I pray that changes.
I'll be blunt: Hell yes, I've considered suicide. Been hospitalized for it. I was 15 at the time; teenage stuff plus disability stuff equals one screwed up mind.
I have depression. It helped make college hell for me, but though I will admit there are days it feels otherwise, generally speaking, I'm stable (I could never call myself normal), if vigilant. I take my meds religiously, see the usual professionals like clockwork.
But I'm open about all this. Nobody could ever coerce me with it - and my usual habit when I have depressive episodes is to shut up about anything and everything, not talk.
So why should my mental health issues, so long as they remain treated and stable, be any bar to a clearance? Something happens, I'd give up any clearance temporarily.
And moving aside from me...How the hell does that idea make any sense?
You say "You have a mental illness, you lose your clearance" is the worst idea. 1 in 5 Americans have depression. Shouldn't we be encouraging people to get help?
We don't pull clearances from alcoholics or those with drug problems instantly - we condition their clearance eligibility on getting help, I'm given to understand.
If you say "If you've had suicidal ideations or depression or any other mental illness, no clearance for you", what does that do except give people lots of motivation to leave their issues untreated, hide them from everyone (usually badly), and lie to you?
(Actually...Does anybody know the current policy? I remember hearing they were taking out the mental health questions to encourage people to get treatment, but then I never heard anything more about that.)
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