First off, thank you for listening. My name is Haven Skyy, and I’m asking for help on behalf of our family.

PLAN? BUDGET? See update #1

JOBS? See update #2

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We’re in a vulnerable position, and our household has been served 3 days’ notice for eviction due to inability to pay rent, which falls on 9/17/25. [Court went in our favor 11/05/25. Now we focus on putting one foot in front of the other.]

That’s wild, right? What happened?

I am our sole source of income, became officially disabled a few months ago after pursuing diagnosis for a long time, and have been actively searching for work for 17 months. Ara has an active kidney infection, and is on a double-strength antibiotic to fight it off. We’ve made a lot of cost-cutting measures, and she started to ration her food to 1 meal per day for 5 weeks, leaving her immune system vulnerable. Although she’s been eating regularly again and won’t be rationing any longer, she’s in life-threatening trouble if it gets any worse. [Ara is recovering, and no longer in immediate danger as of 10/20/25]

Our savings are gone, we’ve burnt ourselves out trying everything we could, and have nothing left. While asking for help like this is out of character for us as people who just like to make art and talk about plants or engineering all day, things are grim, so this is our last resort.

Our immediate family consists of Ara, myself, and our 11yo tabby cat Persie. We’ve been married partners for nearly 10 years, and I am profoundly grateful to have them both in my life. While everyone was skilling up during the cPlague19 times, we learned to speak Swedish and co-founded a design company called Kirala Design with dreams of moving abroad and selling our art . That ... all went sideways.

Disability is not something I saw coming. And it didn’t happen suddenly, like a person might imagine it to happen, although it felt that way for a bit. Turns out it’s been with me most of my life, crept up slowly, and then became unignorable.

Up until September 25th, 2023, I had been working as a Project Manager for a Manufacturer’s Representative in the Lighting industry. That was the day I went on leave, and the month I came to realize that something was terribly wrong with my brain. It would also be the last time I would have an income for the foreseeable future. I still have no idea what the future holds; do you?

Life felt like it was falling apart - and had been for years. After seeing 21 doctors, 30+ ICD-10 coded symptoms, over $37,000 in medical expenses for 2024 alone, I was finally diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND ) as the primary cause of the new constellation of symptoms in February of 2025. Among those ICD-10 codes are C-PTSD, and 2 different types of seizures, called ‘non-epileptic’ and ‘absent- / dissociative-’ seizures. All my life, I’d written them off as “chills” due to cold climate or “huh, muscles must need more salt” after long days, but nope - seizures, just not the signs anyone knew how to recognize. Although about 90% of them last only a few seconds and my longest was less than 5 minutes, their effects continue to drain me for hours after each one. So, I just got up each day and worked anyway, ever since age 18, because I had to, it was the only way to survive. As of right now, they’re hitting me between 6 and 20 times per day, and I have to guess at how many happened in my sleep based on how sore my jaw is or whether my gums are bleeding from muscle spasms. What fun, eh?

Today, 23 months and 20 days later, where are we? Selling our future to buy time for the present. Savings? Gone. 401(k)s, both my own and Ara’s? Gone. Progress on our prototype design for Kirala? Rapid, then glacial, and now stalled at around 85% completion. We’re behind on rent, can’t pay our basic bills, and I’ve been looking for a job ever since I finally had learned how to manage my condition and was well enough to work again.

That process took a lot of time, space, and work to get through just some of the anger and grief that washed through me over the years, and hit hardest after losing my job, our income. Through it all, Ara’s taken care of us, and in my darker days, I’ve been deeply unkind to her - I’ve pledged to spend the rest of my life working on living each day as the loving partner she needs. We’ve been to couples’ counseling, I’ve been in ongoing CBT therapy for years, and thankfully we’ve managed to make it through 100% of our hardest days, but to be real it’s been touch and go.

What have we done to help ourselves? A million things, none of which have been enough. Most recently, I’ve been trading 2 hours of sunburn to get food at our local food bank 3 days per week, and trying to get on MediCal insurance as well as SSDI. As of 9/15/25, I’ll have finished 52 hours of training and will be taking my California State Exam to become licensed as a salesperson of - ha - life, health, and disability insurance for an insurance company. The thing is, it’s not possible to get paid in time to cover our expenses, even if I do amazingly well and receive my license in the mail immediately after passing.

Ara’s got an interview as an Art Fabricator lined up for the week of 9/15/25, but she needs to get through this kidney infection. Could we make rent if she gets hired immediately and starts the next day? No. And if she pushes herself to try anyway, she could get sicker. If we lose our house and our health insurance lapses ... Bad things will follow. [11/14/25: Kidney infection was treated, Ara's back to making art!]

Right now, we’re in an especially vulnerable position, and our household has been served 3 days’ notice for eviction due to inability to pay rent. [Paragraph kept for post integrity.]

This post is for people who know us, who know someone that’s disabled, who’s been laid low by sickness, or who have faced negative bank balances themselves. If you’re able to share what you have. It’ll take much more to get us all caught up on bills. Will you please, please donate? For those who would like more info, to talk about budget, or offer other types of help, please send a message and I’ll make myself available for a scheduled Zoom meeting.

If - or rather when - you become disabled, please, don’t make the choices I did to try making your life work the same as it was before; life is not the same, and you’ll need different tools to survive, more support, a broader community. It’ll cost you and the people around you more in the end. So, look into every option, early, and build support sooner than later. I hope you never need to make a video like this one.

Lastly, thank you to all those who have helped in the past, thank you to GoFundMe, and thank you, whoever listens to this, for your time and your kindness.

Warmly,

Haven

Ara

Persie

p.s. To anyone wondering about GoFundMe's cut, it's 3%, very modest considering. While we do have direct pay apps, evey donation encourages others to pool together, too. Please check in if you have any questions, would like to do trade instead, or still prefer direct support thru Venmo/Zelle. ❤️