So I'm thinking, we might be too coloured by the values we place on these different mental styles, and when we see one that we think would be bad to have, we automatically start looking for a pathological culprit. When there might not even be one.
That view sounds not unlike the way Dr Brian Walitt describes fibromyalgia and ME/CFS: he considers these diseases to be within the normal spectrum of human experience, rather than being pathological conditions.
If one takes this view, one could argue that if you have very mild ME/CFS, the slightly fatigue-y, slightly brain foggy sort of person it will make you may be considered to be your character, rather than any underlying pathology.
That's one view you could take, but I would say there is still be some pathology going, on even in very mild ME/CFS, it's just that the pathology is so mild, the person can still live a relatively full and normal life, albeit with his character colored by this very mild ME/CFS.
If you speak to psychiatrists, in reality, that's how mental health labels are applied: it does not matter so much how much of a mental health "trait" like say autism you have; what counts is if you can function in society, if you can fit in somewhere. It's only when you cannot function or fit in that you start being considered to have some mental health pathology that needs to be cared for.
Another factor that determines whether a mental health "trait" you may have can be considered pathological or not is whether the trait is life enhancing, or whether the trait may cause you intense mental suffering. One documentary I was watching depicted a man who saw benign and heavenly angelic beings of light everywhere (this is a symptom of schizophrenia), even when he was have a few drinks in the local pub; however, for him this was a wonderful, life-enhancing experience. But other people with schizophrenia traits may be plagued by seeing horrible demons, hearing malevolent voices, etc, which cause much distress and suffering.
When a mental health trait is wonderful and life-enhancing, we are less likely to pathologize it; indeed, in the past, those who saw heavenly visions were often considered to be holy men and women. But when an individual really suffers from their mental health trait, it's hard to classify that as normal.
I agree that when a person has just a relatively small degree of some form of mental illness, be it psychosis/schizophrenia, autism, bipolar, OCD, or whatever, it can lead to what society or the individual themselves considers valuable traits — traits that produce great art, brilliant science or technology, or a shipshape business.
But those are the lucky ones, because other people with these mental illnesses may be plagued by great lifelong suffering, and be too dysfunctional to produce anything valuable. And in fact, even successful people (producing valuable work) with mental illness traits may have great lifelong suffering because of their mental condition; what they give to society may be great, but they themselves pay a high price in terms of their personal mental torment. Think of Vincent van Gogh.
So just because some people are able to cope, and even thrive, with their mental health traits, that does not mean these traits are a universal blessing, because the same traits can bring intense misery and/or dysfunction to others, and lead to no benefit. There are people who suffer bipolar, but are highly creative and produce things of value; but equally there plenty of people who suffer bipolar who do not have this compensatory creative output, and merely suffer intensely.
So to try to help those who do suffer intensely, we need to understand the biological causes of these mental health conditions. We need to be able to fix these conditions in cases where they cause immense suffering and/or dysfunction in life.
Whereas for those who are happy with their mental health traits, or who are willing to put up with them because of the valuable creative advantages they lead to, these people are free continue to live with their traits.