I also posted this on r/Veterans

I’m on TDRL with a disability rating of 90% for recurrent major depressive disorder, sleep apnea, and MST related PTSD.

I’ve been smoking weed to help me deal with my depression and PTSD, and it’s helped a lot. But my psychiatrist wants me to do a bunch of labs next month and I don’t really know all that they’ll be testing for. I haven’t been smoking for about 2 weeks now and I’ve already relapsed with self harm and I’ve been drinking a lot and I’m just really struggling. I’m scared I’m just going to keep getting worse. But I’m terrified of losing my benefits and I have no idea if it might affect my TDRL going PDRL in the future.

I just want to tell the VA about my use so that I don’t have to hide it but I’m afraid that it’ll show up when I go for my reevaluation, which I think will be in about three months, and then they’ll take my benefits away. But I don’t know if it works like that.

I just want to be honest about it. It’s the only thing that helps but I hate being so reliant on it and I just want to talk to my psychiatrist about it because I think it’d make me feel better to just be honest.

There is SO much conflicting information about whether or not you can smoke on TDRL, I don’t think there’s any chance they could find me fit for full at this point. And even if they did my original contract was supposed to be up in July 2021 but ended up having to stay in until October 2021 because my medboard was still going on at the time.

I’ve seen at least one post with a person saying that they smoked weed the entire time they were on TDRL and even disclosed that information during their reevaluations, and nothing happened. They even got put on permanent. But I also see so many posts saying you should risk it. Does anyone know of anyone ever losing their benefits while on TDRL for smoking weed? Or of it affecting their chances of being placed on permanent.

I’m just struggling and I want to be open and honest to my providers about everything.