Things That Feel Safe Right Now
Content Note: Mentions of political distress, media overwhelm, chronic illness, disability, grief, and nervous system regulation. No graphic descriptions.
Welcome back to the Den.
The lights are low.
The kettle is on. It smells faintly like chamomile and oversteeped resolve.
The world can knock, but it’s not coming in without permission.
This is The Crippled Cryptid.
A soft, lamp-lit corner of the internet where disability, chronic illness, service dogs, and the complicated art of staying alive are allowed to exist without performance reviews.
If you’re new here, hi. I’m Sky.
Professional cryptid.
Unwilling amateur cyborg.
Advocate when the spoons allow.
Medically fascinating in the way that makes charts thicker and specialists tired.
I live in a haunted meat suit with a suspicious warranty. I spend an intimate amount of time in Bed Jail™. I am rarely alone thanks to my medical alert service dog, Luna.
Part guardian.
Part shadow.
Part “absolutely not, we are sitting down before this becomes a situation.”
When necessary, I go from Mama to Mumther like it’s my full government name.
Then there’s M&M.
My constant. My Player 2. The one who gives ninety percent when I’m running on fumes and spite. Garden gremlin. Best friend. Steady hands in an unsteady and sometimes unreliable world.
This space is not about being brave on demand.
It’s about building nests.
It’s about surviving loudly, softly, imperfectly.
Chronic illness without inspiration porn.
Disability without apology.
Love without pretending it’s always easy.
Right now, the world feels sharp. Loud. Uncertain.
We live in the United States. We’ve seen the news. We’ve opened TikTok. We’ve scrolled Facebook. The volume is relentless. It presses in at 2 a.m. when we should be asleep. It hums in the background while we’re just trying to microwave leftovers.
Today is not the day I untangle all of that.
Today is not a policy breakdown.
Today is not a call to arms.
Today is not a dissertation on the state of everything.
Because ghouls, it is a lot. And I don’t care which side you’re on, or who you’re fighting for you need to admit that it is A LOT. And I promise that we will get into all of that just, not today.
Today is a step back.
Because sometimes the most radical thing a chronically ill nervous system can do is refuse to marinate in catastrophe.
So, we’re talking about the small things that feel safe.
The quiet anchors.
The rituals.
The people.
The textures and routines that let our bodies unclench, even if just a little.
Returning cryptids, welcome home.
New cryptids, there’s a blanket with your name on it. I hope you don’t mind the dog hair. It’s a Luna Special.
The Den is warm. The door is shut. The dog is on watch.
On today’s menu: Things that Feel Safe Right Now. (Whatever the Fuck that Means.)
🌻 Luna’s Sunflower Gear
Luna hasn’t worn her sunflower set since October. Before the car accident. Before everything shifted.
I took it down from the hook in the living room, or “Frunchroom,” as we call it here in the Midwest, and the way she looked at it lit something up in me.
Her ears perked. Her whole body leaned forward like, Finally. We’re doing something.
She loves working. She loves her job. She loves having a purpose that is more than just existing beside me. And while she still alerts from home, and does her tasks and her job while we’re here existing in the limbo that is The Den I know that she wants to be back out there in the world just as much as I do, and seeing her light up like that solidified it for me.
And I cannot wait for the day I clip that vest back on and we move through the world together the way we used to.
That gear is not just fabric.
It is continuity.
It is muscle memory.
It is a future tense.
🎵 “Drag Path” by Twenty One Pilots
I kept hearing it on TikTok. It slipped under my skin. Now it lives there.
Comfort songs are strange creatures. They don’t always make sense on paper. They just… hold you.
There’s something about the rhythm, the build, the way it feels like forward motion without panic. Like movement without being chased.
I’ve built an entire Spotify playlist of songs that feel like nervous system armor. If I can figure out how to link it cleanly, I’ll drop it here for anyone who needs a sonic life raft.
Sometimes safety is a three-minute track you loop until your breathing evens out.
Sometimes it’s letting yourself have that without explaining why.
If you’re up for it, drop me your favorite comfort song right now. I’d love to give it a listen.
🦯 My Cane
This one surprises people.
You would think I’d resent the object that reminds me daily that my mobility is unreliable at best.
Instead, I love it.
It’s covered in stickers I chose. It carries a teddy bear we got from the food bank full of people who love us. It holds keychains. It carries pieces of my story.
It clicks against the floor in a rhythm that says, Still moving.
It is not just a mobility aid.
It is proof that I adapt.
It is evidence that I am still here.
It is something I reached for instead of giving up.
Personalizing it turned something clinical into something mine.
📖 Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
I’m rereading it through Libby, on my iPad.
When the world gets dark or strange, I go back to old favorites.
Anne Rice is one of my literary lighthouses.
Familiar pages. Familiar voices. Gothic indulgence contained safely inside a cover. Drama that belongs to fictional immortals instead of the nightly news.
I have read this series more times than I can count, and it still surprises me.
There is something deeply regulating about returning to a story that does not demand productivity, commentary, or hot takes.
It simply waits for you to arrive.
🌿 M&M. Always.
You will never get a list like this without her on it.
She is my safe place. Every day of the week.
She knows what I need. Often before I do.
Water appears before I ask. Meds are handed over without fanfare. Silence is offered when words are too heavy.
She doesn’t judge me when I need Bed Jail™ days and TV shows.
Or movie days.
Days where we do nothing aside from nap and scroll TikTok.
When you love someone for over half your life, they become threaded into you.
Not dependency.
Not erasure.
Integration.
Steady hands. Green hair in the garden. The one who shows up when I am running on empty.
🐾 Bear
Grumbling like a Victorian ghost child because he didn’t get to share whatever we were eating.
I miss him.
Sometimes I still expect to hear the huff from the hallway. The slow shuffle. The dramatic sigh.
He still belongs on this list.
Love does not stop being safe just because it changed form.
You’re Allowed
If the world feels loud again after this, that’s okay.
You’re allowed to build small safety where you can.
You’re allowed to call something “enough” even if it looks small from the outside.
You’re allowed to curate your inputs like your nervous system depends on it.
Because sometimes it absolutely does.
And if the rest of the world doesn’t understand why your phone is on Do Not Disturb right now?
Fuck them.
Harsh. Yes.
Honest. Also yes.
Protect your peace anyway.
Maybe safety is a dog pressed against your leg.
Maybe it’s a familiar show murmuring in the background.
Maybe it’s a person who hands you water before you ask.
Maybe it’s rereading a book that already knows you.
Maybe it’s turning the volume down on the world long enough to hear yourself think.
Whatever steadies you counts.
The world does not get to decide what keeps you regulated.
You do.
If you want to share, tell me one thing that feels safe for you right now. Big or small. Ritual or ridiculous. I’m collecting them like talismans.
Returning cryptids, thank you for keeping the fire going.
New cryptids, you’re welcome here exactly as you are.
The Den stays lit.
The kettle will be warm again.
Luna is still on watch.
Love you. Say it back.
-Sky
© The Crippled Cryptid
Disability, honesty, and a little chaos.
🔗 https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa
There’s never pressure to donate. Reading, sharing, or simply staying is more than enough.
If you’d like to support the long, slow work of staying alive, stable, and mobile:
💜 https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-skys-journey-to-health-and-mobility
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