I'm sorry to hear your T is going through this and also how it's affecting you.

And I think that's why therapists and doctors usually don't disclose personal illness unless it's going to interfere with their work significantly. Because they try to keep the focus on the patient.

My answer is to bring this up with your therapist.

In terms of personal experience, I have thought about something somewhat similar to this issue, but not quite: The idea of guilt about me taking the position of somebody else who has more serious problems. This was relevant because couple of my therapists had waiting lists, and these were therapists charged little, so quite a few other poverty-stricken people were on those lists. Yet whenever I would ask my therapist when I should stop seeing her, she'd say it's up to me and when I feel it's the right time. I remember I quit early with one of them, out of guilt.

My guilt, which is sometimes exacerbated by my depression, sometimes also further to think about people like my own parents who had psychological difficulties but did not have access to therapy. To people who live in countries where they can barely even see a medical doctor, let alone a therapist. Feels like a privilege and then I feel like I'm not worth it.

But taking that road, there is no end. There would always be somebody in greater suffering or need or whatever, based on some criteria. So a few times I brought this up with my later therapists.

My therapist at the time told me it's all about balance, compassion towards yourself but also others. I felt selfish about it no less, but my therapist said that I should consider that somebody who might act selfishly might actually end up getting a highly sought out job and make themselves happy and then make enough money to help others, whereas someone else who keeps letting others ahead of himself, might end up poor and on welfare and now has to be carried by others.

Though I did not quite like that example (at the time my parents were helping me financially so I felt guilty), I did appreciate how this new perspective helped me see that things are not as black and white.

Of course your reaction is probably more complex than mine, cause we're talking about the very person who is providing care towards you. Not some random stranger who might be very ill.

But it also now reminds me of when I was a kid and I had a bad day and I would come home and mom was in a real mood about something and I would feel there is no room for me to talk about my issues, that I'm not supposed to. Like the person with the biggest suffering earns that right.

What about me then? I think the very fact that you go for therapy, already says you think that maybe your problems, even if not not huge or greatest in the world, are big enough to require attention and care. And here's someone who is paid to do that. And you may take comfort in that it is quite likely that if she has pain and suffering now, she herself will see a therapist and work through it. But for you to not attend to your own issues is not the answer. Your problems do not become unimportant just because your T has big ones too.

And therapists go through problems all the time, just that they don't disclose them often. Like we have a family friend who is a therapist and I been to quite a few over the years, they get divorce, they have money problems, their kids end up doing drugs, they have medical problems, etc, and just because they don't share all that, it doesn't mean that the client's problems are ever the only thing that's on their mind. Somehow they manage and when they can't, they will take time off (or should).

But I'm rambling...sorry...