Hello All,
Second post on this forum, and something pretty humiliating and personal. I wouldn’t share this kind of thing publicly under normal circumstances, but it’s literally THE thing that has kept me away from flying, and this also seems like a safe enough forum to get fair and honest answers, relatively judgement free.
Here goes… about 20 years ago, as a teenager, I suffered from an eating disorder. It’s a bear of a mental illness, very hard to treat, poorly understood, and highly stigmatized. Also very rare in men, so it’s a war I pretty much had to fight alone. I was however lucky and was successfully treated, it took about two years but I eventually made my way out of the woods, and haven’t experienced anything like it since. I am now happily married, and have a successful career as an aircraft maintenance technician for a major airline (I celebrate my 10 years with the company in June!). In short, it happened, but it was a long time ago and is no longer a factor in my life.
I always assumed having this in my medical history made me toxic waste in the eyes of any potential airline, at least as far as flying goes (they don’t care about technicians apparently, go figure). I came to find out that there was a potential path however, and I disclosed my eating disorder to my AME when getting my first class medical examination. He deferred it to the FAA, and about six months, $4,000, and a full psychiatric evaluation later, I now have a first class medical in hand.
My question is this; with a first class medical now granted, considering the stigmas that exist regarding mental health in the aviation industry, am I really out of the woods? Will this be something that potentially edges me out when compared to other candidates? Keep in mind too that the eating disorder was the ONLY thing I experienced, no suicidal thoughts, depression, or substance abuse of any kind, ever. Squeaky clean on the legal side too. Have any other pilots on this forum walked a similar path?
Thanks!