I'm on lithium, but I'm not bipolar. It's severe major depression with suicidal ideation. Lithium is well known for helping with suicidal thoughts. I've been on it twice. It worked so well the first time. The thoughts and urges were gone. Unfortunately, I had my levels checked and they were too high, so my dose was lowered. The lower dose wasn't effective and I stopped.
A few months later, my psychiatrist decided I should give it another try. So I'm back on the higher dose. My levels are creeping up to where they were the first time, which sucks. I don't know what I'm going to do. It's made me feel so much better, though.
I do have very bad anhedonia. I'm not sure if it's going to completely cure it, but since I've been on lithium plus latuda it seems to be getting a little better. I am at least starting to feel little urges to do things again that I used to enjoy, and that's a big deal because I wasn't even wanting to try before.
I tried lamictal, and we thought I had developed a rash from it, so I was quickly taken off. It turned out to be something different, but I was too wary of it to give another try. I'm on latuda now.