How many here have noticed that besides depression they also have anxiety, cognitive disorders, ocd, and phobias (panic attacks)? Left untreated I had all of those symptoms to varying degrees over the years. I just think there might be a universal "trigger" that regulates most if not all mood disorders and I have to think that that's the key to cracking the riddle of mental disorders. I know that all the people I know with depression also have some sort of cognitive disfunction and many of the other symptoms I described above.

Also, i'm still of the mind that my depression et al are symptoms and not the disease. I have read that some researchers are finding that most mood disorders are caused by a lack of coherency in the brain, which generally means that their brainwave patterns, when compared to normal brains, shows a signature of incoherency. Most people with depression et al have little to no alpha production and alpha wave production is linked to calmness and stability. What causes this anomaly, though, is the real question. And I suspect it's on the cellular level and cells that used to function normaly have somehow been "turned off" and have lost their electrical charge, so they can no longer serve their function in the brain, which sets off a whole host of disfunctions. There is strong evidence that using devices like ces and sending tiny electric pulses to the brain can restore function in the cells and correct brainwave patterns (essentially by recharging brain cells that had been dormant). But ces doesn't seem to work for everyone and that's a riddle in itself. How do the cells get "turned off" in the first place? Extraordinary life circumstances, such as inordinate amounts of stress, trauma, or abuse is a plausable answer. Genetics seems to play a role in this too, since individuals who have idealic upbringings can grow up to be depressed.

Anyway, back to the original question, how many suffer from a combination of symptoms? My theory is that most of us do suffer from a host of other problems, at varying degrees, which falls in line with the lack of brain coherency theory.