Hey everybody.
This is my first post, so I will try to make this short and sweet (emphasis on try). I am currently in the Primary portion of flight school with 6 years prior service as an aircrewman and just passed my 1 year mark since commissioning. This past week I have been experiencing severe anxiety and depression (due to several factors - personal and work) and I immediately called Fleet and Family to make a counseling appointment. I brought this appointment up with my class advisor and he recommended I go through a HFB (Human Factors Board) with my CoC which included my XO, STUCON O, Flight Doc, and a couple other DH's. They were receptive and spoke about several resources (ya know, the required spiel) and told me that they are here for me no matter what happens...Well fast forward a couple of days, I started hyperventilating, had heat flashes, was sweating, heart rate spiked, etc. to the point where I had my first ever anxiety attack and had to go to the ER. The ER doc prescribed me anti-anxiety meds, to which I immediately notified my flight doc (being in a flight status and all) and was told to not take it as prescribed so I do not become reliant on it since I would be unable to continue the medication while in training. My squadron has put me on a Med Hold from training until I get a few fleet and family sessions in and flight doc determining if the anxiety is severe enough to keep me from training and possibly have NAMI "NPQ" me from Aviation.
Due to timing with the holidays, there is quite a wait between fleet and family appointments and my first actual session is in a week. I am just wondering if anybody else has gone through this and if they have any insight. I've always had general anxiety, but never to this extreme to where I felt like I couldn't physically move or calm down and it really scared me. That's also the only reason I brought it up initially to my command because it has never been debilitating before and I just didn't know what to do. Since the anxiety attack, I have felt like now my body is feeling the shock of it. For example, high anxiety 24/7, feeling like there is a weight on my chest, my resting HR randomly spiking to over 100 when my average resting HR is around 60, feeling like I can't take full breaths, trouble sleeping, all on top of my depressive symptoms.
I guess I'm just looking for some kind of guidance as to different possibilities for my career if my mental health issues don't subside within a reasonable timeframe and I do get the official NPQ. I have read up on the POCR process and know at the end of the day it's usually "needs of the navy" that wins. I'm just worried that I worked so hard to get to this point, to get redesignated into another community. All advice is welcome and appreciated. I apologize for the long post, I shortened it up as much as possible. Thanks again!
This is my first post, so I will try to make this short and sweet (emphasis on try). I am currently in the Primary portion of flight school with 6 years prior service as an aircrewman and just passed my 1 year mark since commissioning. This past week I have been experiencing severe anxiety and depression (due to several factors - personal and work) and I immediately called Fleet and Family to make a counseling appointment. I brought this appointment up with my class advisor and he recommended I go through a HFB (Human Factors Board) with my CoC which included my XO, STUCON O, Flight Doc, and a couple other DH's. They were receptive and spoke about several resources (ya know, the required spiel) and told me that they are here for me no matter what happens...Well fast forward a couple of days, I started hyperventilating, had heat flashes, was sweating, heart rate spiked, etc. to the point where I had my first ever anxiety attack and had to go to the ER. The ER doc prescribed me anti-anxiety meds, to which I immediately notified my flight doc (being in a flight status and all) and was told to not take it as prescribed so I do not become reliant on it since I would be unable to continue the medication while in training. My squadron has put me on a Med Hold from training until I get a few fleet and family sessions in and flight doc determining if the anxiety is severe enough to keep me from training and possibly have NAMI "NPQ" me from Aviation.
Due to timing with the holidays, there is quite a wait between fleet and family appointments and my first actual session is in a week. I am just wondering if anybody else has gone through this and if they have any insight. I've always had general anxiety, but never to this extreme to where I felt like I couldn't physically move or calm down and it really scared me. That's also the only reason I brought it up initially to my command because it has never been debilitating before and I just didn't know what to do. Since the anxiety attack, I have felt like now my body is feeling the shock of it. For example, high anxiety 24/7, feeling like there is a weight on my chest, my resting HR randomly spiking to over 100 when my average resting HR is around 60, feeling like I can't take full breaths, trouble sleeping, all on top of my depressive symptoms.
I guess I'm just looking for some kind of guidance as to different possibilities for my career if my mental health issues don't subside within a reasonable timeframe and I do get the official NPQ. I have read up on the POCR process and know at the end of the day it's usually "needs of the navy" that wins. I'm just worried that I worked so hard to get to this point, to get redesignated into another community. All advice is welcome and appreciated. I apologize for the long post, I shortened it up as much as possible. Thanks again!
