Honestly, I think it depends on the severity of your symptoms. The thing about bipolar is you don't know when it will strike again. Some people are able to go into remission for years and not have trouble with their medication while others (like me 8D) have frequent symptoms. For me it is worth taking the medicine. It gives me a new lease on life. I can see myself living past the 20's, which I frankly never imagined unmedicated.

You know what you could do is taper off and take smaller doses at first. Like if you're taking 750 depakote, ask if you can go down to 500 for a couple weeks and if you're still fine reduce to 250...or if you're comfortable at the 500 you can stay there. Then you can talk to your pdoc about a plan of what needs to be increased and what you need to take when you find the symptoms reoccurring. This way you still have enough of the medicine to help curb an unwanted depression/manic/hypomania.

You can also try asking for extended release and splitting half the dose for morning and night.

Hope I helped.