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.

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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.

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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.

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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!