Fern I feel like in many ways we share the same illness profile. I had one episode lasting one treated with APs....after discontinuing APs at my docs advice...9 months later a little blip. I had also changed doctors at this point. Doctor two basically said, since you’ve got psychosis you need an AP regardless of whether you try lamictal or not. So I opted not. While I have bipolar I don’t get major cycles outside of psychosis....the abilify seems to stabilize both my moods and psychosis. Abilify comes in low doses suitable only for depression etc, I’m somewhere between there and the dose for psychosis(10-30) at 7.5 mg but I’ve been as low as 2.5 mg effectively. What I like about Abilify is it’s a partial agonist at dopamine so it’s not got some of the traditional side effects of APs that come form that. I’ve basically been on the stuff for around ten years now, one word of advice though is if you’re not on fish oil get on it because it will help keep your cognition healthy whil eon AP. I went through some cognitive problems a few years back and now I’m back to baseline for the most part.