I think anyone who can treat their illness with only herbal remedies and positive thinking has a very mild form of mental illness, if a true mental illness at all.

Bipolar disorder is not a mild mental illness, it is a severe and persistent mental illness. Bipolar is a lifelong illness. It is not some form of situational depression that occurs and then gets better once the person’s situation changes. Does this person even know anything about bipolar disorder specifically? I would guess not really. Some researchers have found (I think through PET scans?) that the brains of many bipolar people look different, have differences in their brain flow, compared to people without bipolar disorder. It is one of the most biologically based mental illnesses, after schizophrenia, and especially hard for people with psychosis along with bipolar disorder. It needs to be treated with medication, and even then many people do not get to the level of stability they want over long periods of time.

This person may have meant well, but to throw a statement out like that is not only ignorant but insulting to those of us who suffer from severe mental illnesses. Positive thinking can help you cope with your illness, cope with the stressors in your life, but it will not make your illness go away. And herbal remedies may only make you feel worse. My mom tried to rattle off a list of herbs I should try and I just stopped her and told her I can’t take those because it interferes with my medication. My mother has no clue what bipolar really is and doesn’t want to know. This person just has no clue. I’d just ignore anything they say.