DARRELL MANSFIELD EMERGING FROM A NIGHTMARE

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
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Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Darrell Mansfield - 'Emerging From a Nightmare'

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

SANTA ANA, CA (ANS) -- Talented Christian blues singer and harmonica player, Darrell Mansfield, has issued a startling mental health wake-up call to the church.





An optimistic Darrell with Dan Wooding
after the TV interview
After recovering from several suicide attempts, Darrell wants Christians to know that mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of. He has emerged from a nightmare that saw him try to commit suicide on several occasions and then ended up in the Atascadero State Hospital in Central California for two years.

Darrell told me in an extraordinary interview and he issued a message to Christians in which he said, "Don't be ashamed if you have a mental illness. You are not a second rate soldier for Christ. It's an illness; it's a disease -- just like -- diabetes and it needs to be treated. People need to know that when they get into a state of depression, there is help available."

For Darrell, he didn't know that at the time of his problems.

He went on to say, "Your illness is not a lack of faith, spirituality or commitment. It's a medical chemical problem. I think that society, the church especially, has got its head buried in the sand."





Darrell performing
For years, Mansfield kept up a grueling pace of concerts and recordings that sapped his energy and eventually drove him to attempt suicide. Now he is back on track with a new message to help people in the church who suffer from depression and mental illness.

He said, "A very important part of my chemical imbalance started just prior to my accidents and suicide attempts. I was sick in bed with the flu, one of my kids brought in tray with a bowl of scalding hot soup. They lost their balance and the bowl spilled on my feet. I got second and third degree burns all over my feet. A doctor gave me prescriptions of pain pills and sleeping pills, which threw me for a loop because I had never taken medications, just vitamins. I never took pain pills or even aspirin.

"Also at the time my burns were treated, the doctor found several basil cell cancers on my chest, back and arm, and cut them out.

"A few days later I was touring and missed my flight in Chicago because the flight out of LA was delayed. I missed my connection and had to stay overnight in Chicago, so I only got two hours of sleep. Following that, there was a snow storm, travel complications, etc. for three days. I ran out of my prescription pain pills and sleeping pills. I couldn't sleep at all. I began to feel suicidal and paranoid and the insomnia got worse.

"Many people find themselves chemically imbalanced because of medications that can cause symptoms of mental illness," he went on to say. "This was a huge factor in getting me to the state I was in. People need to pay attention to the warning signs and side effects from medications."

Darrell said that this was what had led up to his two suicide attempts.

"The first attempt was when I was driving my 5.0 Mustang," he said. "It was in the year 2000 and I got up to about 85 miles an hour, and unbuckled my seat belt which, ironically, was the thing that saved my life! I went off the road into a field and the car tumbled end over end. I went through the convertible roof that was up at the time, and landed face down in water. It just so happened there was an ambulance driving by. The drivers saw the whole thing happen. I knew one of the guys in the ambulance. He jumped over the barbed wire fence and grabbed me out of the water and took me to the hospital. It was a miracle that I survived and not one bone in my body was broken."

They immediately put Darrell in a 72-hour hold in a mental ward and gave him medication. At the time Darrell was married to Cheryl and they had seven children. She drove to the hospital to pick Darrell up and take him home.

But soon, he said, the suicidal thoughts were coming back again. This was partly because Darrell was mistakenly taking the wrong dosages of the medications that were prescribed by the mental health hospital.

Darrell's wife, Cheryl, insisted that he go back to the mental hospital because she could see his condition was getting worse, not better. But Darrell, in his unstable, paranoid state, was afraid to go back. He said, "She was driving and the closer we got to the hospital, the more freaked out I got.

"I was thinking that they were going to lock me up forever, and I was going out of my mind and again thinking suicidal thoughts. Then, all of a sudden, I saw this large truck about 100 yards away, coming the other way. I thought I would, just time, grab the steering wheel of our Mercedes wagon, maneuvering it so the truck would hit me right on my door and it would kill me right away, but Cheryl would be okay.

"As I grabbed the steering wheel, I didn't calculate how fast he was going. We ended up hitting his door instead of him hitting my door, and it broke the driver's arm, but the guy who was riding shotgun had no injuries at all. Cheryl's seat went forward and she messed up her foot. The front of the car was totaled and the front windshield was shattered, but thank God nobody had been killed.

"After my second suicide attempt I was back in a 72 hour hold in county jail. I was in a bad mental and emotional state, physically weak, and weighed less than 100 lbs. from not eating or sleeping. A county jail chaplain, got the call that I had been 5150'd."

(This is a section of the California Welfare and Institutions Code which allows a qualified officer or clinician to involuntarily confine a person deemed to have a mental disorder that makes them a danger to him- or herself, and/or others and/or gravely disabled.)





Sign outside the hospital
where he spent two years
"He knew of me and was on his way home, but he turned around and came back to the jail. He came to the window of my holding cell and began to sing worship songs. Then the guard told me there was someone there to see me. He introduced himself to me as Chaplain Mike. He told me he knew who I was and had come to pray with me, and asked me to lead in prayer. "

"Mike told me later that he had asked me to lead in prayer because the Lord told him to have me pray first so that I would connect with the Lord. Mike came back to see me a couple days later to let me know he was praying for me and was recommending me to be transferred to another part of the jail with lower security and better conditions. I was there for about six months. Chaplain Mike used to come almost every day to see me and encourage me and other men in my unit. He would bring Bibles. So I began to hold Bible studies at the jail during break times."

He said that a San Luis Obispo county psychiatrist interviewed him several times in county jail and said to him, "You don't have any anti-social behavior, you are not a criminal, so you belong in a hospital, not in county jail."

Darrell then said, "He recommended to the judge that I be transferred to Atascadero State Hospital (ASH), which is a maximum security mental hospital. They had to determine that I was no longer a danger to myself or to society. The psychiatrist also said I was a perfect candidate for a new program called the 'Community Release Program' which transitions mental patients back into society."

"So I was sent to ASH and they were unable to diagnose me for six months. They kept me on a processing 30-day admitting unit for six months because they didn't know where to place me. I had no criminal record or record of mental illness. They call that 'no jacket'.

"When Pastor Chuck Smith heard that I was sent to Atascadero State Hospital he sent word to me that this was an 'inside job' and that God was going to use me to evangelize the hospital. He mentioned this to several other pastors and friends as well.

"So I sat there for six months. During that time I became friends with the staff because I was always helping new patients get adjusted. A lot of the new patients were coming from other prisons and had already served out their time and sentence but were not ready to be released to society because they were deemed unsafe for the public. These patients were being assessed for an indefinite period of time. They were very upset that they were not free to return home."

Darrell then told me that surprisingly they allowed him to give a Bible study in the "quiet room" every evening after dinner.

"I did a half-hour Bible study, and everyone was welcome," he said. "That's how I got to meet and minister to so many people. I gained the trust of the patients and the staff. So they allowed me to escort some of the patients to chapel services on Sundays. A staff member normally had to do that, but they allowed me to do it instead. "





Inside the hospital
"They also allowed me to go to the store (commissary) whenever I wanted to. So I was buying candy and batteries and additional items for other patients. That's how I befriended people. Instead of using it to manipulate people, I used it to minister to people. Other people didn't have any 'money in their books' from friends and family depositing fund, but I had money from outside sources, so used it to bless others."

"After six months they finally transferred me to a new unit. The unit supervisor and staff held a meeting to talk to me privately and I was told I would not be allowed to give Bible studies in this unit. They were concerned about my 'grandiose' behavior. Some of the guys who are mentally ill are delusional in thinking they are Gods or supernatural people. They were concerned that I was a 'burned out minister/evangelist'. They warned me about that behavior."

Mansfield said that things began to change in the months following as they observed how the other patients responded to his friendship and how they liked him and trusted him.

"Eventually," he continued, "they asked me if I would become the 'Sergeant at Arms' and lead the patients to breakfast, lunch and dinner. That is a position of honor.

"There was a particular patient who was a 'firebird' (a pyromaniac) and he was always sitting by himself by the door. He wouldn't talk to anyone or come to any meetings. I began giving him candy and packages of coffee, they were his favorite, so he started to talk to me. Instead of bringing them to him, I had him come and ask me for them every morning. The hospital started to get excited because there was a usual sense of mistrust between the patients and the staff, so I was becoming a liaison between the staff and patients."

"My unit held elections and the patients voted me to be 'ward president', a position that represents their unit to the hospital administration. They would hold monthly meetings and the Ward President would bring any issues or requests to the staff, similar to a government. "

"I found out through the 'rights of the prison' that you were allowed to have meetings on the main yard as long as they were less than 50 people. I started a Bible Study outside on the Yard. The Bible studies included the SVP's (sexually violent predators) and MDO's (mentally disturbed offenders). These two groups did not normally have anything to do with each other and normally are not incarcerated together. The SVP prison was being built, so in the meantime they were housed at ASH because of lack of funds. The SVP's, some of whom were pedophiles and rapists, were shunned by everyone including the staff. "

"I made sure from the first Bible Study I had that everybody knew that 'WE ARE ALL SINNERS, SAVED BY GRACE, and if anyone among us has no sin, they should cast the first stone, but no one can." I told them I didn't want to know why they were here, or what their case was, I wouldn't bring up their past or the treatment they were undergoing. I was there to through rehabilitate them through Christ, because change and healing starts with the inner man first. I said, 'When Satan reminds you of your past, remind him of his future.'"

Darrell said that he had Catholics, Protestants, Native Indians, even gang members, all races and many religions represented, and even a group of deaf patients at the Bible Study.





A portrait of Darrell Mansfield
"It rew to over 100, so we had to split up in smaller groups," he told me. Several of the prison guards who had been there for years were watching closely and were really moved by the compassion they were seeing. Like nothing they had never seen before. My unit went a whole year without one 'incident'/ 'red light' (where someone goes off or there is a fight between patients or patients and staff). Since the founding of the hospital that had never happened before."

"This pattern began to happen in all the different units that were coming to the Bible Study. There was a peace and a calm that began to affect the whole hospital."

Mansfield said that when he was called in by the staff and doctors for a review they asked me indirectly if he thought the positive change in the unit was because of him, and he pointed to heaven and told them, "No, it's not me, it has everything to do with God. I know you guys think I'm 'grandiose', but 'grandiose' in Spanish means 'big God.'

"I started working with both chaplains, the Catholic and Protestant Chaplains," he said. "I set up tape lending libraries in both offices. The patients could get teachings from Genesis to Revelation from Chuck Smith and Chuck Swindoll on tape for free. Also I got gospel music tapes of Christian music and worship music through Calvary Chapel Music and Maranatha! Music. All my music was available to the patients.

"One of the guards was so moved by what he saw on the yard, he went to the head of security and the president of the hospital and asked if he could come in on Thursday nights once/week and open up the 'All Faith Chapel' so we could hold a Bible Study there. They allowed him to do that. Eventually we out-grew the All Faith Chapel, which held 200, and we moved into one of the cafeterias which held up to 300.

"Then I asked both chaplains to ask the hospital supervisor if we could meet Sunday mornings from 8:30 - 10 at the chapel instead of from 9-10 so we could do worship and prayer for a half hour before the services. I was granted permission. So I began to sing again and play harmonica. Up until then I didn't want to perform so that I could connect with the other patients as 'one of them' and not as a performer.

"The movement of God started snowballing in the hospital. We started seeing miracles happen for patients and staff. Some of the miracles were actually documented. One was a patient with cataracts who was healed through prayer before surgery. The other was a heart patient who was also to undergo surgery, but all his arteries became suddenly clear. There was a patient with cancer of the lymph nodes, leukemia. We prayed for him for several months and nothing happened, then one day he was going in for chemo.. He went in for a blood test before the first treatment, and they found no trace of cancer."

Darrell was finally released and soon was being trusted to travel again. He explained that the superior court judge would give him vouchers to travel. He said, "We need to see if you can do it without getting burnt out again."

"So I'm now going around the United States and also to Europe and Canada," he said.

"Through the years since my release I've heard from several patients and staff from the hospital thanking me for helping them and being a witness for God. Some still come to my concerts, and a few have become very good friends that I see often."

But today Darrell Mansfield has an unusual aspect to his concerts. He ministers to people with mental illness.

He said, "I spoke at a youth leaders' conference a couple years ago, and I challenged every youth leader, saying, 'If you have a suicidal youth, someone who's threatening to kill themselves, or talking to their friends about it, or have these signs, what do you do? You can pray with them, and if it doesn't go away, what are you going to do? Do you have any doctors on your Rolodex, on your desk? "

"I've seen a real openness, and I get calls and e-mails every week from people who suffer like I did," said Mansfield.

Note: This is part one of the interview.

To watch the entire extraordinary interview, please go to http://www.hischannel.com/BackQ/1000/1013/.php

I would like to thank Tina Paulson, Darrell Mansfield's manager, for her invaluable help with this interview and also to Robin Frost for transcribing it.

To get more information on Darrell's ministry today, please go to www.darrellmanfield.com

Dan Wooding, 72, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 49 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and he hosts the weekly "Front Page Radio" show on the KWVE Radio Network in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States and around the world. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries. Dan recently received two top media awards -- the "Passion for the Persecuted" award from Open Doors US, and as one of the top "Newsmakers of 2011" from Plain Truth magazine. He is the author of some 45 books, the latest of which is "Caped Crusader: Rick Wakeman in the 1970s." To order a copy, go to: Caped Crusader - Amazon
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