Antidepressants and Aviation

[exNavyOffRec]

Just another example of DoDs lack of care about mental health.

Knowing that you could be DQ'd for even talking to a doc about depression is a huge reason to just avoid seeking treatment. AND they even ask you any time you visit the clinic.

There should be a difference between talking with someone to get help and talking with someone that thinks you need medication, unfortunately we are a society that believes everything can be fixed with a pill, taking medications to fix an issue should not be the 1st thing a psych does, but many of them do. I have known several psychologist who believe pills should be an option, but only after other methods have been tried.

On one of my sea tours the command had a psych that would prescribe anti-depressants like candy, go up and say you are depressed on deployment because you are away from home and walk away with pills, we lost several nuclear trained operators very quickly until the SMO became involved.

I do also know people that benefit from being on medication, one of the guys I worked with up until a year ago has 2 daughters that cannot function without medication, they are in a bad way when they go off their medications.

Should people be able to ask for and get help absolutely, but as a society we should look at do we really need to be popping all these pills, some people need them, some don't. If they take pills should it affect their service? That is the hard question as I bet we all know people who have taken psych meds and are fine, and also know people that take psych meds that are still very concerning to others.

 

[Swanee]

And this has happened, behind the boat, at night. One of my least favorite flights. Spent most of that recovery as the ECMO1 verbal punching bag of a certain individual who shall remain anonymous in a public forum. I'm just thankful I didn't have to pull the damn handle, because for a little bit I was seriously wondering if I'd need to. Turns out flipping one's shit isn't conducive to fine motor skills like in-close ball flying or post-bolter tanking. We snagged a lucky wire, thankfully . . .

Said individual is/was a great human being most times, but if ever there was a candidate for just what you're suggesting . . .

I'm the guy who was forced through a CAT1 Hornet syllabus 2 months after his wife was released from an inpatient mental hospital for attempting suicide.

That was her second time in a year. We lived apart for 4 months because that's what was best for my flight school career. Both times she was admitted I was put on the flight schedule every day because ," my stress was reduced now that she wasn't at home."

Never once did anyone say, "hey man, you need to go talk to a professional about your personal issues." Instead I was told to suck it up, compartmentalize and never let anyone see me sweat.

In dealing with my wife's demons, no one asked how I was doing. They were more concerned with production numbers.

I'm surprised I didn't kill myself in the jet. I literally got a call about a warrant being out for an arrest for my wife on a drug charge ( related to the second time she was admitted to an inpatient facility) while I was in Flight E getting my crap on for a flight. I told my IP and he said, "compartmentalize and figure it out, I'll have to do it when I am deployed." So I went along with it, flew the sortie and SOD'd the crap out of it. I lined up as -4 on the skinny runway at Oceana, had to taxi back, almost put the airplane off the runway in the process- and it only got worse from there.

When the first thing we think is that dude X is only trying to get out of the flight because they aren't ready, we forget that we all would rather be flying than just about anything else.


This was all brought up in my FFPB/FSSB, but was essentially shrugged off as, "well, the young guy going through hell said he was fine so, he must have been fine." Yet leaders are supposed to tell the young guy, " No, you're not fine. Let's get you help so you can get back on track."

But that would require the Navy/Marine Corps to do more than pay lip service to mental health for people on AD.

 

[Nectar Ananas]

It really sucks that's how people who go on antidepressants are perceived. I went through high school fine, have my 4 year college degree just fine, I work out, have nothing wrong with me physically but now because I hit a rough spot a few years ago and needed help for a few months I'm a lunatic who could snap at any moment and kill myself or others if I'm allowed in the Navy. Like I feel fine, all the problems that I had which were behavioral problems i.e. I wasn't born with anxiety like some other mental disorders its something that I learned, and now unlearned, but because I went to see a doc and he prescribed some meds for me I'm a potential psycho.

 

[squorch2]

Should people be able to ask for and get help absolutely, but as a society we should look at do we really need to be popping all these pills, some people need them, some don't.

I also wonder if people who break their arms really need those casts.

?

 

[FormerRecruitingGuru]

It really sucks that's how people who go on antidepressants are perceived. I went through high school fine, have my 4 year college degree just fine, I work out, have nothing wrong with me physically but now because I hit a rough spot a few years ago and needed help for a few months I'm a lunatic who could snap at any moment and kill myself or others if I'm allowed in the Navy. Like I feel fine, all the problems that I had which were behavioral problems i.e. I wasn't born with anxiety like some other mental disorders its something that I learned, and now unlearned, but because I went to see a doc and he prescribed some meds for me I'm a potential psycho.

The issue has been with applicants with a history who claim they are 100% fine, but when exposed to stress that they've never seen before (OCS, flight school, etc. etc.) they enter a relapse and can potentially harm themselves or others around them. If you're flying and all of a sudden you mentally shut down due to the stress, there won't be a flight doc or someone else period (if you're flying a single seat) to help.

The guidelines are there for a reason.

 

[Swanee]

they enter a relapse and can potentially harm themselves or others around them

That's a very specific example that does not apply to many of treatable and curable mental health diseases.

There are many that should be disqualifying, as there is no cure for things like bipolar disorder. However, we shouldn't lump them all together.

 

[squorch2]

Breaking down in the training environment is part of the reason for its existence.

Also - "enter a relapse" - ease up there, mental health professional.

 

[Nectar Ananas]

The issue has been with applicants with a history who claim they are 100% fine, but when exposed to stress that they've never seen before (OCS, flight school, etc. etc.) they enter a relapse and can potentially harm themselves or others around them. If you're flying and all of a sudden you mentally shut down due to the stress, there won't be a flight doc or someone else period (if you're flying a single seat) to help.

The guidelines are there for a reason.

Its funny to hear something like that because always envisioning the worst case scenarios and then basing your decision off those scenarios is a symptom of anxiety. Go figure?

 

[Flash]

It really sucks that's how people who go on antidepressants are perceived. I went through high school fine, have my 4 year college degree just fine, I work out, have nothing wrong with me physically but now because I hit a rough spot a few years ago and needed help for a few months I'm a lunatic who could snap at any moment and kill myself or others if I'm allowed in the Navy. Like I feel fine, all the problems that I had which were behavioral problems i.e. I wasn't born with anxiety like some other mental disorders its something that I learned, and now unlearned, but because I went to see a doc and he prescribed some meds for me I'm a potential psycho.

The guidelines are there for a reason.

It is a pretty simple cost-benefit calculation on the part of the Navy, is it worth the risk of accepting folks with a certain set of conditions worth the possible cost to the Navy? For most mental health issues the Navy has decided it is not worth it due to the cost and other risks, likely based on past experiences and guidelines laid down by military medical professionals.

Having seen quite a few folks DQ'd from military service for a variety of reasons it really sucks for those who have a strong desire to serve but can't, but the military has to draw the line somewhere for who is qualified for military service and those who aren't. In this case for initial accessions, I think the military has made the right choice to err on the side of caution than not.

 

[Brett327]

I’ve seen enough young Sailors enter service with various previously treated anxiety and depression issues, only to falter professionally under stress and ultimately be separated. I am 100% onboard with not giving out waivers for this to aviators. It’s just not worth the risk.

 

[Jim123]

It is a pretty simple cost-benefit calculation on the part of the Navy, is it worth the risk...

Having seen quite a few folks DQ'd from military service for a variety of reasons it really sucks for those who have a strong desire to serve but can't, but the military has to draw the line somewhere for who is qualified for military service and those who aren't.

I’ve seen enough young Sailors enter service with various previously treated anxiety and depression issues, only to falter professionally under stress and ultimately be separated. I am 100% onboard with not giving out waivers for this to aviators. It’s just not worth the risk.

I've seen it happen with winged aviators too. It is a big risk.

Mental health is a little different field in medicine, for better or for worse (mostly for worse). A lot of medical fields are pretty well understood nowadays and the effects of their various issues, on military service, are fairly predictable- fields like orthopedics, ophthalmology, cardiology, for example. But mental health, not so much. There's a lot of work going on in the field but I think it's going to be many, many years before it's as mature as physical medicine is today.


As a society, we do tend to pop pills as a solution to many health problems or we ignore the problems until they go away (hoping they do). There is a lot of one extreme or the other. I think the "what can you prescribe me" thing has gone up a lot in the recent few decades but "ignore it until it goes away" has been around longer than any of us.

 

[Flash]

The way you’ve described your anecdotal experience sounds like a failure in leadership/resources by the Navy than some inherent issue with the sailors....Respectfully, attitudes like the one you exhibited-off the cuff dismissal of these issues as something to be drummed out and disposed of-are a huge part of the feedback loop that drives this cycle.

There are folks that come in the service with underlying issues that are often undiagnosed but present themselves pretty quickly when they are finally out of the confines of boot camp and their initial training. I saw that with at least half a dozen young sailors in my two squadrons and there was little the Navy could do for them while still in the service, and they would be more appropriately dealt with by the VA than being kept in the service. It certainly isn't ideal but I see little alternative.

Bowe Bergdahl is a pretty good example, having been discharged from the USCG during boot camp for psychological issues but subsequently accepted by the Army due to their need for soldiers at the time.

I’m a big fan of flight docs as individuals, but NAMI and Naval Medicine are hidebound dinosaurs whose policies are actively harming many folks who don’t seek treatment for fear of losing their flight status.

I see that as a separate issue and much more complex than the one Brett was talking about.

 

[Jim123]

The way you’ve described your anecdotal experience sounds like a failure in leadership/resources by the Navy than some inherent issue with the sailors.

I think it's an inherent issue with Big DoD. It's one thing to treat the problem, medically. It's another problem to give the individual their old job back. Administratively and medically how to put people back in their job is the inherent issue. I don't have any bright ideas for making that better.

These problems are generally not anomalies in brain chemistry—they’re very natural and normal reactions to the abnormal, difficult, stressful, and sometimes outright awful things we ask our sailors and marines to do.

Yep, and I think most of us understand that, but that's just step one or step two out of a lot of steps.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Its funny to hear something like that because always envisioning the worst case scenarios and then basing your decision off those scenarios is a symptom of anxiety. Go figure?

There are 2 groups of people in play here, those that are in the service and those that are not. If a person is not yet in the service, has had issues in the past then is waivered in and later on develops issue that wind up ending their service or not the VA will now be paying them some amount of disability, that is a cost that we have to find a way to minimize and part of that is the time from taking those psych drugs, it just provides more evidence that their won't be an issue.

 

[Griz882]

Here is the best part of this important discussion...and the scary part...it is starting to read like Catch-22.