Lamictal too activating - alternatives?

Hi everyone! Hoping to crowdsource some ideas for Lamictal alternatives from those who had similar reactions to mine.

I was prescribed Lamictal to treat depression as part of a "bipolar 3" diagnosis (not a formal BP diagnosis, but some features of it). I had previously been taking 30mg of Remeron and 2mg of Abilify, which was working well for mood, but the side effects (sleepiness and hunger) became intolerable after a while. SSRIs (tried Lexapro and Zoloft first) were way too activating - severe anxiety - couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, heart racing, chest pain etc.

Unfortunately I had a similar reaction to the Lamictal as I did to the SSRIs, so I had to go off of it. My understanding is that while this can happen it's much less common than for SSRIs. Curiously the effects didn't kick in until after I completed my cross taper from Abilify (I was okay at 1mg of Abilify + 50mg of Lamictal, but the side effects kicked in ~4 days after I got to 100mg of just Lamictal).

Now to my question - for those of you who were similarly unable to tolerate Lamictal due to its activation effect (to the extent any of you are hanging out on a Lamictal subreddit!), what did work for you? Were you able to do a combo - Lamictal plus something else to tamp down the activation? Or did another med work (Vraylar, Latuda, and Caplyta have been mentioned to me)?

I realize everyone is different and YMMV but hearing from others who are similarly prone to med-induced activation would be great info to bring into my appt next week with my psychiatrist. Thanks in advance for your help!