I don't think it has much to do with mental illness - I know a lot of 'perfectly normal' (inasmuch as anyone is 'normal') people who are simply dependent on others. Women who feel they need a man to 'take care of them', men like my husband who depend on others to provide them with food (whether it's a wife, girlfriend, family member or the restaurant industry), grown ups who still can't do laundry... people like myself (I also lack depth perception which makes me feel like I am ensuring the safety of others by NOT driving) who either don't like to drive or fear driving in big cities where tourists do stupid things like back up on the freeway because they missed the exit. Even people who use public transportation are still depending on the city they live in or the agencies they use to provide them with that transportation, no matter what their reasoning is behind it.

Really, in some way, we're all dependent on others. How many people still grow their own food & industrial crops, sew their own clothes, deliver their own mail & packages, build their own homes & factories, build a boat to go across the ocean to communicate w/someone who lives on another continent in person? Humans, as a species & as a society, are always dependent on one another to do things that aren't possible or practical to do ourselves in one way or another. We're not all islands unto ourselves.

I can also completely understand feeling hostile towards or taken advantage of by dependent people. If you are a constant provider, always expected to do things for other people & never receive assistance in return - it starts feeling very unfair. Especially if you seem to others to be super-capable. I constantly feel taken advantage of - I always have to help other people out & never seem to be able to get help in return, or if I do get help it's grudgingly or half-assedly. And some days the only thing I want to say to people who ask for my help is "Why don't you do it yourself?!" But I always remind myself that I can just say "I'm sorry, but I'm very busy right now. Please find someone else to help you out."