What I experience with lithium is my thinking is much easier and clearer. The mania symptoms almost completely disappear. I don’t think I could maintain employment without lithium.

There is no relaxing or numbing effect though. My anxiety is still there. I feel like me, just I can process information normally now and don’t become delusional. I never really felt like I had a “mood” issue, the way you think of excessive highs and lows. I experienced it more as an energy issue — and the lithium prevents me from burning out my motor by getting stuck in some ultra-high activation mode.