Originally Posted by JohnBurke

Flying, flying jobs, and aviation don't cause mental issues, depression, and anxiety. External forces do, and should be addressed and treated, but let's not be so prissy as to pretend (and expect anyone to believe) that this is a job of suffering and hardship. It's not.

Especially not airline flying.

However, having flown in combat conditions, and peacetime, having flown into raging forest fires in tight, smoked-in canyons, having towed banners, flown jumpers, jumped, done corporate, charter, ambulance, cargo, passengers, 135 and 121, ample governent flying, international operations in every continent but antarctica and to every country; having taught in flight and classrooms and in simulators; having turned wrenches in sub-zero temperatures with icicles on my nose and chin, and inside wings in fuel cells during record high temperature streaks in the desert, and having flown into thunderstorms over and over for the sake of science, ad infinitum, plus a few other things, don't try to convince me that this "life of hardship" is anything but a privileged existence. To say otherwise is utter bull ****.

You appear to say otherwise, don't you?

Go live a life of poverty, try working for a living, visit a land of pestilence, famine, and suffering, and then come backt to tell me how hard it is working in a first world airline or aviation environment. The heart bleeds not.

Keep saying otherwise, though.

As for having mental, emotional, or other conditions that are quite real, whether stemming from combat or divorce or car wrecks or financial strain, or perhaps the haunting of a child's dying tears or the countless starving one was unable to help (been there, for all), help is available and needed. If one needs help, get it. If one is unable to fly as a result of these stresses, or of any other condition, affliction, or hardship, then don't fly. It's no different than having a limiting other medical condition.

Aviation doesn't cause addiction, nor neurological conditions, but should such exist among the certificated and employed, or those seeking to be, then those must get the help they need. Don't blame it on the industry. In fact, forget blame, get the help. Don't pretend, however, that it stems from flying the line.