This is an edited repost of something I wrote nearly three years ago. You can see the original post and comments here.

Over at Dr. Isis's blog, there's a post answering a reader's question about whether to tell her postdoc advisor about her troubles with clinical depression. I agree with Isis's advice - without knowing the advisor really well, you can't be sure of how they'll react. If the postdoc had become ill due to something like a diabetic episode, where the change in schedule and environment caused by taking a new job messed up the PDs control of their blood sugar - well, there wouldn't be an issue. The PD would be able tell their advisor they had a medical issue without worrying too much about repercussions. But mental illness is different: the fact is that there is a very strong stigma attached to mental illness, which makes it different from other illnesses.

This is something that's very important to me. I have people very close to me who have dealt with profound mental illness, and I've seen them suffer from the effects of the stigma associated with it. And I am mentally ill myself: I have clinical depression.

Read the original blog entry...