I'm on lithium. I'm not bipolar, but I was prescribed it because I have major depression with suicidal ideation, and according to my prescribers, it's the only med proven to help with suicidal urges.
I didn't want to take it at first because it's always seemed really scary, with all the horror stories you hear. But after trying a gajillion other meds, I got desperate enough to finally give it a shot.
I haven't had any side effects. At first, I thought it was causing some unpleasant GI issues, but it turned out to be something else I was on and went away as soon as I discontinued that.
No zombie effect, like people always say. Nothing at all, really. It took awhile to start working, though. They have to find the right dose for you.
They start you off slowly, and gradually increase to a "theraputic dose" with frequent blood tests to make sure your lithium levels are safe. Lithium toxicity is a thing, and it's apparently pretty serious. So they're very on top of testing.
After it kicked in, I honestly didn't really notice I was on it at all. Except! One day I woke up and realized I didn't have any desire to kill myself. None. And then I stopped to really think about it, and I realized I hadn't even thought about it in I don't know how long, where before it was a constant, crippling bombardment. The weird thing to me is how natural it felt. I hadn't even noticed the thoughts decreasing. Very subtle, like all that plus the stress of it being there to begin with was just... erased. Like it was never even there.
It didn't do a thing for the depression side of things, though. At least, not as far as I could tell. I had been taking Vraylar, which is another bipolar med that's used for depression, but I started getting bad side effects from that so made them take me off. It wasn't replaced, and just the lithium alone wasn't doing the job.
Anyway, things were great for a few weeks. No urges to kill myself. But then my labs became abnormal and I was showing signs of toxicity, so they had to lower my dose. Unfortunately, not long after that happened, the thoughts and urges crept back in worse than ever and nothing will make it go away now. I guess my current dose is too low for that, but I can't safely take more. It sucks so much, because I got a taste of what it would be like and it's just out of reach. Which makes me more depressed. I'm spiraling...
I think it might be worth trying, though. If it works, it's potentially awesome.