[dcsadthrowaway]

The author here is pretty brave. I've often thought about writing something along similar lines. When you're living in DC and you aren't doing this long list of elite stuff, it's much less ok to admit you're not ok. Many places want their younger workers to work hard, not smart. I'm currently looking for a job that have more autonomy, more respect for the individual, but they're hard to find.

It's especially frustrating since after trying a bunch of treatments (therapy, prescription drugs, and various combinations of the two), I've found that good sleep, regular exercise, and the ocassional bowl of weed after work have improved things tremendously.

However, marijuana remains illegal at the federal level.

Even for "uncleared" work, you often have to go through a background check, and one of the questions asks "Have you illegally used drugs" in a certain time frame. (A year, if I remember correctly). I've been told informally it's a "don't ask, don't tell" situation. So basically, even if a position doesn't drug test, you now have the fact you lied on a clearance form hanging over your head.

This has a trickle down effect... the jobs that don't care about any of the above don't do a clearance check are quite hard to get.

[mirimir]

Be careful using weed to mask depression. It does work, in my experience. But tolerance can develop over time. It's nowhere near as dramatic as addiction to tobacco or heroin or benzodiazepines. Yet there is the risk.

Also, dogma and accepted practice notwithstanding, "depression" is a morass of symptoms, not a well-defined disease/condition. Testing treatments is hard, because symptoms subjective and placebo effects are huge. And worse, GPs tend to cluelessly prescribe popular SSRIs/SNRIs, and those can make bipolar folks seriously crazy. As in psychotic. homicidal and/or suicidal. Especially younger patients, apparently. So be careful!

[rmetzler]

The author had withdrawals from her medication which wouldn't happen with marijuana. At most you won't sleep that well for a few nights and then experience vivid dreams. And often a sativa strain works well to give the patient motivation to exercise, which seems to be basic but important when fighting depression.

[DanBC]

I wanted to point out how dangerous your post is.

There's a well known risky time during treatment for depression in people with suicidal ideation. Those people get more motivation, and are more able to do stuff. But they still have strongly negative thinking and suicidal thinking. They are more able to kill themselves, and many do.

> motivation to exercise, which seems to be basic but important when fighting depression

There are two links in this thread to the science that show exercise probably isn't that useful to treat depression.

[mildbow]

Another DC area related source of stigma: iirc, when getting even a public trust level security clearance you have to disclose (or allow them to look up) any medications you routinely take.

Does it kill your chances for a higher level clearance, if you have had depression? I'm not sure. But, it sure seemed like it.