take this one, it gives you colours

[the_siobhan]

Is anybody aware of any studies looking at a correlation between depression and recreational drug use?

[EDIT] From the perspective of the drug use happening before the depression. I'm well aware of the other way around.

Comments

[lilactime.livejournal.com]

It requires a bit of backstory.

In 1993, I was in a situation where within the period of two weeks I got dumped by my live-in boyfriend and got laid off from my job. I couldn't move out because I had nowhere to go - couchsurfing wasn't an option because I had no idea how long I'd be there. So I continued to live with the ex for an additional 7 months until I got a job. He put me through a bit of mental torture and I ended up having a pseudo nervous breakdown, except that, being the control freak that I am, my brain wouldn't completely break down while I was there. A year later, when I was in a new apartment, in a relationship with Greg, the brain went "hey, it's safe!" and THEN I had a nervous breakdown, dipped into a serious depression and basically cried, slept and ate for 6 months until my doctor finally put me on Paxil. I took the first and only pill about three hours before going to the opening night of Interview With the Vampire.

In the late 80s when I first moved here, I lived with two guys, Paul and Deryk. They eventually kicked me out so they could use my room for their male escort service, which they advertised as "Le Chat Noir" because there was a little black cat that was always in the alleyway leading to our door.

Deryk was a really messed up guy, and was basically doing tricks to support a drug habit that Paul and I didn't know he had. He also, for a period of time, believed he was the Vampire Lestat. Seriously. Paul was Louis, and I was the little girl, Claudia. Dude would buy me $300 porcelain dolls and shit like that, and would refer to me as "Claudia" in conversation. He bought himself a big black cape (before capes were trendy in the Goth set) and generally played the role to the fullest, although played is the wrong word, because he truly believed he was a vampire.

Now when you're prescribed anti-depressants, one of the things they ask you is if you do any street drugs. Not if you have EVER done any street drugs, but if you currently do. So I didn't think to tell anyone about all the acid I had done about five years previous. Anti-depressants work in the seratonin, which is also where the body will store LSD residue for up to ten years.

The very first scene in Interview With the Vampire is a New Orleans street scene that shows a whorehouse called "Le Chat Noir". That shot caused something in my brain to snap and I started tripping. I spent most of the movie on the floor in front of my seat, convinced that Tom Cruise was Deryk in disguise and that he had come back to kill me. I was verging on hysterical - Greg and our friend Liisa at one point discussed taking me to the hospital. It was a full-on acid trip, complete with trails.

I went home and threw the rest of the Paxil away and pretty much willed myself to get better.