Originally Posted by
JohnBurke
There has long been a trend toward overmedicating mental and emotional conditions, rather than treating the root, and much of the time, it's not chemical. But therein runs the schism between psychology and psychiatry.
A disturbing effort seems to be a growing undercurrent that wants to legitimize mental and emotional conditions to make them paletable and acceptable for flight, the idea being that pilots will reveal them if they think they can fly with that condition. In many cases, thy shouldn't be flying with that condition; the FAA. knows it. The pilot knows it. The pilot hides it to prevent the FAA from knowing about it, and grounding the pilot, when the pilot should be grounded.
The FAA is concerned about medication, but in all cases, the chief concern is the underlying condition for which the medication is taken.
Far more go without medication than with; the undiagnosed or untreated go absent aids or a course of therapy, whether pharmaceutical, counseling, or otherwise. It does no one any good to explain away the condition as the result of a flying career. The blam game only goes so far, and does nothing for diagnosis, let alone treatment. Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome is not a thing; it's a farce spoken among those too weak to own up to the responsibility for the fialure of their own marriage, and the inability to own it leads to failure to move past, and anger...which turned inward, is depression, and worse. The career is an easy scapegoat. The same is true of porn addiction, gambling addiction, alcohol, drugs, etc. The career is low-hanging fruit, but to hide behind the fringe of hours and hotels and time on the road is to lie to one's self, and a failure to own. The victim of self is the apologist, and the apology is stale, but rampant.
Meds held you when the train has so far left the station that CBT won’t do a thing. Stress on the brain and nervous system are well known and studied. It’s rarely pathological. Just need to slow the train down so you can life coach, CBT, etc.
Originally Posted by
TiredSoul
Mental health is not exclusively but primarily a result of the luxury of having First World problems.
Orphaned child soldiers in the Sudan don’t have time for this.
The pressure of not meeting societal expectations and our own expectations is real. Que japanese cubical worker leaping. Orphaned child soldiers will have anxiety and depression from the PTSD when their life slows down and they are out of survival mode. Que the American soldier who makes it back and eats breakfast at a Waffle House.