T probably should have been more specific in my original question - I was wondering if there were any kind of studies that actually showed that the drug use potentially caused the depression.
I understand that, and that's where you got me thinking, in terms of how you would actually prove causation. I think plenty of studies have glibly assumed causation, but it's actually very hard to prove.
I understand why your friends identified self-medication - mental illness has a long history of being seen as evil, defective, sinful, basically bad and "other". When you are that "other", you have to think differently about it. And in this case, I think it's at least as likely to be correct.
(I've been diagnosed with mental illness myself, but don't do recreational drugs - I react badly to even moderate amounts of either caffeine or alcohol; aspirin makes me vomit, etc so I never had any urge to try self-medicating anything :-)
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zvi
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-16 11:29 am (UTC)I understand that, and that's where you got me thinking, in terms of how you would actually prove causation. I think plenty of studies have glibly assumed causation, but it's actually very hard to prove.
I understand why your friends identified self-medication - mental illness has a long history of being seen as evil, defective, sinful, basically bad and "other". When you are that "other", you have to think differently about it. And in this case, I think it's at least as likely to be correct.
(I've been diagnosed with mental illness myself, but don't do recreational drugs - I react badly to even moderate amounts of either caffeine or alcohol; aspirin makes me vomit, etc so I never had any urge to try self-medicating anything :-)