Self-reflection helps. Having the person who you are most likely to react to also reflective helps even more. That keeps it from spiraling — if one person can step back and say, “Your reaction seems out of proportion to the situation, what’s going on?” Of course, it needs to be said with love and compassion and trying to honestly figure out what’s really going on, not as an accusation or trying to invalidate someone’s emotions. And sometimes it helps to just stay silent, and wait for rationality to return, then reengage.

For example, a moth got into our house a few months back. And I *freaked* *out*. Shrieking, hiding from it…and when my husband removed it (vacuumed it out of the air), I clung to him, sobbing. From a moth. Admittedly, it was a large moth, but still — moths are not threatening. This was clearly out of proportion. So he was comforting and reassuring that it was gone, it was dead, it was the only one that had gotten in…and when I finally calmed down, then he asked what was the underlying issue.

My best guess was that this was triggering a memory of the bee sting that sent me to the hospital when I was 4. We got out the EMDR tappers, I did a quick 20-minute session, and the overreaction was gone. I could even laugh about how silly I was to be frightened of a harmless moth. (And if your therapist can teach you how to use EMDR tappers, they are a wonderful way to remove emotional baggage and deactivate triggers. But you need to be trained by someone who can deal with anything that comes up in the process, until you know how your mind handles them.)

But until that trigger was deactivated, it was an extremely serious threat in my mind, and if he’d laughed at how silly I was being, I probably would have thrown something at him. (From my hiding place. Because it was dangerous to come out where the moth could get me.)