Gasping for Breath, Fighting for Clean Air

I woke up coughing up bloody-sputum again.

My lungs ache.

I do not know if this is just from chemical exposures, or if it is a compounding infection.
I made a doctor's appointment, but does it really matter?

I am told by people to go to the doctor, but what can they do?

If it is another infection, it just needs to run its course.

Constantly taking antibiotics is making the infections become resistant to them.

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is not a recognized syndrome or disorder, according to the American Medical Association.

Guess What?

I am living proof that it does exist.

I exist.

I am constantly gasping for breath, and fighting for clean air.

They are few refuges and safe-spaces for folks like myself.

The ones that do exist are few and far between.

Outside is polluted with smog, dust, mold, disease, unsafe plastics, tobacco-smoke, and petrochemicals.

These chemicals accumulate from people's toiletries, cosmetics, personal-care products, and laundry.

Inside spaces are rarely chemical- and scent-free.

This world is no longer safe.

Our air is toxic.

This affects all life, but it impacts some of us, the most.

We are the ones who suffer in silence.

We feel guilt, shame, embarrassment and fear when asking for completely reasonable accommodations.

We need to ask people permission to breathe.

We are put in positions in which we need to ask people to make a conscious effort to be aware, to police themselves, and to give up their privileges to do and wear what they want, so that we may be able to breathe just a little bit better.

I, personally, as well as most folks like me, rarely have the physical, mental, or emotional energy to have these conversations.

Talking is difficult when you are constantly gasping for breath, which makes fighting for clean air, virtually impossible.

The majority of people are not willing to part with their ways, so I pay dearly, as do other folks who are suffering like I am.

Society tells us the way we smell and the way we look is not okay.

We feel we must alter our natural states of humanity and beauty with chemicals that are detrimental to our health.

We do not realize that this comes at a cost, as does everything.

The cost is me. The cost is us.

Is there anything more important than people's ability to breathe?

We are dis-enabling folks in our society from their abilities to show-up and be present in this world.

Society-at-large is okay with this, as it does not directly affect most people, the way it does for us.

Although polluted-air harms us all, the ones who get sick are the ones who suffer.

We are the ones who slip through the cracks or get thrown under the bus.

We hide in the silence.

We are the ones who must out ourselves when we are gasping for breath and become tokenized in the fight for clean air.

In order to have these conversations, we are forced to become martyrs for the cause, having to expose ourselves to fight for everyone's right to breathe clean air.

We are the ones who are alone, isolated from our friends, our families, our communities, and this world.

We are stuck at home, which for many of us, is not a safe place, either.

We can not properly function at a job or in school.

We are made to feel bad about ourselves and it becomes our individual problems, rather than societal ones.

Regardless, we are the ones who suffer.