I feel this. I found myself applying for assistance last year, and when my circumstances started getting better but not all the way there, the feelings of being a leech on the system started. I know my illness. I know what bipolar can do, but because I'm "better" than I was, I sense the hemming and hawing of others, their hesitation to help. It feels like I've been put on the tall rickety pedestal of relative wellness where I have to wait for one false move to send me tumbling down to rock bottom before I become deserving of help.