I'm sorry your feeling so bad! I hate it when I know I'm thinking irrationally and I just don't know how to stop it. That's usually when I depend on someone close to me to help me make the right decisions. Because I know I'm just not going to think straight about stuff. Why do you feel like you need to be punished? Are you angry at yourself about anything?

Yes, I'm angry at myself and feel like a failure.

I am angry at myself for the way I have been talking to my boys, very short, and yelling. I'm frustrated at the way my life has turned out. I don't want to be bipolar. It pisses me off that I am. I want to work but can't. I am on disability and can't believe this is my freaking life!

It sounds like this diagnosis might be relatively new for you. If so, it's an expected part of coming to terms with it...do you see a therapist, too?

I hate to tell u but Klonopin is a generic form of valium, so I could be wrong, but if u have other meds' and are not taking them, could it be that ur not accepting whatever diagnoses that the doctor gave to u? I only know because I have been there and done that. But being bipolar is not a death sentence, is is just a word for saying that u are highly intelligent w a really great personality. Did u know that three or our presidents were bipolar, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Rosevelt and I do not remember the other one, But as well so was Winston Churchill, who were all accepted as being highly intelligent. So do not dispare if u are diagnosed bipolar, you just joined a elite group. So take ur med's it will not take away from ur outgoing personalitiy as I thought that it would. And I won't take away ur hypersexuality, as me and my younger boyfriends feared, it will just take away some other feelings that is sounds like ur tired of anyway. The klonopin is only there to slow u down when the others are not working. Just something to calm u, but if ur not taking the other med's then it too will stop working for u, and the other emotions will over take them as well. I am sorry, I hope u did not find this too harsh, but I do not find that being bipolar is a death sentece whereas it was for my brohter and the lack of anyone knowing about the dis-ease at that time. So there is nothing I can do about his death, but to get on here and hope and pray I can educate others to it's dangers. Two good books you can find, 1) The Bipolars Handbook " by Wes Burgess, and "An Unquite Mind" by Kay Redfiend Jamison, once to believe the worlds leading authority on the subject not only because she is a doctor, but because she is one of us, a beeper as well. If u would like to chat or just need someone to talk with, your welcom to call upon me anytime. Kase@dailystrength.org

It could be you are not taking your meds because you have a difficult time accepting the diagnosis. I know I have been diagnosed for a few years and I am still having a difficult time with acceptance. What makes it more difficult for me to accept the diagnosis is that my meds are not really helping me and the long-term side effects of my meds scares the hell out of me.