Speaking
Take the time to listen, and lend a helping hand
Lived experience of bipolar disorder, delivered to rooms that are ready to stop being polite about it.
Talks & topics
Five things she is asked to speak about
Each is built around poems from the book and can be adapted to the length and the room. She will not pretend a talk is a substitute for treatment, and she says so on stage.
Say no to stigma
Why recovery gets stigmatized instead of supported, and what changes when a room decides to listen. Draws on Part Two of the book and on the preface’s central argument.
Sing your pain
Writing as survival: how a poem a day became a way out of silence. The most requested talk, and the one that works best with a writing exercise attached.
Faith through the dark
Questioning faith during mental illness without losing it. Written for congregations, and honest about the periods when prayer and symptoms were happening at the same time.
For families and friends
Reading behavior when words deny a helping hand — and how to stay close anyway. Aimed at the people who noticed something before anyone had a name for it.
Coping skills that held
Diagnosis, treatment, DBT, and the unglamorous habits of staying well. The most practical of the five, and the one clinical teams tend to book.
Audiences
Who she speaks to
People living with mental-health challenges, their families and friends, caregivers, advocates, educators, and readers drawn to recovery stories and inspirational poetry.
Churches & faith groups
Colleges & high schools
Clinical teams
Support groups
Caregivers & families
Advocacy organizations
Book clubs
Formats
Four shapes
Keynote
30–45 minutes, one theme, with readings from the book.
Reading & Q&A
Poems read aloud, then open questions with the room.
Workshop
90 minutes of guided writing using the new edition’s writing section.
Panel
Lived experience alongside clinicians, educators, or advocates.
What she brings
Credentials
Experience
Lived experience of bipolar disorder and recovery, from age twelve onward.
Psychology
BA, summa cum laude — Kean University.
Leadership
MA in organizational leadership, with honors — Rider University.
Clinical
Associate in psychosocial rehabilitation; Outstanding Clinical Performance award.
Writing
A decade of work turning silence into language, published as The Pain Sings a Song.
For organisers
Preparing a room for this subject
A talk about suicidal thinking and psychiatric hospitalization is not the same as a talk about resilience in general. Three things make the difference between a session people are glad they attended and one that leaves someone stranded.
Say what is coming, before it comes. The content warning belongs at the top of the session, not buried in a programme. People should be able to step out without that itself becoming an announcement about them.
Have the numbers in the room. Put the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline on the slide, the handout, or the back wall — call or text 988, free and confidential, 24 hours a day. Add the SAMHSA National Helpline on 1-800-662-4357 for people who need a referral rather than a crisis line, and the NAMI HelpLine on 1-800-950-6264 for families with questions. If your organisation has its own counselling or chaplaincy, name the person and where they will be standing afterwards.
Leave time at the end that is not programmed. The questions people most need to ask are rarely asked into a microphone. Sessions that end hard on the hour push those conversations into a car park. Fifteen unstructured minutes, with someone available, is worth more than a longer talk.
For faith settings, it is worth agreeing in advance how directly the talk should address the periods when faith and symptoms were in conflict — the book does not soften this, and congregations differ in what they want. For campuses, coordinate with counselling services before the date rather than after. For clinical teams, the coping-skills talk assumes the audience already knows the vocabulary and moves faster.
Choosing
Which talk suits which room
If the audience is mostly people who do not have a diagnosis — a general congregation, a staff away-day, a community evening — Say no to stigma is usually the right choice. It is the talk that changes what people say afterwards, which is the only thing a general audience can actually act on.
If the audience is mostly people living with a mood disorder — a support group, a peer network, a service user forum — Sing your pain or Coping skills that held land better. Those rooms do not need to be persuaded that the illness is real, and a stigma talk can read as being addressed over their heads to an absent third party.
If the audience is parents, partners and friends, For families and friends is the one, and it is worth protecting more time for questions than you think. These sessions generate the most private conversations afterwards, usually beginning with a version of “this sounds like my son.”
For faith settings, Faith through the dark can be paired with any of the others as a second, shorter segment. Congregations vary widely in how directly they want the conflict between belief and symptoms addressed, so it is worth a conversation before the date rather than a surprise on the night.
Why this works
What a first-person account does that a lecture cannot
Most audiences have already been told the facts. They know bipolar disorder is common — the National Institute of Mental Health puts it at roughly 2.8% of US adults in a given year and 4.4% over a lifetime, with an estimated 82.9% of those affected experiencing serious impairment. What the numbers do not do is make it possible for the person in row four to say anything about themselves afterwards.
That is the specific thing a lived-experience talk changes. Someone stands up, describes withdrawing at twelve, being named at sixteen, and the years when the diagnosis kept moving, and the cost of admitting to any of it drops for everyone listening. Peer-led organisations such as the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance are built entirely on that mechanism, and NAMI has run its public education the same way for decades.
The practical consequence for a host is that the value of the session is often not measured in the room. It shows up a week later, when someone books an appointment they had been putting off, or tells a family member something for the first time. It is worth deciding in advance where you want those conversations to land, and making sure the person who will receive them knows the talk is happening.
Questions
Booking and logistics
How do we book Shalanda?
Through the contact form, choosing “Speaking invitation” as the reason. Include the date, city, audience and format — those four details are what she needs to answer quickly. Speaking invitations are answered before other messages.
Does she speak remotely?
Yes. Readings, Q&A sessions and panels work well remotely; the writing workshop works better in person, but has been run online for groups that already know each other.
How long is a typical session?
A keynote is 30–45 minutes. A reading and Q&A usually runs about an hour. The workshop is 90 minutes. Panels depend on the convener.
Can she tailor a talk to our group?
Yes, and she prefers to. The five topics are starting points rather than fixed scripts — a session for a caregivers’ group and one for a clinical team draw on different parts of the same book.
Is she a clinician?
No. She has a psychology degree and clinical training in psychosocial rehabilitation, but she speaks as someone with lived experience, not as a treating professional. She does not give clinical advice from the stage and will refer questions that need it.
Do you have upcoming public events?
Anything already scheduled is listed on the events page.
If you need help now
Where to find real support
This website is a book, not a crisis service, and nothing on it is medical advice. The organisations below are staffed by people who are trained for this, and all of them are free.
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. Free, confidential, 24 hours a day, every day, across the United States. It is for suicidal crisis, mental-health crisis and substance-use crisis alike — you do not have to be at the worst point to call.
NAMI HelpLine
1-800-950-6264, or text “NAMI” to 62640, Monday to Friday, 10am–10pm ET. The National Alliance on Mental Illness answers questions about diagnosis, treatment and local services. It is explicitly not a crisis line — for a crisis, use 988. More at nami.org.
SAMHSA National Helpline
1-800-662-4357 (1-800-662-HELP), free and confidential, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in English and Spanish. It is a treatment referral service: it will point you to local providers and support groups. See samhsa.gov.
Peer support
The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance runs peer-led groups, online and in person, for people living with mood disorders and for the people who love them. Mental Health America publishes free screening tools and plain-language guides.
Outside the United States, contact your local emergency number or health service.
“People, do not be afraid to advocate! Sing your pain.”
Include the date, city, audience, and format. Shalanda replies to invitations first.