My pdocs could never decide between bipolar 1 and schitzoaffective so they left me at bipolar 1 and added psychosis NOS. I had a fair bit of psychosis outside of mania and depression. In fact psychosis was probably my first symptom of a real problem which started when I was about 10 or 11.

Hmm, well you will forsure want to make sure your meds address the mania and psychosis. Have you been on ad's in the past? If you were was it tolerable? Make me so manic and dysphoric and just a super mess, beyond scary for me. Some people do really well with that with a good mood stabilizer in place. I guess it's the luck of the draw. But seems that when a person falls more in the manic side and exhibits psychosis ad's can be a bigger problem. Not to scare you, it's just something I have noticed over the years here.

Your pdoc may have a good idea. Changing your anticonvulsant to something like depakote might work and that might not be such a drastic change for you. Changing ap's would seem like that might be a bigger change.

I have heard music since I was pretty young. Sometimes sounds like instruments other times sounds like a radio. I don't find it too bothersome anymore but when I am trying to sleep it can be a bit of a problem. When I was a kid I assumed everyone experienced that as well even tho I knew it was phantom music. I was a bit niave , but I also assumed other people saw things too and it was just a social custom to not talk about it. Kinda silly now, but I think I found comfort in that idea.

Hopefully your dr will work with you and you find a better combo to keep mania a little further away. You could also try a light box for winter depression. Might do the trick.