Why answering it makes it stronger

Here is the mechanism, and it is uncomfortable because the thing causing the trouble is the thing that helps.

Reassurance works. That is the whole problem. You ask, you read, you find the answer, and the distress genuinely drops. It drops quickly and it drops a lot.

Something is learned in that moment, and it is not what you wanted to learn. What is learned is that the discomfort was unbearable and that the asking is what removed it. So the next arrival comes sooner, it feels more urgent, and it takes more asking to settle.

In the religious version the reassurance is a scholar, which puts a scholar inside the loop without anybody intending it. They answer honestly, you are relieved, and you are back a fortnight later with the same question in slightly different words.