How Suicidal Thoughts and Depression Can Affect Clearance Eligibility

Pieces like this remind me of why security clearances have become a total joke. You have people with the worst forms of mental illness (bipolar, manic-depressive, suicidal ideation) and taking psychiatric medications yet there is a bend-over-backward accommodation in the security clearance process to give the applicant every possible opportunity to show their major mental issue is not an issue (in the common meaning of that word).

You apply for a job as a ditch digger and show up missing an arm or two and it’s, “Sorry buddy, there are others jobs out there you can do but this ain’t one of them.” Meanwhile you apply for a national security job and show up with a major psychiatric disorder and it’s, “Let’s attempt to establish that you can be trusted and you can be stable in spite of a having a non-static mental condition which guarantees that you can’t do either.”

Look, I have a lot of sympathy for people who suffer very real mental issues which they had no part in creating (e.g., congenital, as opposed to smoking MJ which causes psychosis and schizophrenia). Someone who’s born with, or naturally developed, a psychiatric condition has a hidden deformity and is worthy of as much pity as the person born with no arms. In the former case it’s more tragic because it’s hidden and thus most people are less tolerant of the handicap. That said, there are plenty of jobs which don’t have as their fundamental requirement having to be trusted with secrets, specially, national security secrets.

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