This is a really complicated subject. I was talking to/seeing a guy for a few months who wants to go to grad school to further his studies in psych, and his undergrad was in transcultural psychology, which is psych applied without a Western bias to as much degree possible.
Well.
One of the reasons why I felt so drawn to him was because his view of mental illness was so intelligent and open minded. His view was that a lot of things that are termed "mental illness" are just "inability to cope within the present oppressive structure" and that such people would be just fine in a different environment, say living in a Medieval agricultural society, or in a tribal situation. One of the reasons why gender-fluid is now accepted is because of the idea of transcultural psychology, and the acknowledgment that in some earlier societies, such people were honored as wise special and spiritual rather than shunned and abused.
There's a strong trend for people who are bipolar to be very successful people, even extremely bipolar people are often famous actors, artists, dancers, or writers who simply must live a more creative and less structured life. Some severe cases die young, but what they leave society is so amazing that it's like they lived 150 years. The examples are literally too numerous to name. AND interestingly, people who have a milder form of Bipolar, I think it's Bipolar II, never actually become manic, they only become hypomanic, so can be extremely productive in spurts, and do things like create or run businesses.
My friend even challenged my ideas of schizophrenia and autism, he basically said, as long as they're happy as they are what does it matter. Then I decided I agreed with him, because what makes mental illness so hellish is the suffering of being depressed, anxious, confused, lethargic, rejected, etc. So if someone is differently abled but they are content and functional in their own way then who cares?
So we should probably take this perspective on mental illness, that you can recover from the suffering, whether it's depression or an eating disorder, but maybe you shouldn't have to "recover" from being who you fucking are.