Dear Anita,

I take from this the concept of being alert always, and feeling irritated these days when I have to be in scenarios that are not work related.

Sure one may say – oh if you attend a dinner you don’t have to be alert per se, just relax!

Well that doesn’t apply to me!

Sure one may say – oh if you hang out with this person, you don’t have to be alert per se, just relax!

Well that doesn’t apply to me!

If I extricate this all out – my “alertness” problem will not disappear.  Say if I am on a deserted island just my husband and I, our unit, the inner circle – I will not all of a sudden be able to act as the best person I can be.

So many times per day, as you say, the fear is re-activated.  It is that line we spoke about the line between fear and escape – which leads to frenzy.  Focusing on that line, what does that line consist of?

I observed it this weekend, when around others (in this case my sister) the line consists of turning into performing SCC, that does not have an off switch to go to snooze/un-alert mode.

Often after this, CC feels emotionally drained, so even after the individual or situation has passed, she does not feel now alert to the REAL important thing, her current life and husband.  The over alertness was wasted on nothing. Alert for what? Nothing.

So now that I actually have to attend to something important, which could be merely sinking in and relaxing with my husband – the alertness was exhausted.

Now here I am set up to be more irritable.

What about when no one else is around/involved:

I woke up Saturday in an off mood.  Feeling sleepy, sluggish, and irritable.  It happens, whether it’s related to hormones, food, stress – just life.  I realized this about my self as I quickly got up so we could take the dog to the dog park before the heat become to oppressive.  On my way out, I saw that one of the buildings had outdoor workers polishing something on the front of the building.  I thought: “goodness why would they make them do this today! With a heat index of 105! these poor men”

I offered to get the men some water bottles.  When I caught up with my husband who was heading to the park. I was irritated! God, who would make those men do that work today I continued, on a mini rant.  He looked at me and said, It’s great that you got them water – but what else can we do.

And I Realized it, I started the day off triggered, no matter what or who came in my direction I would have snapped.  It was a kettle about to boil over.  I recognized this, literally shook my head physically and said – you are right – let’s start over.

So shall we get something cold to drink ourselves, before heading to the park – he said yes, sure.