I am having anxiety for reasons that I can't yet explain in therapy. I talked to my T about it and he said maybe once I stop focusing on it, that the reason will come to me.

I feel like I have figured another piece of the puzzle out although I don't know if it has anything to do with my anxiety in therapy sessions.

I know that I am getting better, which is triggering me. I still feel the dependent part and my independent part is getting stronger. When I know and feel I am getting stronger, I still feel needy, so I'm kind of triggering myself if that makes sense.

T asks me what I can do to tolerate these things myself. This is a logical thing to ask, and it appears if I could find things that help me, that this advice would be helpful. Of course, there's always the implicit message in the question, that means, you need to figure out ways to tolerate this yourself.

Herein is my problem. When I am having abandonment/rejection fears, it only takes T two sentences to text me to make me feel better. In spite of this, I do not feel entitled, I do not feel that T owes me anything, in fact, I feel gratitude for what he does do. But the difference between T texting me and me dealing with it on my own is stark. T makes me feel better, it is such a relief. When I have to deal with my abandonment/rejection fears, there is nothing I can say to myself to make it go away. All I can do is desperately try to tolerate the ungodly pain, and even though T isn't pushing me to do this, I seem to be pushing myself. T knows this. Here is a feeling I have that I do not tell anyone about and that I am absolutely NOT proud of. I almost feel resentful that T isn't saying to me, why are you doing this yourself and putting yourself in agony when I can so easily relieve the pain for you? When I have dealt with my own pain before, T will sometimes ask me if I am proud of myself. The answer is no, I'm angry that I have to do this. This is really embarrassing and I feel ashamed that I feel this way. Intellectually, in NO way do I hold T responsible for my own stuff. But I think these feelings that I have must come from back long ago when I was dealing with the relational trauma. This was when, although probably unintentional, who I was was being invalidated by my parents. I wonder if I felt angry about feeling so horrible back then and that is what I am dealing with now? I think I have to somehow make it through this by just accepting my anger and concurrently dealing with my pain. I don't want to inflict anyone with my neediness, I definitely don't want to be a burden. So how can I feel so entitled, I despise it, it's not who I am. But I also believe that my anger comes from the pain of wanting someone to care, wanting someone to help relieve my fears, and that makes me feel sad for myself. And maybe if I am in pain when T is out of town not this week but next, maybe I will be able to have compassion for myself. So this thing of getting better is more than just overcoming one thing, it seems to be loaded with issue after issue that seems to compound the problem and bring up shame. To be honest, I am afraid that others are going to judge me like I am judging myself. I don't want to feel this way, I don't want to be this way, I want to be a respectable person but wonder if it is even possible. Does anyone else struggle with this?