My husband and I both eventually stopped meds and have done well.

I held a bipolar diagnosis, but in retrospect, I suspect it was more recurrent major depression and anxiety stemming from PTSD. One of my clues was that despite being on medications for bipolar that were supposed to be preventative, every stinking time I spiraled into severe depression and ended up hospitalized, I had been taking my preventative bipolar meds consistently -- they weren't really preventing anything. I never felt that I was manic, and the closest thing to hypomanic I experienced were bouts of insomnia and some hypervigilance about certain goals/tasks -- all which could be explained in terms of PTSD. I loved my psychiatrist, but I think he missed the boat on my diagnosis.

My husband was in a similar situation. Labeled bipolar but never really displayed all the symptoms. Probably what turned the tide was that he was on lithium -- getting blood work regularly -- and went into kidney failure because of lithium toxicity. He was in the ICU on dialysis and completely psychotic because the dialysis pulled all meds off his system abruptly. It was absolutely traumatic. We nearly lost him that week.

It was at that point that I made the decision to decrease what meds we were both on to only what was absolutely necessary. Coincidentally, about that time I ended up with a horrid stomach virus and couldn't take my meds for about a week. I let my pdoc know so he could advise how to restart them, and when it came time to restart them, I just couldn't make myself take them -- this was just weeks after the issues with my husband.

I had already decreased my therapy at that point, realizing I wasn't really utilizing my sessions much anymore, and I just decided to give myself time without meds (since I had already kind of involuntarily had to stop them) to see how things went. I was at that point open to restarting if I saw problems. I let my pdoc know where I was, and he was actually very supportive of me giving it a shot.

I've never had to go back on meds -- it's been I think 8 years. I've never been depressed or anxious again to the point that I was unable to work through it pretty quickly and on my own without incident. I consider myself very stable and while I don't consider my PTSD "cured" - it still creeps in from time to time - I also don't suffer from chronic symptoms that require psych meds or therapy.

My husband also didn't go back on meds after the lithium toxicity nightmare. The dialysis had fully cleaned out all meds (rather traumatically), and when it was time to restart meds we both insisted on changes. Absolutely NO MORE lithium! We had already recognized that lamictal caused him serious memory issues, so that was out. He, too, just decided to try it without and realized he didn't need all the meds either. He also has not had to be in therapy either since then. He has a low dose of trazodone he takes to help him sleep because he has a pain disorder that makes it hard for him to go to sleep (but even that dose in miniscule at this point). His complicated health issues make it probably safer that he isn't on any additional meds if possible.