I’m going to write several blog posts because the topics are so varied, and I really don’t want to mash them into one giant clusterfuck of a blog post.

I’ve been feeling kind of shitty physically lately. I assume it’s because I am adjusting to the new respiratory medications (even though they are not new, I’ve just been off medications for the last several months because I’ve been sans doctor). Or I could be getting sick, because one of the unpleasant side effects of corticosteroid medications is that they suppress your immune system, making you more susceptible to illness. Isn’t that funny how that works?

Last week, my doctor explained to me how air was getting into my lungs, but wasn’t getting out – instead, getting trapped inside. For normal people, breathing out should not require any effort. For me, it requires a massive amount of effort, and even then, air is still trapped inside.

As I thought about this more, I couldn’t help but find it so similar to the rest of my life’s experiences. I took in trauma after trauma, and then it got trapped inside my brain and now those memories can’t really get out.

I was literally trapped in my house for most of my life. I was trapped in a family I didn’t want.

Why is “trapped” a recurring theme in my life? Trapped body, trapped memories, now trapped air.

I’m still in a little bit of denial. Once I moved, I just told myself all of my breathing problems were because I was living in filth. That was a possibility. My family was not clean. There was dust, mold, mildew, and bugs, aside from a menagerie of poorly taken care of animals (including five cats all sharing two small litter boxes). I was in and out of the hospital since my early teen years with pneumonia and unstable O2 labels.That was my norm. I thought that would all disappear once I moved. But it didn’t. Because it’s a disease. The damage is already done.

On a positive note, I have been smoking a tiny bit less. Still smoking. But less. In all honesty, it’s probably the medication at work, because I have not been making a conscious effort to do so.

On a less positive note, it’s really annoying to be talking to someone and randomly cough up a string of mucous.