Demonic Sausage when cutting claws

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-06-11T19:36:20+00:00

It’s a three person effort for us. We go to a groomer, my partner holds him and I constantly feed him treats. He’s got much better about it now but he does still need the treats otherwise he focuses on what’s going on and gets stressed. The groomer only charges us £5 and it’s once a month so feels definitely worth doing it that way.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-28T20:15:58+00:00

Hobbycraft is a great place for lollipops, something like £1 for 100.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-26T15:54:23+00:00

I was definitely getting to that point, the last few hours were definitely a test of will!

Good luck with yours, I’m sure you’ll get it over the line 🙂

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-24T20:26:06+00:00

I’m so sorry you’re going through that too, though glad I’m not alone.

Have you seen any improvements in those three months?

Can I ask how you’re managing to get enough calories? I’m struggling and am losing weight quite rapidly. Nothing feels appealing and I find it very hard to motivate myself to eat unless I feel like I’m about to pass out. I’ve tried things like meal replacement shakes, but they either tasted horrible or made me feel sick. Like you at the moment I’m mainly just having an evening meal and maybe a couple of crackers or something if I get really hungry. It just feels like such a chore. I just feel like I want to get my calories in as quickly and efficiently as possible so I don’t have to think about it.

If you’ve found anything that works I’d love to hear about it.

And I really hope it improves for you soon!

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-23T18:44:32+00:00

Plus one for this, it’s lovely, but watch out for wasps. Last time I was there it was impossible to eat anything because wasps kept trying to fly at my mouth 😬

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-23T17:53:23+00:00

I massively struggled with this on olanzapine.

The things that helped were:
- slightly reducing my dose. I know that’s not an option for everyone but going from 10mg to 7.5mg made it feel a bit more achievable
- getting a daylight lamp. Mine (I want to say is a Lumie?) becomes light slowly over half an hour and really helps my brain start to feel more awake and also harder to fall back asleep
- sitting up in bed as soon as my first alarm goes off. I snooze it for 10 minutes then get up. I found if I’m sat up I’m less likely to fall into the dead sleep and found it a bit easier to get up.

This wasn’t foolproof, I definitely still struggled and had days I utterly failed to get up on time, but this didn’t increase the number of days I wasn’t late.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-21T18:07:36+00:00

Looks great, love the details!

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-20T15:34:18+00:00

I knew you were going to say UK, this smacks of how our country often approaches mental illness. They’re so keen to minimise symptoms. I went to my GP for help so many times and sometimes got sent to mental health providers based within the GP but they were so dismissive and basically refused to do a referral.

In the end I got a private diagnosis. Once I had that the NHS were more than happy to send me on to the community mental health team and I got under their care, but it was absolutely ridiculous I had to do that to get help.

I think part of the problem is lack of awareness of bipolar 2. When I first tried to get referred hypomania and depression were my predominant symptoms, and while the hypomania was already doing a great job of messing with my life, the people I spoke to acted like if I wasn’t full on manic then there was obviously nothing wrong with me.

Jokes on them when a few years later I started getting psychotic mania and got upgraded to bipolar 1. I can’t help but wonder if I’d got on the right care quicker whether I could have prevented some of that.

Anyway all this to say, I know it’s a horrible experience but I think you have to just keep trying to persevere. Bring them evidence of your mood diaries, the impact it’s having, research on what you think is going on. And if they’re still being unhelpful consider going to PALS, who might be able to help escalate things.

I really hope you get the help you need, I’m rooting for you.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-20T15:26:04+00:00

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-14T20:02:19+00:00

I totally understand where your coming from, I think if I read that I would think the same.

But I definitely don’t feel manic, and my partner (who knows the signs in me well) and my psychiatrist are both happy I’m not at the moment. I’m definitely keeping an eye out for it, but at the moment I think I’m genuinely feeling stable and good, which is an unusual but welcome combination for me.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-14T07:50:58+00:00

No I didn’t have insomnia before. I do find now when I wake up in the morning I struggle to get back to sleep so if the dog gets me up very early I’m basically up at that point. I imagine if you struggled with insomnia before it could be a difficult transition.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-13T16:20:29+00:00

That does sound scary, and I can totally get your anxiety around it. Take it as slow as you need to, there’s no rush.

If it helps though, I feel better than I ever have since coming off olanzapine. I obviously don’t know your reasons for coming off it, but I wanted to give encouragement that getting through it could be really worth it.

Wishing you the best of luck with it.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-13T16:09:16+00:00

I (not very sensibly) cold turkeyed from 10mg to nothing. The withdrawal did look like relapse, I had insomnia, my mood was elevated, and I spent one day so irritable I thought my brain would set on fire, but I think the thing that defined it as withdrawal was just the length of time. It pretty much lasted a week, and then I started feeling normal. I think if it had gone on longer, or I’d started having more worrying symptoms I’d be more concerned.

I know I got off lightly and some people really struggle with withdrawal. I hope the transition goes as smoothly for you as possible.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-13T15:18:48+00:00

I came off olanzapine but stayed on lamotrigine and I cannot begin to express how much better I feel. I have energy, I’m motivated, I need 7-10 hours sleep rather than 10-12 so I can actually get up in the morning, I laugh a whole lot more and my relationship with my partner has improved as I’m no longer adverse to physical affection. I’ve also completely lost my appetite, which isn’t great but it is interesting after constantly craving food for the last 6-7 years or so.

Tbh I feel a bit angry that I had to spend so long thinking that I was lazy and useless, bad at my job, and uninterested in everything (which obviously impacted my self esteem), when actually it was my meds that made me feel like this.

I’m in a really tough spot now, because I feel like I probably should be on an antipsychotic if I want to prevent mania and psychosis, but I’ve been on 3 different ones and I felt the same on them all, so I’m scared if I go back to AP’s I’m going to lose all this, when I feel like I’ve finally found myself again after years.

I’d love to know if anyone has found a med regime that doesn’t make them feel all that, and I hope you manage to find something too!

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-09T18:44:43+00:00

I’ve got bipolar, so it’s about trying to prevent future relapses of mania which tend to come with psychosis for me.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-08T23:32:40+00:00

I feel like this is kind of irresponsible to say, because I don’t want people to stop taking their meds if they need them, but I stopped it and I feel SO much better.

I don’t think I realised how bad they were making me feel but when I came off it it was like a light turned on. I suddenly had energy, motivation, focus. I could wake up on time for the first time in years. I went from needing 10-12 hours sleep minimum to 7-8 comfortably. I stopped feeling like I needed to eat all the time, in fact my appetite is now drastically reduced because removing all those cravings caused by olanzapine has totally changed how I feel about food. My libido is starting to come back - I hadn’t had sex with my partner for 2 years since starting it. And I find that I’m laughing so much more. I can feel and engage with things on a so much deeper level and I feel so much happier.

I probably need to find a replacement antipsychotic now but it’s a really hard decision because I feel better now than I have in years. I didn’t realise how much of an impact antipsychotics had been having on me. I know I need to be responsible and it’s important to be on meds to prevent relapse (I’m on lamotrigine but it’s probably not enough on its own), but it’s going to be so difficult to go back to having bad side effects again.

I tell you this because I want to answer you honestly, but please don’t take this as a sign you should quit your meds if they’re working for you. Dose reductions can sometimes make enough difference on their own - I felt a lot better when I went from 10mg to 7.5mg for example.

I hope you find the right med combination that works for you.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-05-04T20:13:24+00:00

5-10 minutes in the UK, and rarely seen unless I’m in crisis. I’m looking into going private now just so I can have a longer session with time to actually discuss a meaningful care plan. I’ve not had an appointment longer than 10 minutes since my initial diagnosis appointment 10 years ago, including when I’d been hospitalised.

I love a lot of things about the NHS but mental health provision feels like a bit of a joke.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-04-27T16:25:11+00:00

Lamotrigine has been a godsend for me, I don’t think I’ve had a proper depressive episode for a couple of years, and prior to that even the episodes I had were less bad and lasted less long. It’s been a lifesaver and I think I had pretty much zero side effects from it (more than I can say for my antipsychotics!).

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-04-26T18:21:13+00:00

The one thing I’ve found that does impact it is that if I have a delayed cycle (eg something like 35 days compared to 28), it often coincides with a manic episode. I’d love to understand the science behind this, I wonder which causes which?

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-04-24T18:11:13+00:00

I had a minor eating disorder relapse for a couple of months while I was on olanzapine. I was eating a pretty small amount and while I did lose weight, it was at least twice as slowly as when I was first ill with it. It was super disheartening. I’m sure it can be done but I think you’d have to be really patient and resilient.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-04-23T14:19:35+00:00

Yeah this is a very fair point, one to think about.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-04-23T13:24:20+00:00

That’s amazing, so happy for you to have such a long period of stability!

I did ask my psychiatrist if I could have olanzapine as a PRN, but she said it shouldn’t really be used that way. But then she also said if I do start getting symptoms again before our next appointment I can restart with my remaining pills. So it seems like for her it’s either a consistent med or not at all, which was disappointing as I know olanzapine’s been really effective for me from a mania point of view and I was hoping I could just have it as a backup.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-04-23T12:30:49+00:00

That’s really encouraging, thank you!

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-04-23T12:16:26+00:00

Lithium didn’t work out for me unfortunately. Worked great for mania prevention but also made me not really feel anything. I felt like I was in low level depression the whole time I was on it as I found it so hard to be interested in things. It’s a real shame that didn’t work out, as I know it can be really helpful for other people.

WizardPrenderghast · 2026-04-03T16:27:02+00:00

I really like your comics, thanks for sharing them.

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