Earlier this year, I had to quit my job for medical reasons. It was because I was insanely depressed due to a shitty doctor messing with my meds, and I had to receive help. It was literally a life and death matter for me, and because the state I live in is far from family, I decided to move back to my home state for support and ended up telling my job that I needed to leave for medical reasons.
Now, I'm applying for a new job. What sucks is that I was at my last job for a short time, so it's clear that there was something fishy there. I have to state why I left my last job, and I'm not sure what to say. The correct answer is medical reasons/depression, but I feel like that would just give the employer grounds to not hire me, out of fear that the medical issue would arise again (this will likely not happen because I'm in a much better place). The job also wants the phone number of my past boss, so I fear that if I say anything other than 'medical reason' on the form, then they might tell the employer that I lied. What should I do? Should I be honest and risk not getting the job for a reason that is technically illegal if they discriminate against me due to a medical reason? Should I say something like a family member was ill, and I had to attend to them? I hate this situation. I know you could say, “well, if they are a good employer, they wouldn't care if you were ill” but I feel like most employers would much rather take the “healthy” candidate rather than the disabled one.