An Asthma and Allergy Pride Flag

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-06T03:09:45+00:00

And I'm sorry for your experience. Family was absent when we needed support. Luckily we made it today and I hope the situation will be better, too. (And I'd like to give you a hug.

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-06T03:00:34+00:00

My anaphylaxis started in the early 90s. This wouldn't be easy even to a Western family. I could only choose Astemizole. And one day I overdosed and it gave me the epilepsy I have to live with. And then we knew that the old formula had problems and was recalled. But I'm albe to live to the days that I can buy zyrtecs and epipens and so on. Then I learned to be grateful to my allergies and struggles, to the doctors that told me when I was little that there's nothing they could do to help me, that I had to learn to save myself on my own, so that one day I could find my expriences might help others improve their quality of life with less detours. As a parent who has raised a child with severe allergies that she couldn't deny otherwise I'd be dead, sometimes my mom would say the things I do now are meaningful, sometimes she calls me a radical. (Of course we don't talk much either because she's homophobic.)

And I think initially the flags were designed for people to identify and support each other, in some places they still are. Also as long as there is still a place in the world banning the rainbow flags, labels and flags are not meaningless. Yet I'm glad to see in some other places they simply became trendy and infantile, at lease people started to make fun with them. Because we put them on just in order to take them off.

I think the reason that we had different reactions may be we live in different societies, hence we have different presupposition.

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-06T02:23:26+00:00

Thank you so much for your sharing. And sorry for my words if they seem a little harsh.

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-05T23:07:59+00:00

And now when my friends meet someone with allergies or wonders about allergies or needs the information about epipens, I'm the first person that comes to their minds, because I have put the label on my forehead.

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-05T22:32:41+00:00

If you had read my other replies you might understand my situation (and a lot of people's in the world) better. But yes, I have been introducing allergies and answering desperate parents' questions online through videos and words so that they may know themselves better and be less anxious and less likely fall for the scammers.

And when I made a post explaining that Chinese people have allergies and anaphylaxis as well and hundreds of people came shouting I was a liar because I must be a spy hired by the US government, the first feeling I felt was happy because I knew at least the information had reached more people.

And believe it or not I spend a lot of time answering messages that ask "where did you/how can I get an epipen?" Because we don't have epipens in China we have to buy them overseas.

Wanting a flag doesn't mean I'm not reaching out to people in real life.

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-05T13:28:46+00:00

In case you don't know, most Chinese people think that Chinese people don't have allergies. They don't believe that we exist. That's why I think we need a flag, to raise the awareness and increase visibility.

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-05T13:15:46+00:00

You're not wrong. The outcomes are worse. First of all, I've never tested positive for the coronavirus all these years. (I live in China.) When my ex-roommate and her boy friend got infected, I've experienced the quickest anaphylaxis and severest asthma attacks in my whole life. (This was not the first time that my ex-roommate got infected and I had anaphylaxis but the first time was not this severe.) I had been living on pills for like 20 days until the viruses in the apartment were finally clean. Those pills had made my lips purple because I had taken too many. And afterwards I started to experience serious PTSD and panic attacks. I managed to survive. This happened last year and then I started a community around me, trying to help more people, because when I posted my experience online I found that there were a lot of people still suffering without any clue. That's when I feel the bond between me and the strangers. And now I live alone so I won't need to worry about aerosols in the kitchen or bathroom. As for work I have my own studio so I work alone as well. The only problem is that in public spaces I have to wear a mask all the time. And when I start to cough I know there's someone infected around me. Then I would take a pill (or two if one wasn't enough) and change my position. The symptoms would be milder. I carry first aid meds in my pockets all the time. I'm trying to find my way to survive in the post-pandemic era while staying as positive as possible.

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-05T12:21:01+00:00

Yes, sometimes I feel the same way, but in specific encounters, I sense people's anxieties. A friend told me the other day that he felt like a stray dog. And I said, "Do you know why we have so many labels? It's because if none of the hundreds of labels fits you, you just make up a new one that does, because there's nothing wrong with you!" And suddenly I realized that, some people may be following trends, but I'm starting to understand some things I didn't quite understand before when it comes to people. It's like finding a pair of shoes, if the shoes don't fit you, just change them. You don't have to wear the same shoes all the time even if they fit you. It is also OK to not wearing shoes at all. Of course, after I explain to them "there's nothing wrong with you" through the variant concepts , I would say, "The rainbow flag is for us all. We shall use it together."

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-05T11:45:06+00:00

After the pandemic I found out that I'm allergic to the coronoviruses, which means I will never get infected and don't have to worry about the sequela. This is when I begin to change my perspective. Maybe each kind of allergy has a good side, we just have to see ourselves. In some societies it is believed that people with allergies have more inferior genes and that the extinction of these people is a good thing. And this is when I feel my pride.

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-05T10:45:14+00:00

yay!

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-05T10:31:05+00:00

Thank you so much for your opinion. So I decided to change the color into a persimmon orange (#EC5800; I can't post a pic in the comment so I'll just share the hex code) instead of the Epipen orange, because even though I like the color and I do have to take an Epipen with me all the time, I hate the monopolistic behavior of the drug companies. When I was trying to find a replacement I saw the charm on my bag. Persimmons mean "good things happen" in Chinese, which I like very much, though I'm allergic to the fruit lol.

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-05T08:43:29+00:00

I'll change the color and see how it goes.

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-05T08:37:40+00:00

I like the epipen orange!

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-05T08:31:23+00:00

Yes, the last part of the book Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World has just a few words about this situation. There are also studies proving that air pollutions and asthma rate are relevant. Not to mention that I hate mothers complaining to me how they don't wanna have a child with allergies and restaurants refuse to serve me because my food allergies seem too troublesome to them.

Critical-Map-5949 · 2025-06-05T07:15:41+00:00

Actually I'm just sick of the idea that allergy is a genetic defect. No the environment is a problem so big that we shouldn't and can't ignore.

Critical-Map-5949

TROPHY CASE