A man returns to Fort Dodge to help others with mental illness | Iowa

FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) – It takes an unusual spirit to imagine a place like Freedom Pointe.

Among the soda tower, the puzzles and games tables, and the incongruous cabinet of stuffed penguins – that's a long story – you'll find a place for mental health support, not from doctors or from professionals, but of those who have suffered from mental illness themselves.

Randy Hoover, who started Freedom Point with the help of Ken Hays, former director of Webster County Community Services, and Bob Lincoln, chief executive of the county's 22 County County Mental Health Area. .

A graduate of the university with a dual specialization in education and psychology, Hoover worked as a teacher when his own mental illness sent him away from everything he knew in Iowa.

"I ran away from home – that's the only way to say it," Hoover told Messenger. "You know the fight or flight syndrome, I took the plane, I ran away from my job, my wife and several children."

Hoover graduated from Prairie Community High School, before Prairie Valley, and studied at Buena Vista University.

Hoover was found in North Carolina; Unknowingly, he found himself within 10 miles of his daughter.

"I stayed with her for a while, she convinced me to go to the doctor," Hoover said.

The doctor diagnosed him with borderline personality disorder.

"When I asked what it was, she gave me the symptoms of, you feel you have no value," Hoover said. "You feel that you do not belong to any place, you feel that no one wants you, everyone will leave you before it is done, and there are many suicidal thoughts related to it. .

"I'm going to be honest, I usually do it about three times a day, think, let's stop, and do not worry about others, but then you think, as they say, that suicide is a permanent solution to problem temporary problem. "

Hoover tried different medications, but the only real treatment for borderline is therapy, he said. It was 15 years ago, and he has never lost contact with this doctor.

"I still talk to him almost every day on the phone," Hoover said. "She says, I understand you, I want to help you, you do good things, and you can not do that if you're not in the right place yourself." She had a big impact in my life."

Hoover had a long way to go to recover. A group in a church collected money to send him back to Fort Dodge and bought him some food. He went home, divorced and lived in his van for a while, only eating a box of green beans each day.

Finally, he was convinced to visit the peer support center available at the time. He did not think it would be for him, but once there, he changed his mind.

"I listened to them speak and I realized – they have the same thoughts as me, so I talked to them, I had a therapist here, and they helped me through."

Later in life, this experience would encourage him to say yes to the launch of Freedom Pointe.

"I know how it was for me, I was out there and nobody was even paying attention, nobody cared – or that's what I felt," did he declare. "Some people from the center just caught my eye, and suddenly I had friends again."

Irene Blair, director of the Webster County Community Services Department, now retired, offered Hoover a job at the center. At this point, he had rented an apartment and was working at the Rabiner Treatment Center.

A few years later, Bob Lincoln spoke with Hoover about the launch of a new program.

"I said:" I guess I could try, "he said. Hoover said. "We spent a lot of time putting things in order, we started to meet in the library, in one of their conference rooms, I think we met three days a week. had to get out of there because you can only use it if several times.

"We moved to Snell-Crawford Park and met in the shelter and we all got really good at croquet."

After that, Theresa Naughton of Lifeworks asked Hoover if he wanted to have his own space, he said.

Freedom Point is not affiliated with Lifeworks, but to this day, it shares a building with the organization for about a year and a half.

"I'll be honest, I'm not sure Freedom Point would even find it where there was none for Theresa Naughton," he said. "We talk and she has given me a lot of advice.Sometimes I listen.Sometimes, no, I want to do it that way.It's wrong, but it's more fun . "

Hoover has never been about to follow the worn path.

"What is the famous poem, the road less traveled," he said. "Someone once said that once, the biggest mistake you can make in life is the mistake of omission. Do not try it." said you should try, at least if you fail, you fail. "

Freedom Pointe organizes game nights and activities while keeping a meeting space. The members of the organization enter the community to help others.

"The idea that if you bring people together, we help each other," he said. "We do individual meetings, we go out, we listen to them, we help them with the forms to fill out, we bring them to the doctor, we help them go to the grocery store to make groceries.

"We are working on a pilot prevention program with Amerigroup, and it has been said that an average stay at the hospital for a mental health problem was $ 28,000 in Amerigroup." We are ready to take Much less than that to try to warn people.Over the three years we went, no contact with us was made and no one even went to the ER for mental health issues.

"We are not therapists, we help them to get to Berryhill or Community Health, both places are really good."

The idea is to make sure people have access to available resources.

Hoover also follows the group's successes. There is a bag full of rocks in the center; each represents a suicide that has been stopped.

"There are 18 now," Hoover said. "One of those rocks, it's me, it's Theresa who stopped this one."

The center sees about 83 clients, Hoover said. He is paid for about eight of them.

Whether it's funding or finding the best ways to help, mental health work is not easy. Hoover joked that he would not have accepted it had he known it would be a daunting task, but the truth, he said, is that it's a good thing. he did it because the support of his peers helped him when he was trying to get on his feet.

"When Bob offered me the chance to reopen it, I jumped on it because I thought we needed to do something," he said. "I think sometimes it's possible that the reason I'm doing this is very selfish, it's for me to help."

Hoover is remarried in the years following his return to Fort Dodge. He still enjoys hiking the outdoors, at Dolliver Park, at Ledges State Park or elsewhere in the state.

"I like to write news," he said. "I wrote that I would bet about 500 or 600 news, I have never published it, because I have not even tried it, I just wrote it for myself."

Although he is thinking about retiring, Hoover said his job prevented him from staying at home without doing anything. And of course, making the difference is important to him.

"It's a lot of work, but I would not trade it for anything in the world.It's so cool to know that you're making a difference in people's lives." And by doing that, knowing that they make a difference mine. "