Balancing Time

I couldn't lie to myself forever.

Flight instruction times were too quiet to survive in, so I switched to an in-demand ground career. I hated it.

Sensible you might say though perhaps, but it felt like swimming under water.

You can do it for a while, then you have a very big problem.

You can't breathe.

I found out through experience, I can't stay away completely, there is a balance that works for me.

It's like how we instructors describe 'attitude'.

Part ground, part sky.

You're clever enough, you can engineer the right balance for you too.

Nice people will help, if only you ask.

My parting tip for you: Don't spend any of your priceless time on people who don't make you feel good.

See ya under the wing one day.

🙂

More Than A Pilot

I was a military aviator, and a good one. I beat a lot of odds and dealt with a lot of sexism from many sides to get where I was. Then, I had two beautiful children and was given hardly enough time off to let my body heal.

I will leave out the long, boring story of asking for mental healthcare calmly while trying to preserve my career, trying all the FAA-approved anti-depressants- the horrible side effects and finding myself even more hollowed out and empty.

Things really fell apart when I knew one day that I wanted it all to be over. My career, my marriage, and maybe even my life. I started to obsess about it day and night.

I wanted to make sure my death wasn't too messy, or public. I needed to be somewhere that someone would find me quickly. I started saying goodbye to my babies. I felt this draw to them, and I tried to bond with them, but I was so sleep deprived and unhealthy, I couldn’t see past the next five minutes. I developed this compelling and overwhelming feeling that they would be SO much better off without this bitter, ugly husk of a mother.

—

They wouldn't even remember me. This was my chance! I knew there was a short window in time when they would have almost no memories of me, and my death would not torture them or cause them harm. Someone could lie to them and say I died of a tragic accident. I wrote notes about how the person who found my body should explain it to my children. My dying wish was for them to not know who I was, nor what I was going through when I pulled the trigger. They’d be fine, I told myself. Better this way. Much better.

This was my logic as I drove to a pawn shop to find a gun one bright, sunny day. It had been a string of dreary days, and endless drinking for me. I had been drinking a LOT. I was sleeping poorly as a result, so I just stayed up all night making fancy cakes for birthday parties (I started a little business), which for some reason stoked my last ember of creativity. This coping wasn't working.

One day, I called my friend and asked her to please pick up my kids from the preschool that evening. Then, on my way to kill myself, I thought it would be good to just pull up to the preschool and look at my son one last time. My daughter was an infant, in the baby room. My son was outside, playing in the little play yard.

Through the fence, I could see him running, his wild tuft of blond hair flying. He saw me too, and for the first time I could remember, came running to me! He didn't normally do this and was not an affectionate child (still isn't) but this day, on that particular moment, he ran to me and tried to grab at me through the bars of the fence.

Instead of driving to get the gun, I swallowed the bile rising in my throat, gathered all my courage, and followed the flight line road around to the medical group. I parked in that parking lot, still in my flight suit and boots, and contemplated my walk across the parking lot and up those stairs, into the office. How would this look, with my Major rank on my shoulders, wings on my chest, and my tear-streaked face?

I decided I wasn't going to care. I went in, was ushered quickly to the back where I waited for the crisis counselor to come. They were empathetic and kind, but firm that suicidal thoughts would have to involve an inpatient care.

—

Ten years later, I’m a researcher. I have a PhD now and have been teaching at the university level. I spent a few years working behind the scenes at an airline, but the corporate world reminded me in every way of the military, and I bailed. I have now begun to reach for ways to help other people in my situation. I know no one is quite the same, and we all have different experiences with depression, anxiety, various mental disorders…some of us don’t go get help until we are about to pull the trigger. Some of us never do get help, and end up at the end, unnecessarily.

I am here to tell you all that There Is Light At The End Of This Tunnel. No matter how extreme your fears or problems, courage and honesty wins. Saying “I am hurting, and I need help,” even if it means flying is no more for you…it isn’t the end of the world. In my case, I was able to take time, be a mother, develop myself and my art again, play my guitar, read books, and learn things I would never have learned if I were still flying the line. I've been able to build businesses, create financial freedom for my family, and write my story outside of the flight deck. Never forget, you are more than a pilot.

I was labeled bipolar, and psychotic, and suicidal (the kiss of death for flying - all three of those things). I am not “bipolar” anymore than any other woman is who experiences a cycle every month. I have never taken any of those drugs they prescribed. The doctor who rushed me through that diagnosis to get me out of the military was doing me a favor, ultimately, but he got it very wrong. I was postpartum and very messed up by a long string of emotionally straining circumstances.

The truth is that postpartum depression, psychosis, and other female disorders caused by rapid hormone changes have been under-studied. There is little medical and social science research on these important and life-altering things that happen to women all the time. We simply suffer in silence, isolated in our own misery, afraid to be weak, for fear of failing our children, spouses, and society. There is systemic sexism in physical and mental healthcare, and I aim to change it by turning my research and networking skills to a good cause.

—

Please join me in a fight against the mental health labels that cannot be falsified or overturned. Those diagnoses that are supposedly “for life” that may not be, or may go into remission, or simply might be misdiagnosed when someone is in a temporary crisis. Recently, I was talking with a friend, who is an airline pilot who also suffered mental illness, but he did NOT get help. He said, there are many off-ramps, but very few on-ramps for a pilot’s career once they seek treatment. The on-ramps that do exist are hidden, difficult, expensive, and not well built. They are not meant to be used. This is a one-way ticket for pilots. This is the problem!

Let’s build some on-ramps together, my friends. The NTSB Chairwoman has asked us all for our help. The time is now to start building, growing in our body of knowledge on mental health, and scrubbing off this nasty and persistent stigma.

I look forward to reading more of your stories. I hope my story helps you too, whether you are a pilot scared of plunging into the dark unknown of asking for help, or a woman like me, or someone who loves a woman like me.

I want to do more than just hoping for a brighter future full of easier help. I want action!

Anxiously Optimistic

I had always been an anxious kid. I would get extremely nervous about tests and quizzes. I bit my nails down to stubs and fiddled with my hair. Nothing seemed to help. But one January morning, I reached a breaking point.

If you told me I would be flying a plane seven years later, I would not have believed it.

I was nine years old when I started to dream about being a pilot. The idea that one day I could be in control of a metal tube at 36,000 feet would linger in my brain for years. Each time I stepped onto an airplane, the thought of flying around the country—potentially the world—would swirl in my mind nonstop.

But how would I overcome the other massive “thing” swirling in my mind? At first, addressing my anxiety was tough. I did not fully understand what I was grappling with. Over the next few years, I found a medication regimen that worked for me and intermittently talked about how I was feeling with a counselor. With the added support of my parents and friends—and overall self-growth—I started to become more confident. I put myself out there. I also began to fly. And it was better than anything I could have ever imagined.

Nothing was more extraordinary than being in control of an airplane and seeing new sights from a new perspective. It made me understand that there is more to life than what is on the ground before me. Whether it is my anxiety or an unexpected flock of birds, life is not about what is thrown at me. It is about what I do next. The experience of learning to fly has helped me to realize that an entire world is waiting for me to discover it.

As of writing, I have 39 hours of flight time. I am ready to Solo, pending my FAA Medical. It has been a challenging and lengthy process, and I am currently sitting at six months awaiting a decision. With the recent mental health incidents, I am greatly concerned that the FAA will not rule in my favor. I am hopeful, however, because experts have finally realized that mental health is not always a discouraging factor. I eagerly await the FAA Pilot Mental Health Aviation Rule Making Committee’s meetings and am excited to see what the future holds.

Keep Them Straight and Level

My life has been filled with Pilots.

I am the child, spouse and parent of someone who flies. Life can be difficult when surrounded by those who love to fly more than they can ever love anything else.

The size of a Pilot’s ego is, at times, overwhelming. Over the years my focus has been to help my Pilot family achieve calm so that each of them is in the right “headspace” when they leave the ground.

I have been a one-person support group of sorts for each of them at times when they needed it. Positive attitude is crucial for any relationship with an aviator. I feel as if I am a member of the ground crew as I put myself on the back burner while listening to the debriefing .

Sometimes, just being there helps to keep them straight and level.

Medical Madness

At some point towards the end of 2016, I chose to become a helicopter pilot. As a calculated, practical person it was a multi-year process during which I researched the industry, initiated my career exit from mountain guiding, and looked into various school options. I carefully mapped out my path toward flight school and set the intention to begin in January of 2017. The preparation process during the last months of 2016 included application and acceptance, financial aid and scholarships, online ground school study, and options for housing in the area. The part I was most excited about, however, was my appointment with an Aviation Medical Examiner, or AME.

Don’t get me wrong -  being poked and prodded by a doctor has never been top on my list of ways to spend time, much less spend money. However, receiving a medical certificate felt like taking my first committed step toward being a pilot. All the other tasks felt less significant, things that anyone could and should do to prepare for expanding their education in any area. A medical certificate sets pilots apart in that way-- it’s a mandatory stamp of approval to solo an aircraft or receive a pilot’s license.

I thought, at age 35 coming off a profession requiring a high level of athleticism, the medical exam would be a simple and easy box to check. I found out quickly I was mistaken.

Welcome to my story.

A few months prior, in early 2016, I was in a period of hardship in nearly every area of life- physical injury, career uncertainty, financial stress, deaths of multiple significant people, and past relationship trauma. It was not the first time I’d experienced feelings of depression and hopelessness. In the past, my usual go-to’s were therapy/counseling, drawing on the support of friends and family, and processing through writing and verbal communication. This time was different. Anyone who has experienced depression can describe the overwhelm and cloudiness that occupies your mind, the sticky tendrils of sadness pulling you down into the abyss like an evil octopus dragging you towards the darkness of the ocean’s depths. I beseech those who have not experienced depression to treat those who struggle with mental health with compassion. It’s not easy.

I have much to be thankful for and my life has been mostly joyful. This time, the helplessness caught me by surprise, and the “usual go-to’s” weren’t working their magic. After some time had passed, it was time for a more serious approach, and a friend recommended a psychiatrist who was well known in the community. I went without hesitation, willing to try anything that would bring back the light. I was completely clueless at the time on how that would impact my desire to be an aviator.

If I had known what I know now, I would have chosen differently.

Let’s read that again. If I had known back then what I know now about the challenges of receiving a medical certificate with depression in your medical history, I would have chosen differently- as in, I wouldn’t have made that appointment, and probably continued to struggle with depression with an uncertain outcome. Knowing my stubborn and goal-oriented tendencies, I also would have continued along my path toward becoming a pilot, also with an uncertain outcome.

After all, what’s the big deal? When you have a broken bone, you go to a surgeon and they fix it. When you have a malfunctioning stomach or thyroid, you consume a pill that helps correct the problem. When you have a troubled mind, the proper medication can rebalance the chemicals in your brain to help everything back to normalcy.

There’s no doubt that protocols and procedures around any medication should be in place for aviators. Similarly, mental health should be treated as one piece of the wholistic care puzzle. Instead, it has been ignored, put under undue scrutiny, and even shamed. It’s been made a big deal, but in ways that impair the health of the individual, often by discouraging them from seeking help.

The psychiatrist chose a medication for me and I went along my way, keeping regular appointments to monitor progress. The medication demonstrated its capabilities and I started feeling much better through the summer and fall of 2016. When it came time for my AME appointment, I filled out the paperwork, and nearly forgot to put the medication on the list of prescriptions- it was the first time in my life I’d been on a prescription medication for more than a week or two. During the appointment, the doctor informed me that there “might be some complications” with the antidepressant. Without volunteering additional details, he sent in my paperwork and I left the office feeling confident my second class medical would be in the mail soon.

Not long after, I received a letter that the FAA denied my application for a medical certificate due to my “history of depression”. A little puzzled, since the diagnosis was relatively fresh, I called to get more information.

If you’ve not yet had the pleasure of dialing up the FAA Medical Certification Division, I can spare you the suspense: it’s nearly impossible to get any information unless you’re a flight surgeon. Since snail mail is still the preferred form of correspondence, you’re also condemned to antiquity with communication.

Worried and confused, I started hunting for resources. Eventually I got in touch with two helpful AME’s who were willing to listen to my story, one of whom dug a little deeper by speaking to a flight surgeon directly. When we spoke again after, he skeptically questioned why I hadn’t mentioned my 30-year history of psychosis to him previously.

I’m sorry- what?

The FAA apparently believed I had lived a heavily medicated life of depression, suicidal tendencies, and psychosis. I was baffled. Where did this information come from? Can we confirm they’re looking at the correct medical file? How is this possible, when my “history of depression” had only spanned a few months? And why wouldn’t they share any information with me?

With a lot more digging, we pieced together that the psychiatrist who prescribed me the medication had written somewhere in his barely legible notes that I’d visited a therapist since I was young, which was true. However I largely went to therapy for the purpose of personal growth and development and the aforementioned “low spots” in life to help me process with an objective perspective. Rather than ask more questions about the therapy or query the professionals involved, the FAA chose instead to fabricate a wildly different set of reasons for seeing a therapist and made a series of decisions based on their manufactured reality that would affect my aviation path for years to come. They’d convinced themselves that I had a 30-year history of psychosis, and it was now my job to prove that wrong. I put my plans to start heli school on hold, and got to work.

I called in reinforcements, speaking to as many AME’s as I could about my situation and diligently dialling the FAA weekly for updates. I was advised by an AME highly experienced in the HIMS category-- Human Intervention Motivation Study, which addresses anxiety and depression-- to abandon the medication altogether in order to increase my chances of being issued a medical certificate. He’d seen enough cases similar to mine over the years to know that, if I could get by without the meds, my process would be simplified. I took his advice, the symptoms did not return, and I ensured that my psychiatrist communicated with the FAA regarding my progress.

Nearly a year of snail mail correspondence ensued, during which the FAA would request information, I would dutifully gather and send it, and they would continue to deny me. The hangup seemed to be their need for “a complete copy of all treatment records pertaining to your major depressive disorder”. I’m sure they were expecting a file the size of a phone book, but my “disorder” didn’t have any records beyond a few months, and they were already in possession of those records. In my weekly call to them it was recommended that as a replacement for the records, I should send additional letters from both the current psychiatrist and my therapist of 15 years stating that I posed no risk whatsoever to aviation.

Their recommendation failed, and the next letter of denial came with a request for a full-blown psychiatric evaluation. By this point I felt so beaten down and defeated by the process I considered giving up.

The irony was real—I’d been off medication for over a year, and the only life issue causing me feelings of depression and anxiety was fighting the FAA over a medical history that didn’t exist! Determined to persevere, I proceeded with the evaluation which was expensive in both time and monetary resources. I spent countless hours gathering 20+ years of records, letters of recommendation, positive work evaluations, and the results of past personality and learning tests such as Myers-Briggs. My accomplishments as a rock climber, setting groundbreaking records on one the biggest granite walls in the world, requires sound decision making and risk management skills; I used the articles and interviews documenting my brief brush with fame as evidence of a healthy mind and emotional body.

I became an intense investigator of my own life, committed to building my case beyond reasonable doubt that I could be a safe and capable aviator.

Meanwhile, I also made an appointment with yet another HIMS AME who could advocate for me through the remainder of the process, which would hopefully end with a medical certificate. Between the positive psychiatric evaluation report and the support of that AME, I was finally issued a “special issuance” second-class medical certificate in June of 2018, 20 months and roughly $4000 after initiating the journey. Still unconvinced, the special issuance was the FAA’s way of continuing to keep their eye on me as long as they deemed necessary. It took an additional four years to clear it from my record.

Looking back, I feel equally as frustrated as I did then about the ordeal. As it turns out, I was likely misdiagnosed with major depressive disorder, which may have prevented many of the issues I faced. That led me to believe there were some broader issues with the medical system and not just the aviation certification side.

Was my doctor trigger happy with medication? Did I make a mistake asking for help? What would have happened if I hadn’t made that initial appointment? Why did his positive endorsements of my mental health fail to subdue the FAA’s concerns? Since then, I’ve conversed with several aspiring aviators who face similar issues. Even the vast assortment of doctors I spoke to along the way expressed dissatisfaction with the rigidity of the system.

Many of my questions will remain unanswered. I am certain however that my intention in asking for help from a psychiatrist was rooted in the desire for self-improvement and the need to be the best human I can be, and I don’t regret that. Except here’s what’s interesting: Taking antidepressants helped me think through my career change more objectively by lifting the dark fog from my brain. The pathway to continue taking them became so outrageous, even from a doctors’ perspective, the best course of action was to stop. In other words, they helped to clarify my desire and inspiration to become a pilot, and also sabotaged the process of becoming a pilot!

I was ignorant to the ramifications of not involving an aviation psychiatrist in my process, since I hadn’t yet committed to becoming a pilot-- and I paid the price. Countless others have fallen into the same trap, a trap that wouldn’t exist if our approach to mental health were different.

If this article speaks you, please don’t give up. While my choice was to abandon the medication, it is possible to manage many types of medications and also maintain a medical certificate. For me, it was a test in resilience, and I’m thankful I stuck it out.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned from my records in rock climbing is that vulnerability is a pathway to deeper connections with ourselves and our loved ones. No matter what you’re dealing with, it’s impossible to stand alone when you surround yourself with empathetic and supportive people. It’s ok to lean on them, and it’s ok to lean into your own sadness.

We must remove shame from the conversation about mental health and create a framework in aviation medicine that reduces the susceptibility of a cookie cutter approach and instead promotes a more wholistic, individualized picture of well-being.

How will you get in action today?