Could you maybe try to bargain, like you'll try the AP but you want to try a mood stabilizer as well? And then when you've put in the 6 months you might be able to try reducing the AP.

For me mood stabilizers never worked. Depakote sort of did but only at extremely high doses, my levels never were stable so I had to get bloodwork all the time and I was on so much it made me gain a lot of weight. The others I tried didn't work, over-sedated me, or in one case agitated me. APs have actually been easier overall. (When taking into account that I couldn't take a lot of anti-convulsants and also a lot of APs).