Thanks @Hooligan! Yeah, it's definitely a conundrum. I'm doing the thing I want to be doing in life... but I don't have any stability. The depression strongly gets in the way of my writing (or of me getting basically anything done — as my tax penalties will point out). The hypomania can be great for getting writing done... or I can just be so besieged by ideas that I can't focus on anything long enough to finish it. And the anxiety that comes with both makes things really difficult, too.

"if you found a more "permanent" form of writing like for a newspaper or magazine would that be an option"

The thing is — I write comic books for a living. And there's basically no staff writer jobs in comics, so that's not an option. Also, comics is paying me a whole lot more for less work than when I tried to make it as a freelance journalist — so for that and other reasons, I don't really want to switch to a different writing medium.

@Miguel'smom —
"The best thing we did was set up hours for him. No matter what mood he's in he has 6 hours he has to be working. That doesn't mean he doesn't pull all nighters but At Least he regularly gets something done."

I really need to do this. I have no real work schedule, and it means that some days I get a whole lot done... but most days, I just don't end up working that much. Which makes it hard to get by.