Content Notes / Trigger Warnings
This post contains discussion of medical trauma, gaslighting, seizures, fainting/collapse, medication side effects, emotional distress, and strong language.
Please take care of yourself while reading. Step away if you need to. The Den will still be here when you get back.
Welcome back to the Cryptid’s Den.
This is The Crippled Cryptid.
A soft-lit corner of the internet where disability, chronic illness, service dogs, and everyday survival magic gather like familiar spirits who know when to sit quietly and when to laugh too loud.
If you’re new here: hi. I’m Sky.
Professional cryptid.
Unwilling amateur cyborg.
Medically interesting enough to make half my providers sigh when they open my chart. I sigh too. Often. Loudly.
I live in a haunted meat suit with a deeply suspicious warranty. I spend a lot of time in Bed Jail™. I am almost never alone thanks to my medical alert service dog, Luna. She is part guardian, part shadow, part stern little voice that says, “Excuse me, Mama. Sit your ass down. Right now.”
And of course, M&M. Never far. Always steady. Always there with the 90% when I only have 10 to give.
This space has always been about showing up for ourselves even when our bodies refuse to cooperate.
Chronic illness without inspiration porn.
Disability without apologies.
Love without pretending it’s always easy.
Returning cryptids: welcome home.
New cryptids: pull up a chair.
Welcome to the Lunatic Café. The Den is big enough for all of us.
On Today’s Menu: Let That Sh*t Go
Earlier this year, in a Facebook group for one of my favorite bands, Citizen Soldier, I won a care package.
If you’ve been around here a while, you know this band matters to me. Deeply.
Citizen Soldier is one of those rare groups that sings directly into the tender places. Mental health. Survival. Staying. Making it through the day when your brain is being uncooperative or the world feels heavy in your chest.
M&M is the one who found them first. The first song she ever showed me was Found, which feels fitting in ways I don’t have language for yet.
We see the band as friends. They recognize us when we go to shows. The first time we saw them live, they were stunned that we had driven from Illinois to Canada, then back to Illinois, then all the way to Salt Lake City, Utah just to be there. They signed and gave us their drum tops. Those drum tops hang in our bedroom now, prized and protected, a reminder that some journeys matter even when they cost you everything.
At the time of the giveaway, it was Thanksgiving season. The person hosting it wanted to make someone’s life a little better. The prize pack included things meant for comfort, reflection, and release.
One of those things was a book called Let That Sh*t Go.
I entered the giveaway without expectations. I shared what the band meant to me. And I meant every word.
I still do.
The Phone Call That Broke the Day
I’m telling you all this because today, I got a phone call.
Not the good kind.
Not the kind you hang up from feeling lighter.
The kind that hollows you out.
I won’t name the person. They’re family. I love them. I don’t want to hurt them. I also don’t know if they read this blog.
But they started talking about heavy things. The kind of heavy my cardiologist has explicitly told me to avoid.
When I tried to stop them, they talked over me.
When I told them I wasn’t feeling well, they kept going.
I told them I was waiting on calls back from my neurologist about Keppra side effects that have been scaring me for weeks.
That I was waiting on my cardiologist. About the 6-day continuous heart monitor results.
That I was waiting to hear whether the hospital could even accommodate the scans I need because my case is complicated.
None of that mattered.
I walked away from the phone. I told M&M I wasn’t okay and that I needed the conversation to stop.
But I am not usually the kind of person who will just hang up on family.
I didn’t make it far.
I collapsed. I hit the concrete floor. We don’t know if it was another seizure. That’s the thing people don’t understand. Not all seizures look like TV. Sometimes there’s convulsing. Sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes there’s just dizziness, disorientation, and your body quietly pulling the plug.
I remember M&M yelling.
I remember the look on her face.
I remember the moment before the ground came up to meet me.
What I didn’t get was kindness.
Instead, there was gaslighting. Dismissal. The implication that this was somehow my fault. Like the “friend” last week who decided that seizures are just and that anxiety means I’m holding my breath on purpose. Making myself faint, fall, pass out. That none of it is real.
Never mind the six-day heart monitor.
Never mind the Apple Watch data.
Never mind the neurologist, the cardiologist, the tests, the evidence.
We called the neurologist again. Supposedly he’ll call me today. He was already supposed to, so I don’t know what to do with that information yet.
Mostly, I’m hurt.
I’m hurt because my head hit concrete.
I’m hurt because my body chose violence again.
I’m hurt because someone I trusted didn’t believe me.
And I’m hurt because people are starting not to believe me when this happens.
I’ve watched people show more compassion to strangers with epilepsy than they showed to me in my own kitchen.
The worst part was hearing that my family member would not be responsible for my “fragile medical health.” As if M&M hasn’t been here, steady and relentless, protecting me when I can’t protect myself.
That one landed like a kick I didn’t need.
The Thing That Didn’t Ruin the Day
Somehow, M&M refused to let this destroy everything.
She decided I didn’t need to be banished to Bed Jail™ indefinitely, even though I probably should be on concussion watch again. And so here I am, sitting with you, telling you why this post exists at all.
I’m starting a new series.
It comes from that journal in the care package:
Let That Sh*t Go by Monica Sweeny.
I can’t promise I’ll do the prompts in order.
I can promise honesty.
Every time I pick a prompt, we’ll do it together. I’ll share the question, my thoughts, and what I actually wrote.
You don’t have to share yours.
You can if you want to.
Sometimes we just need to let things go. Especially when they’re hurting us.
The First Prompt
The first page asks you to write, lightly, the things that make you feel like crap.
For me, that list looks like this:
- My health
- Keppra and its side effects
- People who don’t understand that my health is out of my control
- Being treated like I’m doing this to myself
- Gaslighting
- Money
- Disability systems that punish survival
- Bills, especially in winter
- Politics, because they hurt my damn head
The next page tells you not to erase those things.
Instead, you write over them with color. With things that make life feel good. You don’t deny the bad. You just refuse to let it be the only thing you see.
I love that.
Some of mine are:
- Luna
- Bear
- M&M
- Cooking and baking together
- The Yard Yeti’s 3am grilled cheeses
- Matthew singing in the car on appointment days (he doesn’t do that much anymore)
- Grilling on the Blackstone
- The garden
- Long car rides
- Good music
- Mario Party
- Zelda
- Old, silly video games
- Bed Jail™ days with shows and snacks
There’s more to the book. We’ll get there.
But this feels like the right place to start.
Because when I look at it long enough, the list of good things might actually be longer than the bad. Unless I start listing diagnoses. Then it gets messy.
Life isn’t all bad. Even when it’s hard.
Even when it’s loud.
Even when I feel like I’m losing myself.
And maybe this series will teach me how to let that sh*t go.
What do you think?
Do you want to come with me on a new adventure?
Love you. Now say it back.
-Sky
© The Crippled Cryptid
Disability, honesty, and a little chaos.
If you’re here, you belong here.
If today was heavy, thank you for carrying it with me.
If you’re reading from Bed Jail™, give your service dog an extra scritch for me.
🔗 https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa
There’s never pressure to donate. Reading, sharing, or simply staying is more than enough.
But if you’d like to support my ongoing journey toward health, stability, and mobility:
💜 https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-skys-journey-to-health-and-mobility
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