You need some type of mood stabilizer.  Lithium is what I am on although I think my pdoc may wean me from that and on to Abilify.  However, I am leery of this possible move, so I will likely stay on Lithium as it is cheap and the body is fairly tolerating of it, weight gain excluded. 

I encourage you to offset the weight gain with diet and exercise.

Your profile shows that you may be just experiencing what happens both cognitively (impulsivity, inability to concentrate, etc) and what happens during euthymic (normal mood) states.  In other words, many symptoms of bp persist outside of mania, hypomania, moderate depression, and major depression.  It helps to simply recognize and accept this.

The trick, in my view, is to stick with the mood stabilizer and antidepressant - so that the extremes are kept at bay - and then perhaps augment the 'middle realm' issues however you can.  In my case, this is first and foremost accomplished without drugs.  For example, you can reduce your stress (work, family, financial, etc) and that will help an awful lot.  You can try talk therapy or other psychosocial therapy (social rhythm, CBT, DBT, etc).  Join a local support group..they are free. Try music therapy, I think it really helps calm the thoughts as well.

Only after all of this, should you then move on to more meds.

That is my two cents.  In the end, I like Lithium though...it is dirt cheap and has a very long history of effectiveness and very low side-effect profile.

Andrew

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