On the final day of the state Legislature’s recent general session, as lawmakers were waiting for Gov. Mark Gordon to arrive at the House of Representatives and conclude the months-long proceedings, freshman Rep. Tom Kelly (R-Sheridan) strode over to a lectern and spoke about his personal experience with mental health.
For six minutes, Kelly addressed his fellow representatives on his wife’s battle with breast cancer, his daughter’s leukemia diagnosis and his son’s open heart surgery. He talked about the effect that turmoil had on him as a father and husband.
Weeks after that speech, Wyoming Public Radio’s state government reporter Chris Clements spoke with Kelly about his thoughts on Wyoming’s mental health landscape as a libertarian and elected Republican. It was the latest installment in their ongoing conversations as WPR follows a rookie legislator’s experiences in Cheyenne.
Chris Clements: Towards the end of the session, Rep. Kelly, you gave a speech on the House floor about your background, about mental health, struggling with just all these calamities that came into your life. Let’s take a listen:
Rep. Tom Kelly (R-Sheridan). (Wyoming Legislature)
Tom Kelly archival: I’m going to tell you a little bit about myself, and this is personal. If you get uncomfortable, I understand. Get up and leave. It won’t hurt my feelings. But a number of years ago, as we know, my daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. During that time period – I don’t talk very much about what those years were like. What it was like to coax her back to sleep from the recurring nightmares that she had forgotten her chemo, and her cancer had come back. My recurring dream was that she was healthy, and I’d wake up and realize my life was the nightmare and the dream was the best part of my day.
This went on for a couple of years. Following that, the year she went off treatment was the year my wife was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer. [It] required a double mastectomy, a complete hysterectomy and then half a year of chemo.
During that time, my son was born. He needed open heart surgery. He needed spinal surgery. There were times where I would check my daughter to see if she was alive when she was sleeping. My son had an oxygen mask on. Sometimes we had to inject chemo into my daughter at home.
The point of all this is that I didn’t even realize what was happening to me. The man you got to know here – somebody who kind of keeps to himself but cares deeply about everyone and everything we do here – he disappeared. It was the year 2020 that, sitting around one night on the ‘Tube of You,’ looking at videos, a video came up. It was this video of this young lady that had this face that was very familiar to me, I guess you could say. [She was] talking about her struggles, and sometimes how she wished she could end her life. While I was watching this, at the time, I didn’t notice my wife was kind of watching me out of the corner of her eyes. I finished watching it, and I sat up and I said, ‘Do you think I should–,’ and she sat up and said, ‘Yes, yes, please, yes.’ [I said,] ‘You don’t even know what I’m going to say.’ She had recognized someone she hadn’t seen in years. Somebody willing to reach out to somebody else, somebody willing to look outside of his family.
I did reach out to this person, never thinking I’d hear back. We became close friends. But during that time, I thought I was helping somebody dealing with emotional issues. I didn’t realize how much my friend was reconstructing me into possibly a better version than I was before. If I never met her, I wouldn’t be here. I’d probably still be in my house, holed up, making sure my wife and kids were safe.
CC: I’m wondering if you could talk to me about what prompted you to bare your soul to the House about that.
TK: We had talked a lot about mental health issues, and many bills came up, and there was much discussion about what the state should be doing to help mental health. Well, it really sits in my core that the reason I had the courage and the motivation and the ability to even function in the House – because, I’m on the spectrum, autistically. And I’m my own worst critic. So as far as baring my soul, talking about things that people might find embarrassing – nobody could ever say anything to me that I haven’t already said to myself, or worse. So it’s easy for me to be able to do that. But part of the reason it’s easy for me to be able to do that was [because of] the story I told.
CC: Do you think that the state should do anything more, pass any more legislation regarding mental health?
TK: My biggest concern about the state taking the lead on mental healthcare is, the more the state comes in, the more other people step back, the more community groups and churches will funnel people towards state programs. I don’t think that’s necessarily the best way to go. I even mentioned that when I was talking to the members of the House. I said, ‘When somebody comes to you and asks you for help, remember they are asking you. Be careful about how quickly you shovel them off to the suicide hotline or some program or tell them to go see a professional. Think of the message that sends to somebody who comes to you and says, ‘I need help.’’
CC: But would you support a bill that would increase rate payments to behavioral health providers, Medicaid rate payments?
Editor’s Note: That rate increase was originally included in the governor’s proposed supplemental budget, which Senate leadership opted not to pass.
TK: That would depend on the nature of the bill, what we’re talking about. So I can’t say yes or no. I know that there’s an argument that if we increase Medicaid payments for mental healthcare, that we would have more mental healthcare providers in the state. But I would say right now, I would much rather look to use the resources we have more targeted and more efficiently.
I get a little concerned that more and more people experiencing normal emotions, or things they experience in life, are being labeled as having a mental illness and needing professional mental healthcare. I don’t like the direction it seems to be [heading in with] this normalization that everybody gets mentally ill. It’s like, no, everybody experiences bad emotions. Everybody has moments of terror and depression. It’s not the same as clinical depression. Now, I’m not a doctor of psychiatry, obviously, but I am very wary of a larger state apparatus trying to take care of the mental health of the citizenry.
CC: Thank you for your time, Rep. Kelly.
TK: Well, thank you, Chris. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you.
During the session, Kelly voted against a bill that would’ve created a mental health program for K-12 students in Wyoming. It died in the House Education Committee, which he serves on.
He voted against another measure that would’ve given state courts the option to divert people who’ve committed minor crimes into mental health treatment. It died in the House Judiciary Committee, which he also serves on.
Kelly voted in favor of a bill that extends “Good Samaritan” immunity to people helping others experiencing a mental health crisis. That legislation passed both chambers almost unanimously and was later signed into law by the governor.
This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.
