Go Retire Psychiatrist

Today’s topic for May Mental Health Month is advocacy. This could be about sharing a resource. I thought it might be OK to mention an Iowa resource for mental health, Your Life Iowa.

It can be overwhelming to decide whether or not you’re ready to accept help for mental health challenges. First, you have to admit you want and need help. That can be a difficult step. Then, you need to know how to access help, which can also be hard because it almost always seems as if there are either no choices or too many.

I picked Your Life Iowa because I it’s administered by a state service, the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services. It’s tough enough for me to sift through all the private agencies that might be out there and then—would it be safe or smart for me to recommend them if I don’t know beans about them?

I happen to know something about this. When me and my little brother needed counseling when we were kids, lack of money was the biggest issue. Our family was broken. It was just my mother and us two boys. Dad was out of the home. We didn’t have private insurance. We used food stamps. Mom couldn’t really get much work and I was a latchkey kid really early. Maybe this is beginning to sound familiar to some people out there.

This was back in the olden days, relatively speaking. The mental health resources were thin for the poor and usually available from state resources. Paying for it was often out of pocket on what you could afford to pay or from public assistance or a very small social services budget.

I really liked the guy who was our counselor. I think his name was Bill. Bill was really good with kids and he was very patient, understanding, and kind. He also was very brave. Anecdote alert here!

I’ll never forget one afternoon Bill and I were in the playroom at the agency. That place had so many cool toys. One of them was a plastic toy dart gun which shot darts with suction cups. You had to push the dart in firmly to set the spring-loaded firing mechanism.

The idea was to test your marksmanship by firing at a target on the wall, because the suction cup would make it stick. You can still find vintage dart guns like that on websites like eBay.

So, I was loading this dart gun and Bill was a couple of feet away facing me. I was holding the gun up at an angle, pushing the dart a little awkwardly. I remember Bill warning me to point it at the ground when—you think you know what happens, don’t you?

That dart shot out of there and smacked Bill right in the groin! He grunted and his face got really red. I was so shocked and mortified. I couldn’t believe what I just did. He managed to quickly exit the toy room. I don’t remember how long he was gone. When he came back, he didn’t yell at me. I told him I was sorry and without batting an eyelash, he calmly told me we would not be playing with the dart gun anymore that day.

Anyway, to get back to the Your Life Iowa resource, I didn’t find anything on the web site that mentioned chatbots for therapy. However, I think you should ask about it because I have serious doubts about chatbots. It seems pretty easy to connect with a human by phone or chat. But don’t just take my word for it. Check it out yourself, ask questions, tell the contact what your concerns are and get details about what’s available for help.

I’m pretty sure there won’t be any dart guns involved.