Thanks for the reply and wishes! MC explained the anger part to me a while ago, how if a client is depressed, he'll try to move them first to feel anger. Because depression is a more passive emotion, while anger is an active one. And I have difficulty both with fearing people will be angry with me and feeling/expressing my anger with others--I tend to just turn it inward blame myself. I never really saw my parents get angry with each other, and on the rare occasion they got angry at the other or especially at me, it was a HUGE deal. So this fear of anger was definitely causing problems in my marriage because H felt like he couldn't express anger or frustration with me because it upset me so much, and then I couldn't express it to him either. So we'd avoid conflict and then it would all just spill over at some point. MC has helped us understand we can both express our feelings, good or bad, and it won't be the end of the world/end of the relationship.

So I think in the case with my T, he's kind of doing the same thing, like encouraging me to feel the anger instead of just assuming it's all something I'm doing wrong, like she doesn't care about me anymore because I'm not good enough or something. And I think he figures that if I express anger to her and we work through it, then it will help reinforce the fact that feeling and expressing anger are OK.

Which, yeah, goes against the thing T was talking about with "emotional regulation." But I think she meant more in terms of not wanting or needing reassurance/validation if I'm upset,
But to me, her talking about emotional regulation feels like my mom telling me to stop crying when I was upset. To keep stuff inside instead of expressing it. When I find I do better expressing it, getting it out. Hm, that's probably something to bring up to her tomorrow--why her mentioning emotional regulation last week upset me so much (didn't help that she said it while I was sobbing).

I guess this is the problem with getting some sort of therapy from two different T's, even if one is more for marriage counseling... Getting conflicting messages. I was also getting occasional mixed messages from my p-doc before (though she's since left the practice), where she'd (p-doc) be telling me I needed more medication or, at one point, to go to a day/outpatient program at a hospital, and my T would say she thought I needed less medication and that I didn't need any outside services (well, until she suddenly suggested the hospital out of the blue a few months ago...)

For the record, I have generalized anxiety, panic disorder, some OCD, and recurrent major depression. And now I'm totally rambling Thanks for listening, whoever is reading this.