This was my life before clozaril. I was always in some episode, usually mixed. I maxed out med after med and nothing really helped. When I started Emsam for depression that decreased but the bipolar raged on. 5 years ago I started clozaril and after maybe 6 months I started feeling a lot better. Now I have one hypomania in the summer every year that we treat with increasing my clozaril dose for 4 days. I sleep through those days pretty much and wake up better. I get symptoms often still but they aren't enough to need med changes or require much to handle them (sometimes I still do need more antidepressant and I have occasional psychotic symptoms that go away alone (I can't remember needing anything to treat them).

I still do weekly therapy (although I think my therapist thinks it could be less but I'm too scared to talk about it) and monthly pdoc. Those things won't change and are needed for the relative stability.

So far I'm even getting through grief without winding up IP. I really thought that would be part of grief and I'm doing ok instead.

There is hope. I didn't think there was when I was going through all the meds but there is.