I hunched at my school desk, seventeen and slipping into an abyss whose shadow I had barely glimpsed before. My left hand shook with free-associations in a spatter of words that galloped through my head and outside the margins of lined notebook paper.Dark, it’s so dark – like it was night even though it’s 8:00 in the morning Warning Everything’s going to fall fall apart my heart will break and take away everything my mind is fading fast fast vast emptiness oh help the universe is coming to get me…” I whirled and then faded, dead inside, into a suffocating fog. Speaking of “dead” – that was all I wanted. Well, it wasn’t that I wanted to die, I had to. I needed to escape the tumult that was exhausting my emotional and physical resources. And I had to die because I deserved to, because I was evil. I knew that I had transformed absolutely into a rotten core. I had recently discovered this one horrifying night when it became clear as I raced around my bedroom that I was the reincarnation of Judas Iscariot, betrayer of Jesus. And I would plunge to Hell like he had, so why shouldn’t I kill myself now to get it over with? Especially since I only burdened everyone around me. My family and friends would rejoice once I was dead. These thoughts progressed to the point that I could no longer touch anyone, in order that I not contaminate them with my toxic essence. Then I could no longer allow my fingers or limbs to touch each other, because somehow this was evil, too. Soon God no longer permitted me to eat or sleep because I was such a monstrosity. I stopped showering and changing clothes, almost stopped speaking. No longer able to attend high school, I shrunk my days to mere huddling on a chair in our living room, guarded by my parents and siblings in shifts. Every moment I could snatch to myself. I punched holes in my wrist with a safety pin hidden in my sleeve. One afternoon, left alone for a minute, I crept furtively to the top of the second floor flight of stairs, about to hurl myself down them – until I was discovered and tugged back downstairs, held tightly by the hand. Finally my mind and body were so clamped down by dark gravity that I was no longer able to hurt myself. One day I simply goggled at the unfamiliar face in our cold bathroom mirror. Who is that? I’m not me anymore…I’m an alien, I decided. Someone or something has stolen my identity and taken me over. Well, it can have me – I surrender because I am worth nothing anyway. So nothing matters. I certainly don’t matter. During those gray hours, days, and months my mind cramped into nothing but ruminations of worthlessness, and I didn’t matter to myself at all. Luckily, of course to my parents and brothers and sisters I did matter, very much. Even if they puzzled over what was happening to me as much as I did, they intuited my distress and incapacitization and got me help. My family brought me to a psychiatric hospital where I stayed for a month. I was diagnosed with depression with psychotic features, and given antidepressants and an antipsychotic. While in the hospital, I discovered art therapy and painted surreal abstracts and wrote long narrative poems about my depression and recovery. And recover I did, into the blessed contentment of feeling like myself again – a brighter, happier self at that. Now, armed with a name for what ailed me, I consumed volumes about depression and bipolar disorder. I devoured books and articles about psychotropic medications and art therapy and theories of psychiatric rehabilitation and mood charting and the consumer movement. I discovered Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., who became a role model, and pored over her memoir, An Unquiet Mind and Manic-Depressive Illness, the authoritative text on bipolar disorder that Jamison wrote with Frederick Goodwin, MD. I involved myself with one of the nation’s leading mental health advocacy organizations, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (abbreviated as NAMI) and later assumed a leadership role on the Consumer Council as well as training people to lead consumer support groups. While serving on the NAMI Consumer Council, I befriended another role model, Suzanne Vogel-Scibilia, MD, a psychiatrist who also is a consumer living with bipolar disorder, and the married mother to five children. Later I read Martha Manning’s Undercurrents and Patty Duke’s Call Me Anna. And a pamphlet produced by the National Institute of Mental Health, about bipolar disorder, the kindling effect, circadian rhythms, and mood cycles, fascinated me. Little did I know then, in the just-thawed winter of my senior year in high school, that my wellness journey would lead me to a college degree in Psychology. Then a Master’s degree in Art Therapy. And a Post-Master’s certificate in Mental Health Counseling and plans for an eventual doctorate in Psychology. And a career that has included assisting people with psychiatric conditions heal through art therapy and counseling, as well as 20 years of work at the very organization that had produced the leaflet that had so intrigued me, the NIMH itself, where I would assist with research into the genetics of schizophrenia and recruit patients for non-invasive studies concerning that illness. As well, the more time passes since my first episode, the more I realize that my illness – which has evolved from depression to bipolar disorder with generalized anxiety disorder - is not my identity. I used to say “I am mentally ill” but the truth demands that I say “I have a mental illness.” And realism and relativity give way to, “I am Shannon Flynn, a multifaceted person – like everyone else on the planet – who just happens to live with mental health issues.” As I started working with clients with devastated lives, hard-won insight led me to grasp that I’m not the only one who’s ever suffered! Lots of people have more agonizing crosses to bear than I could ever fathom. Life really isn’t always fair. This realization leads me to one of the chief reasons I wrote this book. If I can assist even one other person who reads this to recognize in herself or himself the same types of problems I’ve faced, then I’ve educated someone who can find help. I also want to show people who may not believe in their own power to heal that it is possible to recover and live successfully with a psychiatric illness. As well, I aim to reduce the stigma of mental illness by joining my voice to those of others who have chronicled their stories in some form of media. The incidence of bipolar disorder is estimated to be 1% to 5%, perhaps more. Some 10% or more of us suffer from depression, and schizophrenia affects 1 in 100 Americans. And in the general American public, one in four to one in five of us will experience some sort of psychiatric problem over our lifespan! Mental illness touches one in every four families in the United States – the time to talk about this openly is long overdue. Throughout Spin Between Never and Ever, I speak honestly about many facets of my life over the two and one half decades I’ve dealt with bipolar disorder. I touch on the emotional and intellectual maelstrom that engulfed my college years and my second acute episode right after graduation; recount the ensuing period of time that captures my early career as a research assistant at a prominent mental health research facility and my attempts to work full-time while attending graduate school, and the health struggles brought on by those efforts. You’ll read about the frustration I face as medication after medication is prescribed for and tried by me, and all the side effects that mitigate my quality of life, such as hand tremor, weight gain, cognitive dulling and possibly even exacerbation of self-destructive behavior.And yet, this book is meant to be an upper, not a downer. Ultimately, instead of bemoaning my fate as someone who lives with bipolar disorder, I am grateful for the opportunities it has given me to mature into someone who has developed empathy, compassion

Preview coming soon.

I have spent my entire academic and occupational career over the past 25 years since I recovered from my first episode of bipolar disorder, in the service of others with mental health problems like mine. I have degrees in Psychology, Art Therapy and Counseling. I have worked full-time for nearly 20 years at the National Institute of Mental Health as a researcher and recruiter for adults with schizophrenia. At the same time, I have worked with other mental health consumers as an art therapist, support group facilitator, and counselor at various hospitals and drop-in centers around the Washington, DC area on a part-time basis. In all of these positions, I have gained credibility as a provider who knows from the inside out what being a consumer is like, and for this reason I have displayed remarkable empathy that my clients respond to with trust. I have been involved with the family and consumer advocacy nonprofit, NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness) since 1984, the same year I was originally diagnosed with a mood disorder. In this capacity I have spoken on panels at national conferences; both starred in and given presentations based on a NAMI film about consumers' recovery advice; participated as both a trainer and a facilitator of NAMI consumer support groups (I met my husband this way!); and served for several years on the NAMI Consumer Council, an advisory body to the Board of Directors. In all of these roles, I have championed the rights and wishes of fellow consumers and proven myself a passionate advocate for mental health causes. I also have had a piece, "Musing over Medications," published as a First Person Account in the journal Psychiatric Services in January 2008, by the American Psychiatric Association. In addition, I contributed a chapter to the compilation book, "Voices of Bipolar Disorder," published by LaChance Publishing, LLC in January 2009. I live in the Washington, DC area with my husband and my cat, and enjoy having many members of my extended family nearby.I can tell you that during all of my gray hours, days, and months my mind cramped into nothing but ruminations of worthlessness, and I didn’t matter to myself at all. Luckily, of course to my parents and brothers and sisters I did matter, very much. Even if they puzzled over what was happening to me as much as I did, they intuited my distress and incapacitization and got me help. My family brought me to a psychiatric hospital where I stayed for a month. I was diagnosed with depression with psychotic features, and given antidepressants and an antipsychotic. While in the hospital, I discovered art therapy and painted surreal abstracts and wrote long narrative poems about my depression and recovery. And recover I did, into the blessed contentment of feeling like myself again – a brighter, happier self at that. Now, armed with a name for what ailed me, I consumed volumes about depression and bipolar disorder. I devoured books and articles about psychotropic medications and art therapy and theories of psychiatric rehabilitation and mood charting and the consumer movement. I discovered Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., who became a role model, and pored over her memoir, An Unquiet Mind and Manic-Depressive Illness, the authoritative text on bipolar disorder that Jamison wrote with Frederick Goodwin, MD. I involved myself with one of the nation’s leading mental health advocacy organizations, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (abbreviated as NAMI) and later assumed a leadership role on the Consumer Council as well as training people to lead consumer support groups. While serving on the NAMI Consumer Council, I befriended another role model, a psychiatrist who also is a consumer living with bipolar disorder, and the married mother to five children. Later I read Martha Manning’s Undercurrents and Patty Duke’s Call Me Anna. And a pamphlet produced by the National Institute of Mental Health, about bipolar disorder, the kindling effect, circadian rhythms, and mood cycles, fascinated me. Little did I know then, in the just-thawed winter of my senior year in high school, that my wellness journey would lead me to a college degree in Psychology. Then a Master’s degree in Art Therapy. And a Post-Master’s certificate in Mental Health Counseling and plans for an eventual doctorate in Psychology. And a career that has included assisting people with psychiatric conditions heal through art therapy and counseling, as well as 20 years of work at the very organization that had produced the leaflet that had so intrigued me, the NIMH itself, where I would assist with research into the genetics of schizophrenia and recruit patients for non-invasive studies concerning that illness. As well, the more time passes since my first episode, the more I realize that my illness – which has evolved from depression to bipolar disorder with generalized anxiety disorder - is not my identity. I used to say “I am mentally ill” but the truth demands that I say “I have a mental illness.” And realism and relativity give way to, “I am Shannon Flynn, a multifaceted person – like everyone else on the planet – who just happens to live with mental health issues.” As I started working with clients with devastated lives, hard-won insight led me to grasp that I’m not the only one who’s ever suffered! Lots of people have more agonizing crosses to bear than I could ever fathom. Life really isn’t always fair. This realization leads me to one of the chief reasons I wrote this book. If I can assist even one other person who reads this to recognize in herself or himself the same types of problems I’ve faced, then I’ve educated someone who can find help. I also want to show people who may not believe in their own power to heal that it is possible to recover and live successfully with a psychiatric illness. As well, I aim to reduce the stigma of mental illness by joining my voice to those of others who have chronicled their stories in some form of media. The incidence of bipolar disorder is estimated to be 1% to 5%, perhaps more. Some 10% or more of us suffer from depression, and schizophrenia affects 1 in 100 Americans. And in the general American public, one in four to one in five of us will experience some sort of psychiatric problem over our lifespan! Mental illness touches one in every four families in the United States – the time to talk about this openly is long overdue. So many pieces fit into the landscape puzzle of my recovery: my psychiatrists' and psychotherapists’ superb care in helping me through counseling and medicine; my art and writing; spirituality and my conception of God; full-time work; the support of my family and friends, and especially, in recent years, the enduring love of my spouse. All of these pieces shape the hope that shows me how to return, and return again, to being myself. They afford me self-knowledge that allows me to better predict and control my mood swings. Achieving some measure of well-being continues to fuel my passion to improve the well-being of those who live with similar illnesses. It leads me toward wholeness, that I may help others to become more whole as well. And that to my mind is true recovery.