Addiction doesn't cause mental illness

"'The substance is not really causing the mental health problem, but it can be a precipitating factor that causes the condition to manifest,' Manevitz tells WebMD.

'In this respect, the mental health condition is already actively present when the substance abuse begins, but the patient just doesn't know it -- the problem is driving the addiction, it just hasn't yet been recognized or diagnosed,' Manevitz tells WebMD."

There we go, a better description than I found last week about the correlation between mental illness and addiction. It's not the addiction that brings on the mental illness, it just makes it present. You had it all along.

There are so many of us who started out using drugs only to realize they were mentally ill, and had been "self-medicating." I know some people hate that word, but it's really what you're doing. You're trying to make your symptoms go away by adding a substance that will bring you in one direction or another.

On the other hand, there are those of us who knew we were ill before we started to do drugs. I started doing drugs to piss off my parents, though I didn't know it at the time, and tried to hide my use from them. I don't think they ever would have figured it out if I hadn't overdosed. They are kind of oblivious to my bad behavior, me thinks. At least, they never pointed any of it out. I guess my mom knew I had an alcohol problem, but it's probably because I called her at 3am all the time. Apparently my cousin used to do that all the time when she was younger, and my mom told her to stop or she would kill her. I love it.

My cousin and my mom went to see an off broadway show last night and called me after. My cousin Diane was wasted, and it made me think about how I'm going to relate to her when I get back. We always drank together and told stories. She was my bad girl partner in crime. But I don't need to worry about it just yet. I need to find boundaries with her, besides just not calling her, and set them into place. I'm going to be fine, I know it.