Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Tough situation. OCD hopefully isn't going to pose an immediate threat to anyone's health and safety... if that's the case you can take some time, do some self-study and try to learn about more it if you haven't already. If you think you understand your issue, then research treatment options. There might be cognitive therapy or lifestyle changes which can help.
I'm not sure, I know nothing about OCD other than what the acronym stands for. But if it's something that you can address on your own satisfactorily that will simplify your aviation medical certification. I assume that untreated clinical OCD would be a no-go with the FAA, but am not sure.
Also you need to find out what DSM-V condition actually correlates to "OCD"... that's what you'll need to research wrt to FAA certification.
With that said, all good pilots are probably a little bit "OCD"... helps us to live longer.
The difference between "personality" and "personality disorder" is the extent to which it actually interferes with daily function. If it significantly affects daily function it is by definition a disorder and needs to be treated.
The problem is that there is a whole industry out there that is incentivized by their own economic interests in treating personalities as disorders, and for many of those people SSRIs are viewed as being in the same category as daily vitamins,. And even more effective (and less FAA concerning) modalities like cognitive behavioral therapy require a diagnosis of "disorder" for the insurance company to cover the cost of treatment. And that is doubly problematic because as was learned with the ADD "epidemic" and really through out medicine, it becomes fairly common for people to "become" their diagnosis once an authority figure "awards" them one, no matter if it is an exaggeration or an outright error, and the FAA pretty much defaults to the assumption that the diagnosis once given is correct.