Clarity

Whilst Nathan was having his three month trip to hell and back, I wrote many blogs, most of which I didn’t post. 15,000 people actually read my account of Nathan’s being admitted to hospital but when some of them began to encourage their followers not to believe me unless I was prepared to provide filmic proof he was in hospital, I realised I no longer had any interest in anything these ghastly bullies had to say to me in the name of “education.” I was certainly not interested in any of them reading about my life or the struggles we were experiencing as a direct result of their hatred, misandry and cult-like behaviour.

I decided to knuckle down instead. I worked hard, looked after Nathan when his trauma episodes kicked in and processed the death of my cousin’s beautiful and vibrant wife. Friends and family tried to offer advice, but everything they suggested was conflicting and contradictory. Ultimately, the problem with the internet is that it’s the new Wild West. Laws and moral compasses can’t keep up with its ludicrous pace and, as a result, on a daily basis, it destroys countless innocent people. Anonymity turns otherwise sane people into absolute nut jobs, all hiding behind, and in many cases bolstered by, a thin veneer of self-righteousness.

For ten weeks I was utterly consumed by a feeling of absolute helplessness and felt I was never going to be able to find equilibrium again.

For the record, if anyone reading this blog goes through anything even remotely similar to what we’ve been through, your best weapons are the truth, stubbornness and instinct. The absolute bottom line is that you mustn’t cave into bullying behaviour - however much you’re threatened. By doing so, you strengthen the bully and give her the power to bully again. And believe me: the bullies’ demands will keep growing. Nothing will ever be enough and even if you do one of those classic toadying apologies thanking these woke women for helping you to see what a dreadful person you are, they’ll keep cutting at you until they’ve got their pound of flesh. At the end of the day, if everything else is taken from you, the one thing you’ll still possess is your dignity and self-respect.

Above anything else, just make sure the truth is out there.

Clarity is now with me again. Clarity came when I saw women monetising their hatred of Nathan. Clarity came when I was shown private messages sent to Nathan’s supporters telling them that if they didn’t publicly denounce him, what happened to Nathan would happen to them next. Clarity came when I discovered the sordid truth about one of Nathan’s most vociferous attackers. Ours was the truth. Theirs was the web of lies.

In the midst of the pain and mayhem, I had my genes tested with 23 and Me. I am, of course, a veritable mongrel, so the results were disappointingly non-specific. I’ve got Jewish, Welsh, Huguenot and probably gypsy blood pumping through my veins, and if family folklore is to be believed, some of it is blue (although name me a family that doesn’t think it has some sort of royal connection!)

My father’s genes certainly seem to be more dominant than my mother’s. One of the services which 23 and Me offers is the comparison of your results to those of other people who have used their service so they can link you up with people who are likely to be distant relatives. Every single suggestion came from my father’s side.

Flaws in the system aside, it’s been a great deal of fun to find a series of third cousins nestling in the US. That said, when you do contact someone with whom you share a great, great, great grandparent, there’s not a lot more to say other than “yay, we’re relatives! Bye!”

But here’s the strange part...

In amongst the clouds of non-specificity, one single line of text utterly blew my mind. Apparently my DNA indicates that a three-times great grandparent was 100% Chinese Dai. This person, the results conclude, was born in the late 18th Century.

The Chinese Dai are a minority ethnic group who mostly live in Southern China, Thailand and Myanmar. Myanmar, where the majority live, would have been under the control of the Portuguese when this particular relative was born, so one assumes that Colonialism played a part in his or her decision to up sticks and come to Europe.

Of course, my head has been filled with exciting and troubling thoughts ever since. Did my relative fall in love with a Portuguese tradesperson? Did they flee where ever they came from as a result of persecution of some kind? Or simply to live a better life? Why did they end up in the UK and not Portugal? How hard must it have been for a Chinese person in Britain in the late 17th Century? A brief bit of googling concludes that, if this relative DID come straight to the UK, he or she would almost certainly have been one of the first Chinese faces seen in this county. It’s utterly bizarre.

It seems clear that our Chinese ancestor was on my father’s mother’s side, which, curiously, is the Welsh branch of my family. My Nana and her brothers certainly had a Chinese look to them. It was something which we’d lightheartedly discussed from time to time, and curiously, more frequently in recent months. I’m told my Nana was always rather wary of anything to do with China and I wonder whether this came as a result of her being bullied as a child because of the way she looked.

This is, of course, supposition, but it would seem particularly brutal and cruel if it were the case. My Nana’s first language was Welsh. She grew up, near Wrecsam, at the tail-end of the horrendous period when the “Welsh Not” was used to terrorise and brutally persecute any child heard not speaking English. The Welsh Not was usually a wooden sign which was worn around the neck of the person being punished. When someone else was heard speaking Welsh, the sign was passed on to them. At the end of the day, the person wearing the Welsh Not was caned. Utterly, utterly unacceptable and totally hideous.

I very clearly remember my Nana telling me that she’d been forced to wear the Welsh Not at school and it’s clear to me that the inbuilt sense of shame it plainly engendered is partly why she didn’t speak her native tongue to my father when he was growing up. The thought that she was potentially also nursing a whole different set of fears about being “other” makes me very sad indeed.

Of course, the lesson for us all is that we must find the time to talk to our Grandparents about their lives. I wonder if my Nana even knew that she came from Chinese stock. As more and more people die from my parents’ generation, I become more and more aware that I there’s way too much I still don’t know.