are falling from this privileged white woman’s table.
I told my husband, that if there is any justice in this world, why should Meghan, a woman who is actually WHITE, get the privilege of being a “BLACK VICTIM” whilst a woman like me gets nothing but abuse from the very black people who are worshipping her for being “BRAVE.” My husband always says to me, “Baby, Meghan is only but a FAKE version of you.”
Some who know my journey still compare her to me, as they celebrate that she is about to bring the Royal Family down, they go back in time, because 7 years ago, using my pen, I also brought a very powerful “prophet” and his empire down.
Yes only a handful of black people are civil to me, and speak kindness to me, the rest are mean and wish my head was on a spike.
The very black people who laugh at my ordeal in life, the Zimbabweans who constantly call me a “mental nutcase”, the Zimbabweans who made my life hell when I was at my lowest, are the ones hailing Meghan for being brave for being “suicidal. I want someone to explain to me what kind of a world this is?
So dear Meghan, I know at some point you will read my blogs, if you haven’t already. Even if you were really “suicidal” whilst you carried Archie, which I doubt very much, because you are a compulsive liar, you even lied that you do not read the tabloids or watch “negative” things about you, yet you make it a point to have Piers Morgan fired for having an opinion of you. Even if you were really suicidal when you were pregnant, for argument’s sake, in my world Meghan, asking for help means being crucified and put on trial for being “mental”, something I have lived with all my life. As you tried to get Piers Morgan sacked from ITV, you allegedly claimed you were doing this for other women who may find themselves suicidal and don’t get believed, well Meghan I have been there, and the black people who worship you today never believed me. What have you to say about that?
The irony is that whilst black women and black men attack me for “downplaying” your ordeal and for saying mine was worse than yours, which is the TRUTH, you are hailed by black people for downplaying Kate’s ordeal of being called “Waity Katy” by the press. You claimed that your ordeal was worse than Kate’s, and you are worshipped for saying that. I’m sure Kate also cried at your “insensitive” words because her pain was downplayed by her own sister-in-law on international TV. What a hypocrite you are Meghan, just like your black worshipers?
So as long as you live Meghan, and as long as I can write, I will not allow you to use the struggles of a dark skinned woman like me to your benefit, when you have always posed as a white woman. You are the very essence and definition of CULTURAL APPROPRIATION. I feel like you are STEALING from me, hence I have taken it upon myself to be personal with you. No Meghan, not under my watch, you may fool the black race and have them worship you because of your mixed race privilege, but you are not fooling me…
The Genesis of The Revelation By
Mary-Tamar was Jean
