Advice and insight request

SECURITY CLEARANCE Q&A
1

I’m considering applying for a DoD job again after many years. My clearance was revoked in 2010 during a period when I was experiencing symptoms of what was later diagnosed as bipolar disorder. At the time, I didn’t recognize I was in a mental‑health crisis and wasn’t receiving treatment. I was briefly hospitalized and medically unable to participate in the administrative review.

I was formally diagnosed afterward and have been stable and compliant with treatment for many years. I also had a brief hospitalization abroad in 2015 during a medication adjustment, but I’ve been stable since.

My questions:

  1. How do investigators typically view old clearance revocations tied to undiagnosed medical conditions?

  2. Are foreign hospitalizations or non‑hospitalized mental‑health crises an issue if the condition is now stable?

  3. Do investigators access Social Security disability records, or do they just verify that benefits were received?

I’m not asking for legal or medical advice — just trying to understand how adjudicators generally view situations like this.

2

You asked, how do investigators view old revocations? I think you know that the real question is, how do adjudicators view them? And as I understand it, it is not so much the revocation that they look at, but the circumstances that led to a clearance being revoked, and whether they are still relevant.

I think the main issue they will want to determine is, are you currently in treatment, are you keeping up with that treatment, and have you been stable for some time? Sounds like the answer to all those questions is yes, so you should be in good shape. You will probably need to sign releases so investigators can talk to your therapists.

The only other question might be, was your clearance revoked due to some security incident that was caused by your condition?