Hello, this is my first post here and I was just hoping for some advice.

I was diagnosed with Bipolar 2 a couple years ago (but I think I've had it for much longer) and I also started my PhD a year before the diagnosis. I took a break from school about a year ago and plan to go back again in August. However, in addition to the awful depression I've been dealing with for this past year and during my last semester of school, I'm really having trouble with concentration and focus. I've heard that sometimes bipolar meds, depression meds, and just the depression and bipolar itself can decrease cognitive abilities. So I was wondering what you do to counteract or help yourself in these situations. I'm really looking for advice from people having gone through or going through grad school since I think there's an awful kind of special pressure and stress that academia induces and I'd like to know how you deal with it.

Right now while I'm trying to finish my incompletes from the previous semester this brain fog, as I've heard it been called, it just incredibly debilitating. It takes me 6-8 hours just to read one heavy theory essay and I'm running out of time to get everything finished. My psychiatrist is even considering possible AD/HD - Inattentive type, so that may only further complicate things.

So what did you do to help yourself and get through your degrees? Were there any medications that really helped or didn't? I've heard lamotrigine/Lamitcal doesn't help with the brain fog.

Please and thank you, I just really need to figure out how I'm going to get through this PhD.