Mental Health Issues
Some of you may have seen these lots of you may not there are images of scar tissue, as people might find them traumatic I thought I’d warn you XXX
My left shoulder
My right wrist and forearm
My right elbow
My right shoulder
My back
My head
These are not the only scars I carry from my accident, there are some scars I cannot show you because I still can’t see them myself I’m still battling my mind to try and find them!!!……..
I don’t remember much of the first 2-3 years of my life, But I have two vivid memories, the first was my dad teaching my mum to drive, I remember my dad shouting at my mum and she hit the curb, my mum never learnt to drive after that. The second was my mum and dad arguing I was in the bath with my brother, mum and dad were arguing so lots of shouting then my dad putting his foot through a door and not seeing my dad for what seemed like forever.
My mum, my younger brother and myself ended up in refuge, I’ve never asked what happened and why they split up maybe I should have, but I have a really good relationship with my dad, a somewhat strained and at times volatile relationship with my mum, they split up when I was about 3-1/2 my bother was about 1-1/2.
Then came years of manipulation my Gran didn’t want my mum to have my dads number incase she gave it to the CSA, my brother and I couldn’t get involved, so my Gran made all the plans for when we wanted to go and stay with my dad. For so long she had to be in control and know when and where we were going to be.
This was so hard as my dad worked for Fords, in England he worked at the tractor plant and Dunton in Basildon, Fords in Warley, Rouche for Fords in Hutton, Fords Spain in Valencia and Fords in America where he had a house in Florida as well.
He worked in Holland for and exhaust manufacturer.
He worked for Volvo and Suzuki but don’t know where in the world and Lotus in Bedford. He also worked in Munchen and Munich but I don’t know which company he worked for there I assume Fords.
My Mum always told me never to go off with or talk to my dad if he ever turned up at play school or my infant school, I remember one day my dad turning up at my play group and him talking to me through the fence, then me getting taken inside while all the other kids were still playing outside. Yet again in my life getting excluded for something beyond my control.
I started Junior school, and this was when the systematic bullying started by one kid in particular Simon White, it went on right the way through from the age of 7yo- 11yo, every so often a few other kids would jump in as well.
It was around the time I was 7yo-8yo when my best friend Terry and his sister Jacqueline moved to the road behind my mums house. We used to play football it would be our street and Terry’s street V’s the three streets in front of us, we used to play for hours although I could hardly play with my asthma but I persevered and as I got older and stronger my asthma got better. We started playing American football when I was around 9 but football was my thing really.
Myself and Terry have been friends ever since that’s 35 years and counting He’s seen me at my best and he’s seen me at my worst, he’s seen me living and he’s seen me dying, he’s seen me free and he’s seen me in captivity.
You’ll hear a lot more about the Dallas Family, My Family it’s so nice to have people that have seen every single piece of my life and still stand with me, not behind, not beside, not in front of, but with in my heart in my soul they are part of my very being!!!………….
This is a very brief introduction to who I am
My full name is Clive Laurence Oliver Mansfield
My dad Clive Robert William Mansfield
My mum Susan Pamela Gunn was Mansfield maiden name Thompkins.
My mums father died when she was 14, his name Clarence Thompkins
My dads father Walter Fredrick Oliver Mansfield
Named Clive after my dad,
My Nan wanted me to have Clarence luckily my father and mother decided that Laurence was a close name (that wasn’t classed as cruelty to a child lol)
Oliver taken from my grandads name on my fathers side
If my grandparents had their way my name would be Clive Clarence Walter Mansfield, lucky escape lol.
Friends at school and college when they found out my names called me CLOM. Very good female friends and children called and still call me Clifford after the big red dog, it’s a term of endearment, I’m big and gruff but I’m loyal to a fault, I love that the kids all find it easier to call me Clifford or Cliff rather than Clive then it just sticks lol
So I was born left handed and left footed, so until I was 3yo this was not a problem, I started preschool I’m guessing that’s the time I started thinking there was something wrong with me maybe I’d call myself a FREAK!
I’ll let that just settle in your mind and I’ll show my reasoning at the end you can then see if I’m right in calling myself a FREAK!!
So I had no teachers that could or would teach me because I was a lefty so I was excluded to a certain extent, as you’ll find out as we travel through my life I don’t like to be beat by anything. Also I didn’t like to be treated or seen to be different!!!
I’m a self taught right handed and right footed child at this point in my life, I taught myself very quickly (I can write with both hands and my right foot), this I found out in a drama class (in an interactive production) as I had to play a person who went back into a fire and tried to save someone which I did but got my arms blown off, I then had to see what I could do with no arms, it turns out quiet a lot!!
So I called myself a FREAK, earlier here is the evidence, now no-one has called me this, that I know of but here is the definition in the Oxford English Dictionary!
Freak noun: A person, Animal or Plant with an unusual physical abnormality.
Freak Synonyms: aberration, abnormality, irregularity, oddity, monster, monstrosity, malformation or mutant.
Freak you Verb: behave or cause to behave in a wild and irrational way typically because of the effects of extreme emotion or drugs.
Until the next blog it’s Freaky Clifford signing off love you guys!!
Before you read this if you’ve suffered with trauma or details of trauma may be a trigger please read only as much as you’re comfortable with, i dulled it down so as not to cause as much distress!!
It was April 5th 1995, I had passed my test first time in November 1993 in Brentwood, I’d had maybe 30 hours of lessons, some of my friends had failed 3 or 4 times my best friend failed 7 times.
As a toddler I’d been able to name car makes and models before I could name animals, all I ever wanted to do was race and drive, I used to sit at my Nan’s window on a small set of ladders, on the 5th floor of the block of flats, for hours I’d say the names to my Dad or Uncles when the cars were stopped at the traffic lights.
I’d done some carting, only a few races though, so now I had my license, I was very confident I felt invincible, to a certain extent I was, I had several near misses in my first year driving each near miss made me feel like nothing bad would happen. My friends all knew how I drove but they always wanted lifts, I was a bit of a speed merchant, I was never really bad 10mph over the limit, but the bravado built as the legend was growing one story or tale at a time, my friends and their friends, rumours around town.
I loved the attention, I was young, I was stupid and I definitely couldn’t drive as well as I thought. This fateful afternoon I went to the school where one of my neighbours and friends went, two of my other friends girlfriends were there as well as my girlfriend, at the time. No one sat in the front of the van with me they all sat in the back, my friend and his girlfriend were in his car he had two spare seats but no one wanted to get in his car.
The time was 15:30 I was to be at work by 16:00, we had two drop offs and my friend would walk from where I worked to home, this day I pushed to fast I was travelling between 45-47mph in a 30mph zone, I wasn’t wearing my seat belt, I crested over a hump and a car pulled out in front of me from a road on the left, he stopped instead of carrying on like a rabbit or fox in the headlights, the road after the turning bared round to the left a blind bend, I had to make a snap decision.
If I hit the car I probably kill the driver, maybe myself and my passengers. I swerved but being unfamiliar with a rear wheel drive vehicle and the characteristics of handling it at speed, I turned to hard to fast, although I avoided the car, I was now on the wrong side of the road in the path of an oncoming car, so I turned back luckily missing the second car, but now my van was out of control and I didn’t have the experience to get it under control. I lost the back end of the van, the near side rear wheel hit the curb and flipped the van.
I remember the crunch, the next thing I remember my shoulder being pushed behind my back, my head going through the side window, but no pain all I hear is the screams from the back of the vehicle, then the second crunch I felt a warm sensation all over my head and back then the sensation in my arm just like a dead arm.
The first impact was superficial cuts on my face and my shoulder dislocating. The second impact was my ear being severed and scalping myself, my watch being ripped up my arm, a 3/4 pound of flesh and 1/3 pound of flesh being ripped from my back, still I felt no pain. Then came the third deafening crunch my ponytail got caught under the roof and as my head got whipped the unnerving sound of skin ripping, the crunch as my skull shattered, the crack of my shoulder blade fracture and my collarbone fracture, I crawled from the wreckage not knowing I was badly injured.
My girlfriend got out with no major injuries, apart from whiplash and a few light cuts she walked away from the van, my friend walked away with whiplash and nothing else, my friends girlfriend lost the top of one of her fingers and broke her collarbone and a few cuts and bruises but walked away and my other friends girlfriend had cuts bruises and a broken pelvis she was still in the back of the van, I don’t know how she got out, the police arrived after maybe 5 minutes and I was already walking to work, little did I know the top portion of my ear was hanging below the lobe, my scalp from ear to crown and temple was hanging over the other side of my head with smashed skull and brain pulsating in the open wound, the two open wounds on my back that you could see the ribs, my arm shredded and behind my back.
AND STILL NO PAIN
Mansfield’s Mission 