Lithium is a mood stabilizer

I am just so confused right now. The first time I went with hubby to the Dr to get some more Xanax I had pointed out to the Dr that Hubby is bipolar and if he could put him on some Lithium. Just to let you know this is a new Dr Hubby has. The Dr instead put him on Tegretol 100.

Now this is what I have observed since he started taking the Tegretol:

From word go hubby seemed a lot calmer and the next time we went to the Dr I had told the Dr that he was 95% better. At the time he didn't have too much stress at work. Now there is heaps of stress at work and his moods go from one extreme to another.

Let's take last night for an instant. Everything was fine, we were chatting away, he then started talking about work and started talking about one of the guys at his work, how if he(guy from work) didn't move his car tomorrow so hubby can come home that he would get something out of his car then ask him again to move the car and if he still wouldn't move his car that he would then smash on of his headlights. I hate it when he starts talking like that so I started playing a game on the computer as that tends to calm me down, I also told him that I didn't like it when he starts talking like that. After a while he went to have a shower, came back in and destracted me from the game I was playing, I was then told that the game was more important then him. Then all of a sudden he started on me, saying that I don't care about our birds, that I don't look after them properly and so on. Then things started heating up even more, he started calling me a bitch, that's when I turned my computer off and went outside to get away from him, as I was walking out the door he told me  "yeah go on run off again" I told him that I don't like being called a bitch and I didn't want him to ever call me that again. I went outside to have a cigarette then I came into the kitchen to give our parrots some clean water and change the trays. He came in there told me to leave his birds alone, he wants to divorce me, I'm nothing but a lying piece of sh%$, and so on. He had me in tears. After a while he went to bed but still kept going on so I called out and said " Tell those voices to shut up" ( He has told me time and time again that he hears voices that tell him stuff and that if he is ever like this to just ignore him but how can I do that when he follows me around to pick a fight??)

The thing that I am wondering now is: Should the Dr of prescribed him the Lithium to help with that?

I mean I can't take much more of this. I usually walk away and leave him alone when he is in this kind of mood, he doesn't always have a go at me but when he does then sometimes me walking away doesn't even work and we end up in a huge fight cause I can't just let him verb. abuse me.