Content Note: Chronic illness, disability, medical events, surgery discussion, emotional overwhelm, survival language, pain, fatigue, medical anxiety. Gentle grounding included throughout.

Welcome to The Den

Welcome to The Crippled Cryptid.

Disability. Chronic illness. Service dogs. Survival without the performance.

If you’re new here, hi. I’m Sky.

Professional cryptid. Unwilling amateur cyborg. Writer. Advocate. Human being with a medical chart that reads like a haunted library archive nobody was supposed to open after midnight.

Most days are lived in a haunted meat suit with a questionable warranty and a long-standing blood feud with my nervous system.

I cope with sarcasm, snacks, strange little joys, and building something honest in a world that really prefers disabled people to either disappear quietly or become inspirational posters with good lighting.

This week?

We’re running on electrolytes, iced chai lattes, and the new peach Mr. Pibb, which honestly tastes like somebody whispered “summer” directly into a gas station soda fountain. I say that in the best way.

The coffee’s gone, because of course it is. I remain a caffeine-dependent woodland creature trying very hard to stick to one cup a day.

But Thursdays are quieter somehow.

Less performance.
Less noise.
More truth.

So, pull up a chair in The Den a while.

What This Space Is (And Isn’t)

This isn’t a rant.

This isn’t a medical update disguised as emotional homework.

This isn’t one of those “despite everything, stay positive!” speeches people hand disabled folks like participation trophies for surviving capitalism in a collapsing body.

This is a check-in.

With me.
With you.
With the Den.

Because this space was never supposed to be one-sided.

It’s a place to exist together.

To talk honestly.
To admit when things hurt.
To laugh anyway.
To say, “Actually? I’m not doing great,” without somebody rushing to turn your pain into a motivational quote written in beige script font.

No inspiration porn.
No forced gratitude.
No pretending wellness is measured by productivity.

Just honesty.

Even when it’s messy.
Even when it’s exhausted.
Even when it’s a little feral around the edges.

Especially then.

The Creatures Who Keep Me Here

I spend a lot of time in Bed Jail™, but I’m rarely alone.

There’s Luna.

My medical alert service dog.
Guardian. Tiny health department employee. Service Dingo™. Best Girl™.

Lately she’s been hovering.

Not the usual “Mumther, I have detected cheese in another room” kind of hovering.

The intentional kind.

Focused.
Persistent.
Watching me closer than usual.
Following me like she personally filed paperwork against the concept of me being unsupervised.

The kind of presence that says:

“Something’s weird, and I’m not letting you ignore it.”

Part of me thinks it’s just Luna being extra attached while we’re in and out of home more often lately.

But another part of me wonders if she’s picking up on my anxiety.

Her spay is scheduled for the 3rd, and I’ve been trying to prepare for everything ahead of time because that’s what love looks like when you live in survival mode. You overprepare. You make lists. You build soft landing spaces before you need them.

I want my baby comfortable, safe, and set up for success while she heals.

Which also means no working, limited playtime, enforced rest, and approximately one full week of convincing a high-energy dog that parkour is no longer an approved indoor activity.

If you’ve ever had a working dog with opinions?

You already know this is less “recovery plan” and more “active hostage negotiation.”

Then there’s M&M.

My Player 2.
My soft place to land.
Currently in their “please sit down before your spine files a formal complaint” era.

Especially now that the garden is finally planted and we’ve both been working our butts off outside lately.

And here’s the truth I keep circling back to lately:

That instinct to push through everything?
That reflex that says keep going, keep going, keep going no matter what your body is screaming at you?

It kept me alive once.

But survival habits are not always safety habits.

Sometimes healing means learning that rest is not failure.
Sometimes surviving long enough means admitting you were never meant to carry everything alone.

So let me say this clearly.
For you and for me.

Don’t shame yourself for the coping mechanisms that got you here.

Even if you’re trying to outgrow them now.

Even old cryptids can learn new tricks.

I promise.

🐾 Luna Note:
Mama continues attempting activities beyond factory-recommended settings.
Current intervention strategy includes:

• leaning aggressively
• emotional surveillance
• dramatic sighing
• tactical cuddling

Monitoring continues.

The Actual Check-In

Alright.

No dodging.
No “I’m fine, but-”
No escape hatches.

If it doesn’t work for me, it’s not going to work for you either.

So, tell me.

How are you doing… really?

You’re allowed to be honest here.

You are not difficult for having feelings.
You are not “too much” because your body hurts.
You are not failing because you’re tired.
You are not weak because this world asks more from disabled people than it was ever built to give back.

Take a breath with me.

In for four.

Hold.

Out for six.

Again.

Unclench your jaw.
Drop your shoulders.
Let your tongue leave the roof of your mouth.
Get some water.

🐾 Luna Note:
If you are not drinking water, I will escalate.
This is a formal warning.

I’ll wait.

If the big question feels too heavy today, try this instead:

• One word for today
• One thing your body needs
• One thing you made it through

That counts.
It all counts.

And if your body feels loud right now, try naming five things you can physically feel.

Fabric.
Air.
Warmth.
Pressure.
Something steady beneath you.

You do not have to fix yourself to deserve gentleness.

You only have to exist.

Where I’m At

I’ve been working my butt off lately.

Mostly in the garden.

Everything’s finally planted unless I suddenly black out in the garden center and come home with seventeen more plants and a tomato variety nobody’s ever heard of.

Which, historically speaking, is not impossible.

But honestly speaking? I don’t know where they would go.

If you want to see what we’ve got growing this year, wander over to the Garden of Whimsy tab sometime. I’ll be listing all the plants, little updates, weird garden lore, and assorted plant facts because apparently my final evolution is “disabled forest goblin with mulch opinions.”

We’ve also been trying to get out on more adventures lately.

You probably saw the Tuesday Cryptid Dispatch already:
7 Mile Fair, thrift stores, the Yard Yeti, root beer floats, and tiny freedoms that start to feel enormous after you spend enough time trapped inside your own body.

I think that’s part of why those little adventures have mattered so much lately.

Walking slowly through places that aren’t hospitals or waiting rooms.
Finding weird treasures nobody else would understand.
Laughing over ridiculous thrift store art and roadside cryptids.
Root beer floats melting faster than we could drink them.

Tiny freedoms start feeling enormous after chronic illness steals enough time from you.

Sometimes healing doesn’t look big or cinematic.

Sometimes it looks like wandering through a weird little roadside shop with your favorite people and realizing your nervous system unclenched for five whole minutes.

We’ve got a few more adventures planned too, all carefully scheduled around Luna’s spay because she’s the priority right now.

Always.

She keeps me here.

And that means if she’s hurting, stressed, or scared, I’m not leaving her side either.

She’s a mama’s girl.

Which means if she needs me close while she heals, then close is exactly where I’ll be.

At the same time, I’m trying to prepare for my own surgery on July 10th, which somehow arrived way faster than my brain agreed to process.

It’s strange thinking about how this time last year I was trying to figure out why my leg was failing again, and now we’re here:

Another spinal surgery.
Another recovery.
Another chapter in the ongoing saga of “well that’s medically unfortunate.”

Not ideal.
But necessary.

And somewhere along the way, I think I stopped asking whether I’m brave enough for this and started asking how to make it gentler on myself while I go through it.

That feels important somehow.

🐾 Luna Note:
Mama appears emotionally fragile but highly snack-motivated.
Current prognosis:

• stubborn
• tired
• loved very aggressively

Meanwhile my body is doing its usual weather-related rebellion tour.

Pressure changes.
Headaches.
The background static of chronic pain humming like old fluorescent lights.
The Midwest deciding to leap from the 50s into the 80s overnight like it personally has beef with connective tissue disorders.

The AC has become a permanent soundtrack in this house.

And the rest of this week has mostly been the crash afterward.

Exhausting.

But honestly?

Still kind of good.

There’s been joy tucked between the hard parts lately.

Little Jeep customizations.
Safety kits.
Tiny pieces of ownership and freedom returning after a long time without them.

Having a vehicle again still feels unreal in the best possible way.

Not because it fixes everything.

But because independence, when you’ve lost pieces of it before, feels almost sacred when it comes back.

I think I spent so long surviving that I forgot survival wasn’t supposed to be the final form.

Maybe there’s supposed to be something after.

Rest.
Joy.
Safety.
Tiny adventures.
Letting people love you without apologizing for needing them.

I don’t know.

But I think I’m trying to learn.

For You, Wherever You’re At

If this week is kicking your ass, I see you.

If you’re barely holding it together, that still counts as holding it together.

If you’re exhausted from surviving things nobody else can see?
That exhaustion is real.

And if things are good right now?

You’re allowed to say that too.

Joy does not cancel out struggle.
Struggle does not disqualify joy.

There is room for all of it here.

Even if you don’t have the words today.
Even if all you managed to do was make it to this moment.

You still showed up.

And honestly?

That matters more than people give it credit for.

🐾 Luna Note:
Pack accounted for.
You are included.
Do not wander off unsupervised.

The Door Is Open

If you want to talk, my DMs are open.

No pressure.
No expectations.
No requirement to package your pain into something digestible first.

If all you’ve got today is a couple pawprint emojis because you need some extra Luna love?

I’ve got you there too.

I am fully stocked on soft, sleepy, devastatingly cute Luna photos this week.

Or Luna Bean playing in the yard with her ball.

No words required.

The house is finally quiet tonight except for the AC humming and Luna snoring somewhere behind me.

The Den’s still here.

So am I.

So are you.

And I hope the rest of your week is kinder to you than the beginning was.

I’m really glad you’re here.

I mean that.

Love you.

Yeah, I said it first.

Your turn.

-Sky

🐾 Luna Addendum:
The pack has been emotionally perceived.
That is all.

---

🐾 Luna’s Official Assessment:

Hydration status: suspicious.
Stress levels: monitored.
Pack cohesion: acceptable.
Unauthorized overexertion attempts: ongoing.
Recommended treatment plan:

• snacks
• rest
• emotional support
• supervised blanket time

Some weeks survival looks loud.

This week, I think it looked a little softer.

© The Crippled Cryptid
Disability. Honesty. A little chaos.
(But softer today.)

🔗 https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa

There’s never pressure to donate. Reading, sharing, lurking quietly in The Den, or simply staying another day is already more than enough.

If you’d like to support the long, slow work of staying alive, stable, and still wandering when I can:

💜 https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-skys-journey-to-health-and-mobility