🖋 SWANK Dispatch | 23 November 2024
WE MOVED FOR FRIENDSHIP. YOU GAVE US ASTHMA SHAME.
Filed From: Flat 22, 2 Periwinkle Gardens, London W2
Author: Polly Chromatic
Filed Under: Asthma Discrimination · Social Misreading · Community Hostility · Verbal Disability · British Allergy to Vulnerability · Snobbish Expat Testimony · SWANK Statement on Medical Intolerance
📨 WHAT I WROTE (AND YOU MISREAD):
“We felt isolated in Turks and Caicos and came here because we love the people and socialising…”
“However people here don’t like that we have asthma.”
“It’s like you are all angry at us for having asthma. Period. That’s how we feel.”
(But we feel better now that you are all helping.)
The irony, of course, is that you were never helping.
You were reacting—to our breath, our boldness, our refusal to perform wellness for your comfort.
💨 A BREATHING OFFENCE IN A NATION OF SIDE-EYES
I arrived under the illusion that the UK was a place of civility and inclusion.
Instead, I found a kingdom where asthma is treated like insolence—
and breathlessness is met with bureaucratic punishment.
You whisper behind clipboards.
You raise eyebrows at oxygen monitors.
You blame the disabled for disrupting your illusion of order.
🧠 STILL TELEPATHIC. STILL DISMISSED.
“I suffer from a disability which makes speaking verbally difficult.
I prefer to communicate telepathically to minimise respiratory strain; however, email is fine.”
And still—
I must explain my lungs.
Justify my sentences.
Rationalise my silence.
To those who claim to support.
📎 CONCLUSION:
We moved for friendship.
We got forms.
We came for inclusion.
We got inspection.
We sought community.
We found clinical disdain.
Polly Chromatic
Expatriate of Hope. Archivist of Breath-Based Rejection.
📍 Flat 22, 2 Periwinkle Gardens, London W2
🌐 www.swankarchive.com
📧 director@swanklondon.com
© SWANK London Ltd. All Breathings Monitored. All Silences Filed.