Who is ordering your meds? Is it a psychiatrist? Lithium is considered "the Gold Standard" for management of bipolar disorder. Not too long ago, there was a lot of press on how a study found that lithium saves lives by reducing the suicide rate among those who take it. So why are you being taken off lithium, if you were tolerating it well?

Abilify is generally an "add on" drug, and not the primary med given to a patient for combating depression or bipolar mood instability. That's nice that it helps you a lot, but it has been helpful as something you've taken in addition to your lithium.

Could you explain how this goal of making Abilify "be the only medication you need" came to be something to shoot for? There is no particular virtue in being on one med, as opposed to more than one med, though it does seem simpler. Like you wouldn't try to make it a goal to eat just one food that seems to taste good and give you enough calories. It's just curious to me that this goal came up to rely on a medication that is not all that well respected by many psychiatrists.

I do realize that there can be a lot more to your situation than can be learned in one thread. What I'm hearing is that you're scared of this upcoming experiment. So why is your doctor planning something that is scaring you?

If you get deeply depressed, the way to handle that is to go to the hospital and tell them that you are very depressed. You'll get help that will, in all probability, restore you to your usual baseline.