I feel many people with MI live with a dichotomy of "chemical imbalance, NOT MY FAULT, I can't do nothing for myself, just like nobody can will themselves out of cancer" and "MY FAULT, if you say I can do somethign for myself, it means I am not trying enough, I am horrible person, I am weak, flawed...."
This is of course a fallacy. Maybe many hear the "not your fault" when first diagnosis and cling to it. Maybe some doctors encourage them in "only me and my meds can help". I mean, I seen bloggers spewing this ****, about how healthy eating and living, friends and spiritual things don't matter, because it's all chemical imbalance, only fixable by a pill.
Also, the efficiancy of drugs is overstated, hence if the drug fails a patient, they feel they must be so flawed even the sciency drugs don't help them, when it fact the fault is in the drug. Maybe one kinda integrates that into their view of themselves and their problems. Psychiatrists are known to blame side effects of drugs on the illness, underestimate the dangers, scoff of patient's concerns... This might be difficult to challenge for people who tend to overly respect authorities (and... who of "crazies" doesn't have self-confidence issues?).
So I think this should be also looked at.