One point I'd like to make is if she's on any meds, then she needs to have a medical profession tell her she can stop them (if clinically indicated) instead of her deciding she doesn't need them. I see too many times where people stop them on their own because they didn't feel they needed them anymore. That's not good enough for a reviewing physician to decide to recommend a waiver or not.
As
@GoCubbies (ughh, really? The Cubs?) said, your friend would need to be told by her psychiatrist that she can titrate off meds. I dealt with a similar situation for a BUMED waiver (had no hx of mental illness so new DoDMERB waiver necessary). A psychiatrist recommended I go on meds while I was in college (contracted ROTC). I didn't have a choice, according to my command, and had to take the meds. When waiver time came around, they wanted to see me off meds for three months before making a decision. So I went back to the psychiatrist, told him the situation, and we together decided to discontinue medication. I then waited three months and reapplied for the waiver. I also had to see a military psychiatrist for an evaluation and I was very lucky that he understood my situation and recommended that I be cleared to commission.
From what I can tell, DoDMERB waivers are more difficult to get than BUMED ones as there is little invested in the candidate at the DoDMERB part of the process. For me, they had 4 years of scholarship money invested in me at a too expensive private university, that may have been an influencing factor.
Additionally, one cannot commission while on psychiatric medication. You can be on them after you commission, as I ended up being, but need to be med-free to get the waiver.
With all that said, a commission, a military career, etc, is not worth it if your health is in the ****ter. When I was at my lowest points, which were on AD, I would have traded my commission for a clean bill of health in a heartbeat. Your friend will find a path, we all do, but first she needs to be healthy. Without her health, and without taking care of this while it's still early (before she's suicide), she may lose more than just this opportunity.
@Devil Doc might be able to provide some additional insight, he's a good resource for the medical side of the military.
