Re: Heathkit: Keeping Your Wits

Re: Discussion about the work I did on the VFO of the Heathkit HW-101 ham radio transceiver.

With such glowing remarks from its new owner, I'm as proud as a dad watching his kid graduate from college. It really wasn't TOO much of an accident that I chose to shine this radio up; before launching into that rebuild I did an obsessive amount of research into tube SSB radio design. I was looking for a typical radio of that design, and actually wanted to start with the KWM-2, but GOD is everything Collins expensive! I found that the HW-101 was not too different, relied on less expensive parts, and actually was laid out way better for this sort of work.

Anyway, why would somebody spend this amount of time, money and brainpower on such a thing, if they aren't going to really use it? I'm about to come up on the 1 year anniversary of a very critical day in my life, so I'm in the mood to share. 

I have a condition called dysthymia (constant, 'low-grade' depression), with dips into major depression. Left to its own devices, my mind will go into these very destructive thought loops that consume alot of my attention - "you are worthless, a waste of energy and space, you are mediocrity personified, permanently lame" and on and on - so imagine that happening though most of the waking day to you, every day. I found early on that if I could distract myself with a very time/thought consuming exercise, that the obsessive looping would be redirected to that instead of tearing myself down. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. I saw a few doctors in the early days, but the ones near me were pretty incompetent. So I just trudged along, picking up projects to keep myself distracted. Some I finished, many I didn't. I went to college and got a degree in engineering (very distracting!) and had a steady girlfriend and lived in a nice rental house in a nice town.

Now I'm in my mid-20's and have all this free time in the night, and I had to do something. I went through a very quick succession of projects that, at one point or another, could not satisfy both my obsessive need to do a complete 'factory-fresh' rebuild and still fit my wallet and help me keep my wits. Boy, did I really burn through the money back then.  It wasn't until I moved into the house we bought down the street and I had setup a workshop in the basement that I was in a state to see a project through, and following a variety of influences, was on the track of this tube SSB thing. Really, the HW-101 was a perfect project - complex enough to soak up oodles of time and thought, and cheap enough to make perfect. I had already gotten a junker chassis from an estate I bought, so I bought a good clean unit from eBay. [At this point the story is a little complicated, so I'm going to gloss over history that does not further the point].

So, during a couple years of dark cold nights that I couldn't do something outside, I headed down to the basement and worked until midnight to rebuild this radio. During the commute or lunch, I'd think on or research on the latest thing I was working on. I kept me stable and I felt fairly good through those years; I had a permanent grin on my face as I worked through those daily challenges. And then, one day, it was finished. I'd leave it on during the summer to just listen to the band when I needed to cool off from mowing the lawn or hide from my girlfriend (now wife). And that was about it - actually using these radios on the air didn't give me the same effect as working on them, so I put it on the shelf. And, really, that's like keeping a MG-B in the garage through the whole summer or keeping a sitting room that nobody is allowed  to sit in. That is where Bernie's story picks up.

At a point about a year ago, I took a turn for the worse. I slept all day, took alot of sick days from work - and wasn't producing anything when I WAS at my desk. Every waking moment was a destructive thought loop, and I would sleep as much as I could to stave it off. I took a week's vacation from work to just get out. One day, I was sitting by the Charles River, and began to bawl. There was no trick that was going to get me out of this, no project or activity that would distract me. At that point, there appeared to be only two routes - hang myself in my sunroom, or check myself into a hospital. As bad as it got, I still had a shred of self-preservation left, and chose the latter. I saw the psychiatric doctors on an emergency basis, and began a process of 'rebirth'. After a number of tests with different medications, a low daily dose of Zoloft cleared the pain away. 

From this penultimate low, I am now riding what (for me) has been a permanent high. I'm both unburdened of the depression, AND the obsessive project building. I honestly even FEEL lighter. And I'm feel smarter too, now that I have all this brainpower available to keep focused on the thing I'm working on. I feel FREE. 

Looking back on it, it is a little bittersweet. I'm ecstatic that I was able to achieve a certain level of competency in fixing up the old radio AND finally finding the treatment to allow me to live a normal life. I'm a little sad that I spent so much of my 20's in this mode instead of taking full advantage of my salad days, and putting my wife through such suffering and worry. Looking at my little pill now (about the size of the glass nub of a Compactron), it seems that much more silly that I spent that time on everything else but fixing the most important rig - myself.

I've been on the fence about telling people about this; I'm not the sort to unload personal issues on strangers (or even my friends and family), and I certainly don't seek pity. But this feeling I have now is so good, and there are so many people out there affected, I have to tell them that there is hope for you.

So, finally, a message to all of you out there. Depression is a real disorder; it isn't a failing of your character or backbone or a lack or gumption. It is holding you down, and there is hope for your freedom. I can't say it will be as easy as it was for me - we are still in the infancy of understanding the brain and our tools are like using hammers and straps to fix an auto engine. But please understand that YOU are worth that investment, because it is YOU that have this gift of life - and you get it but ONCE. Don't waste another day. Restore yourself with the same thinking you'd apply to a good radio restoration - take the holistic view (not crystals and herbs, but look at your health, environment, food, etc). And, for goodness sake, if you run into a doctor that is being lazy and unthorough, remind them to work harder or find another one.

For the rest of you - if you know somebody who appears to have depression, please encourage them to seek help, in a positive way. Sure, cheering them up is nice, but you have no chance against an constantly errant mind. And PLEASE don't shame/harangue/force! In the end they have to make the choice to proceed. In the end, there are some people who, when they reach that moment of crisis like I did, are not going to have that little life preserver there to keep them up - and we sadly lose them. Please throw them a line.

I feel that if this helps at least one person understand, or get onto the path of recovery, then it was worth it. As usual, I am open for office hours.