I've read positive reviews about Wellbutrin written by other people with bipolar disorder (used with a moodstabilizer and/or antipsychotic). My experiences were not so positive. I've never used plain old Wellbutrin, but did briefly take Wellbutrin SR and Wellbutrin XR a long time ago.

When I took Wellbutrin SR, I took it along with Depakote ER and Invega. At that time, I had been very depressed for a very long time. I found Depakote ER and Invega to be great at ridding me of severe manic symptoms I had, during a hospitalization. That's when I was put on that duo, but they left me purely depressed. The Wellbutrin SR was later added, but didn't seem to even touch my depression. In the end, I was taken off the Wellbutrin SR and had ECT treatments.

After my ECT treatments, the doctors put me back on Depakote ER and Invega. Yea, brilliant idea! The depression returned, but I refused more ECT. I was hospitalized again, but my meds were switched to Lithium ER and Geodon. My depression started to lift, but not entirely. Then my therapist had the idea that maybe Wellbutrin might help the second time around with the new combo. I mentioned that to my psychiatrist, and he was like "Are you sure you want to try it?" I said yes, so he put me on Wellbutrin XR (not SR). Within about a week, my moods went nuts and I was up and down wildly, with extreme mixed symptoms and anxiety. He took me off the Wellbutrin XR, and I calmed down quickly, but was then mildly depressed, an actual improvement. My psychiatrist then added a bit of Lamictal. When I reached the small dose of 75 mg, it did the trick. In fact, I was growing increasingly euphoric manic at 100 mg. My psychiatrist had to add more antipsychotic to bring me down. I've stayed at 100 mg of Lamictal since, but my Lithium and Geodon were eventually replaced with Tegretol XR and Seroquel XR because of bad side effects.