Well, the actual ferals have been fed, so "kitty mom" can see to her own wants now! They seem oblivious to the fact that they had scrambled eggs @ 5 hrs ago...they have no shame at all! We really should emulate them!
I think the anxiety my T was referring to was unconscious anxiety that could manifest in any number of ways; for me, it was as a kind of anxious confusion--the endless "but-what-if-should I-should I not" in my head. But it could just as easily manifest as self-loathing, humiliation, shame, anger, whatever.
By rephrasing the proposal as "If I want" all I had to do was tune into my sense of urgency or feeling of wanting, without the decision making, which was much more clear to me. Of course, my tendency was to hold myself back from contact, not to inundate my T with contact. So the consequence would look different depending upon the client's motivation.
That's why, Asia, I was suggesting asking your T about a time-limited trial of just responding from your feeling of wanting contact because it seems like your tendency is to hold yourself back from contact. After the trial, you'd both reevaluate what would be best going forward. If there isn't a time limit to the trial, it could leave you still worried about her reaction as time passed: "sure it was ok yesterday, but what does that have to do with today? Today will be the day when she decides I'm too much!" And then you're back in the same quandary of decision-making. The unconscious anxiety and attachment/trust are all connected.
"Emotional Tylenol" is a good way to think about it: not surprisingly, I tended to treat painkillers the same way--"Do I really need this? Maybe I can wait..." Migraine meds never helped me because I couldn't make myself take them early enough in the process to work. Interestingly, I don't have that problem anymore because I can recognize and accept the need and so intervene and prevent the escalation, whether it's migraine, toothache, whatever.
As my T explained it, we aren't born knowing about wants vs needs. All we experience as infants is something doesn't feel good, caretaker appears, now we feel good. As we develop we start experiencing some of our not feeling good states not immediately remedied, ignored, or denied in due time (assuming good enough parents; without good enough parents, the not good feeling escalates into pain). As we grow cognitively, we experience less dependence, as we learn control over our not good feeling states: we don't need immediate rescuing; we can meet some of our own needs; we can manipulate our environments more competently. Observe the average 2 year old: pretty good at establishing boundaries!
But if this development is interrupted or corrupted by not good enough caretaking, our wants and needs grow exponentially more complex, matching our increased awareness, yet our control is thwarted. That can be so psychologically threatening and painful, suppression becomes the least difficult path. We don't experience the developing sense of mastery that allows wants and needs to become differentiated and valuable sources of knowledge of ourselves and our environments. So we have to re-engage that process experientially through the therapy relationship. Attachment tends to stimulate that process which can display itself in fluctuations of trust, perception of closeness and distance, boundary concerns, doubts about T sincerity and caring, power imbalance in the relationship, etc.