I think I'm finally over that SNRI's influence. I was on it for 2 weeks then it was 10 days before the roller coaster settled down. It was an unfair experience. The highs kept diminishing, but the lows didn't. The mood stabilizer is finally at a level that works. So far, it's so relaxing not having to expend energy to hold my emotions in. I've spent so much of my life holding frustration and rage in that this is suddenly such a relief.
Now I'm clear that the periods where I was most productive have been hypomanic. If I get a stimulating problem to work on, I'll get a tickle in the back of my head. Once I start coding the solution, that intensifies into an episode where I don't sleep because then I'd lose all the variables in memory. I have patents to show for some of those episodes. I had a 16 year stretch of my career where every application I architected and developed was still in use. I have also been walked out of a few good jobs because that lightning didn't strike and I couldn't get anything done or my rage would escape.
I went to this doc a year ago telling him that I have this self-destruct sequence that I have experienced several times in my life and could feel the timer counting down again. Turns out it was bipolar depression. The timer nearly hit zero a few times over the last few weeks, but I'm back to hopeful.
BTW, one of the biggest things I've learned in this is that if someone says they're going through something, don't just say "Feel free to call me anytime." During depressive episodes, isolation is more than an urge. It's a reflexive result of the distress. You have to reach out to them.