Mental Mosaic

By Antwon Shelton

This is a memoir that goes through the course of around a month with me struggling with my bipolar 1 mania episodes. It includes dreams, nightmares, psychosis, and hospitalizations. Video games, music, and manga also contribute to the story. Not to mention my journey from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania. Its Reality is Broken meets Madness: A Bipolar Life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524574277

Book preview

PROLOGUE

So what’s it like to feel manic? To have racing thoughts like NASCAR? You bet kid. To be hypervigilant and have paranoia? Yep, that too. To be delusional beyond belief? You know it. The desire to abuse substances at an incredible rate? I’ve had the urges and fought them. To be hypersexual? Yeah, but um… this isn’t Fifty Shades of Purple so please put the book down or go get a refund and return it to your local bookstore or library if that’s what you think you’re getting yourself into. This story is an unfortunate story about a guy who was deprived of food and has a lot of mental hang ups plus made some bad and bizarre decisions. What’s the trigger? Stress and hereditary tend to contribute to it. Is there a cure? Not yet. Maybe I’ll try to find one. Because if and when I do have kids, I don’t want them to have to go through what I have to go through because it’s not fun and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. I got to check 23andme.com at some point to see what the chances are. I do want a wife one day, I just don’t know who’s a valuable candidate and no I’m not getting involved with online dating or a dating show. Did you read the cover? This is not Flavor of Love. I do savor love some say there’s none above when they become adjusted to guidance from stars above. But the stars frowned upon me for a month. Warning: this is a scattered book for scatterbrains.

Chapter 1-A Rude Awakening

Let us begin. The day was July 19th, 2014 I believe. Greg, Kim, Tristan, and I were in the park kicking around a green ball after we got done with the swings. It was a beautiful summer day, but one that would take a turn for the worse later. Also, there was music in the park being performed by some guys whose names I don’t know, but most people seemed to enjoy the mix of country, classic rock, and blues they played.

This photographer guy Andy Leibenguth was there too. He strongly urged us to pose for a picture and he pointed at me a certain way that was very familiar and broke down the meaning of his last name. I asked him what kind of camera he had and he said I think it was a Nikon DSLR which cost around $400. I personally wouldn’t pay that much for a camera, but I do want a high quality one like that one day. He said the picture would be on the Lansford Alive website. I ask him, Are you sure Lansford is alive? He assured me that Lansford is alive, but personally, I think the place is practically a ghost town with maybe some walking dead. Anyway, we weren’t there for long and after that, I went to the track after that to run laps. Unfortunately, I only ran one lap, and then I felt my asthma start to affect me. I start wheezing and coughing, then decided to walk to Turkey Hill where I ran into Dave and he mentions this bar where you can play whatever kind of music you want to play. It was in Summit Hill.

But that wouldn’t come into play until later. I’m sure we went to the seemingly abandoned Silberline Aluminum plant. The water looked tainted from some kind of chemical spill. The first thing anybody would notice about the area is all the graffiti that was around there. The place is beyond tagged up with mostly the names of couples. There were also abandoned train tracks and people on ATVs. Even though the place looks abandoned, some the rooms still have lights on. There’s also a creepy junkyard with cars, trucks, and buses behind a gate. After looking at their website, 2006 seemed to be their last operational year in Lansford, PA. Apparently, they expanded and outsourced to other countries.

Anyway, I’m being a clown like I tend to be sometimes and shouting out random video game quotes like, Are you OK? Buster wolf! (Terry Bogard) Congradulation!(Buster Buddies/Pang 3) Charging star! (Captain America) Haoh Sho Ko Ken! (Ryo Sakazaki) plus who could forget Shippuken!(Geese Howard) Not only that, I’m laughing maniacally and saying It’s all ogre now! and the magnificent It’s garbage day!(Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2/Skullgirls) I recorded most of these quotes on my 3DS and they’re pretty funny to listen to. My Shippuken is almost as good as Geese Howard’s. What’s not funny and maybe this happened from a lack of eating but I became manic and delusional.

For some reason, I imagined that there was this 3DS game called Lost Civilization where you could take pictures of everyday items and