While it would have been easier to jump off a cliff, developing the diagnosis and treatment of High Altitude Observatory Disease (HAOD) was a problem that needed to be solved.

I worked on Mauna Kea for over five years and saw my health severely degrade during that time. The two long term summit workers that I knew well died of disease conditions, another worker went on to commit suicide, and others were argumentative.

If your choice is keeping your managers happy or protecting the health and safety of your workers, the honorable choose their workers.

High altitude workers are typically recruited from all over the world and relocated to the remote astronomical observatory area. The downside to this is that it isolates them from their existing friends and family.

Out of a group of eight extreme night shift workers, I was aware of four workers who appeared to be displaying symptoms of depression. That is fifty percent of the team. That number may be higher if you include those that were already on successful depression treatment and were not publicly showing the symptoms.

I started showing depression symptoms shortly after my very high altitude coworker stated that they were experiencing gender issues.

When I worked at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the management team were always saying that everyone was part of the ohana (family). When I got sick and needed essential surgery, they outcast me from the ohana. I concluded that the company ohana was a sham.

There was no history of mental illness in my family for people in their thirties, so it was very surprising when I developed it.

There are no doubts that I am the sickest member of my family and that illness showed up during working in the biologically toxic field of high altitude astronomy.