I hate to say this but that's really not a lot of meds to have tried. It can be tough to find an AD that works without causing mania and sometimes it requires another type of med to cover depression but not cause mania (the anti-seizure meds are used for this sometimes). Sometimes it takes some trial and error to find meds that work for all your symptoms without causing intolerable side effects. I think you kind of have to choose what is tolerable to you and then try to find it.

I understand the drugged up thing. I have had to choose that I would pretty much deal with any med because I don't have good tolerance of them and have allergies and the like and my bipolar has been pretty stubborn to treat. So I've tried nearly everything but I don't think that is all that common. Most people can set some parameters. And different drugs will cause really different reactions. I actually had a contracted position where they asked my company to remove me from their buildings because they thought I was on drugs because of my reaction to Geodon. We explained I was on strong medications and that I was willing to take random drug tests at any time. They declined and so I actually wound up with a nice raise and a job I liked a lot more. But it was horrible at the time, especially because I had extrapyramidal symptoms that were beyond my control and ultimately kind of dangerous and I resented being held back by something that I was suffering through (I had uncontrollable oral motor movements and eventually had to stop the drug and stay far away from that one again).