I was recently invited to apply for PR and I am concerned about a mental health incident I had almost 9 years ago becoming an issue for me on my application.
I was young, had just moved to a very expensive area for college, and had no financial support from my family, so I had to work to pay my own way through school. I was having trouble finding a steady job/making enough money while I was in school, and the pressure of the financial stress + school + being completely alone in a new state was becoming too much for me. I was placed on a 3 day psych hold after expressing suicidal ideation to my college-provided counselor, but was released a day early after I was evaluated. I was told I had symptoms of PTSD and given some anxiety meds to manage. I saw a psychiatrist briefly after that and was prescribed Klonopin to take "as needed", which ended up being not very often, and then not at all once my financial situation balanced out.
Since that incident, I never had another issue of a mental health crisis again, and since then, I graduated from college while working multiple jobs, and have been steadily employed the entire 9 years since this hospitalization. I have only had to ask for Klonopin to manage anxiety a handful of times, like less than once every 3 years, usually during extremely high stress situations. I would just ask my general doctor for it, not a psychiatrist.
I know that I will be asked if I suffer from a "serious" mental health disorder on my application, and I don't know how to respond to this question. I am afraid they will find evidence of my psych hold somewhere (as cases are reported to the Department of Justice in the US because you're banned from owning a gun for 5 years after the hold), and if I do not disclose it, I will be rejected for misrepresentation. However, from what I understand, answering yes to the "serious mental disorder" question will require me to prove my treatment efforts since the incident... which I don't have, because I didn't really need or seek long-term treatment. I did make use of the college-provided counselors again from time to time, but I am not confident I will be able to produce evidence of this, nor do I feel that it really counts as "treatment" as it was basically me just blowing off steam when I felt stuck or frustrated.
I will be speaking with an immigration consultant about this next week, but I was hoping to gather some insight from others who may have had similar situations. Thanks for your time!
I was young, had just moved to a very expensive area for college, and had no financial support from my family, so I had to work to pay my own way through school. I was having trouble finding a steady job/making enough money while I was in school, and the pressure of the financial stress + school + being completely alone in a new state was becoming too much for me. I was placed on a 3 day psych hold after expressing suicidal ideation to my college-provided counselor, but was released a day early after I was evaluated. I was told I had symptoms of PTSD and given some anxiety meds to manage. I saw a psychiatrist briefly after that and was prescribed Klonopin to take "as needed", which ended up being not very often, and then not at all once my financial situation balanced out.
Since that incident, I never had another issue of a mental health crisis again, and since then, I graduated from college while working multiple jobs, and have been steadily employed the entire 9 years since this hospitalization. I have only had to ask for Klonopin to manage anxiety a handful of times, like less than once every 3 years, usually during extremely high stress situations. I would just ask my general doctor for it, not a psychiatrist.
I know that I will be asked if I suffer from a "serious" mental health disorder on my application, and I don't know how to respond to this question. I am afraid they will find evidence of my psych hold somewhere (as cases are reported to the Department of Justice in the US because you're banned from owning a gun for 5 years after the hold), and if I do not disclose it, I will be rejected for misrepresentation. However, from what I understand, answering yes to the "serious mental disorder" question will require me to prove my treatment efforts since the incident... which I don't have, because I didn't really need or seek long-term treatment. I did make use of the college-provided counselors again from time to time, but I am not confident I will be able to produce evidence of this, nor do I feel that it really counts as "treatment" as it was basically me just blowing off steam when I felt stuck or frustrated.
I will be speaking with an immigration consultant about this next week, but I was hoping to gather some insight from others who may have had similar situations. Thanks for your time!
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