Mental Illness and the Mind and Brain Problem

Since tinnitus affects our hearing in different ways, we took a little walk around the ear.
Depression, stress, panic and anxiety attacks come from our minds, but I'm certainly not risking a walk around that neck of the woods.
Too many unknown bits and pieces for my liking.
Still, a little discussion on the subject won't hurt, and you never know.
We might learn something.
There's the perennial argument of whether the brain's the same as the mind.
If not, then where is the mind? I'm sticking my neck out here, I know, but in my belief, the mind equates to the soul.
I'm not prepared to argue this; you either believe it or you don't.
Christianity has the brain as separate from the mind, and the mind separate from the soul.
Now, believe me, I'm not knocking religion.
Everyone's entitled to his or her beliefs, whatever they may be.
The problem with religion is that it clashes all too often with scientific fact.
Religion is a belief.
Science is a fact, unless otherwise stated as theory.
If that's the case, then it remains theory until enough facts are built up to validate that theory into actuality.
I think that theorizing when, and in whom, the mind first developed is a reach that takes us so far back into the mists of time, that those very mists obscure our search.
We know that Homo Habilis, who first appeared in East Africa, was the first to actually make tools and not to simply use them.
Two hundred thousand years ago, the Neanderthals appeared.
We know they decorated their belongings, and had a form of culture in the manner in which they buried their dead.
As an aside, it's hotly debated whether Homo Sapiens developed from Neanderthals, or a combination of hominids.
But we mustn't concern ourselves too much with archaeology.
We're supposed to be delving into the mind, but I've included our forebears, simply to posit the question; did the mind develop along with our long-lost ancestors, or has the mind always been? I believe the latter, that the mind's always been there, nascent perhaps, waiting to develop, but there nevertheless.
We've also discussed how any phobias and stress from which we might suffer are almost certainly triggered, in other words something happened to us long ago which causes us panic and confusion when something similar happens in the here and now.
But what about illnesses like depression and schizophrenia and other conditions that seem to simply appear? However, scientists agree that mental health and mental illness aren't opposites.
For instance, if a person doesn't have a mental health disorder, it doesn't mean to say that they're in perfect mental health.
The World Health Organization says that there isn't one single official definition of mental health.
Then we come to one of the most fascinating parts of mental acuity, OBE, or the out-of-body experience.
There are people who can make this happen at will, but more usually it's during a near death experience.
Now, this has to be the mind.
I must admit, I'd tended to scoff at these OBEs, but was forced to realize the fact that there have been too many recorded instances where a patient in hospital is able to describe things that he or she couldn't possibly have known under normal circumstances.
This has to be the mind, working in a fashion about which we human beings have no clue.
However, I do think that this brings us a little closer to depression.
We don't know where this springs from, at least in most cases, but it's worth looking at more closely, to see whether we may be able to find some sort of key