Yeah, Lithium (so called mood stabilizers in general) are drugs the docs throw at you when the first line treatments failed. I was once interested in it because on paper it sounds good, enhancing serotonin, stabilizing cell membranes and whatnot but in reality I heard a lot of bad anecdotes about it. I remember somebody with legit manic/bipolar who had his bladder or kidneys fucked up from decades on lithium and always smelled a bit like pee. But that's an extreme case probably, and I read there's a med which you can take along the lithium, if it should work for you well enough for wanting to stay on it, to prevent kidney damage, afaik some diuretic but I forgot which specific one it was. Lithium absolutely requires blood level monitoring and also you to be quite strict about drinking the same amount of liquids every day and more during hot periods, as lithium levels are dependent on how much you drink and it's got a narrow therapeutic window.
That said, there's evidence that lithium works way below therapeutic levels, scientists found an inverse relation between lithium levels in drinking water and suicide rates. There's lithium orotate sold by nootropics vendors for that. But you won't feel any acute effects from low dosages, even therapeutic ones shouldn't be felt too much. It's more supposed to work in the background.
I've never been on lithium but all the other stabilizers, lamotrigine, sodium valproate and carbamazepine. I'm not bipolar, not manic either and they all had just side effects, there were no beneficial effects besides some funny interactions specially from sodium valproate which turned cigarettes into something very euphoric, lol. The easiest one to tolerate and also the one which I'd recommend you when you're not bipolar is lamotrigine because it's said to be the only one which protects against unipolar depression as well. Needs to be tapered ciarefully because of potential allergic reactions but it isn't toxic to the organs, its molecule is related to fructose if I remember correctly.
If you want something which you can feel and is potentially pleasurable then I can only recommend ketamine therapy. It works like a charm against depressive thoughts and suicidality but afaik it's very expensive in the US, don't know whether some health insurances cover it or not.
