The one thing I just don't get is that she is genuinely loving and gentle when everything is okay
What you are perceiving as loving and gentle may, in fact, not be that at all. Her pathology could include her over-correcting after she's exploded.
So can it be understood as having a bad day every day?
Yes, but bigger than that.
So we ALL have stressors; her, me, our postman, but whereas she might get triggered by something which takes her straight back to one of the traumas
Yes - and this is actually the core of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Simply put: she has experienced traumatic events in the past that remain separate from the rest of the mind's memory storage. Under normal conditions, the mind will file away its daily experiences and as time moves forward, the mind perceives these memories as belonging to the past - not to the present or the future. When a person experiences an intense traumatic event, they may discover that the experience doesn't get filed away as typical memories do. In fact, it remains separated from remembered experience, and stays in our sense of the present moment.
Not all traumatic events will do this - but when they do, it's a medical issue. The traumatic memory needs to get filed into the past. This is called
memory reconsolidation, and it is accomplished through an action referred to as
trauma processing. Until the unfiled traumatic memory is processed, the sufferer will remain actively symptomatic. And even after the memory is processed - especially strong bits and pieces of it can flare up into the present moment again. This is why we say that PTSD isn't
cured, so much as it is
managed.
If she is aware that she has unresolved trauma, and is aware that she can be triggered into an upset state where she is unaware or incapable of regulating her own behavior...then she's at the point where it's very much her responsibility to engage in her own treatment.
I understand she wants to get better
If she wants to get better, she'll start working on getting better. It doesn't happen without deliberate engagement. Nothing you've said suggests that she is actually trying to heal.
The explosions used to happen about once a month but more recently they were happening almost every day. I have genuinely looked at myself to make sure I'm not to blame. Maybe I'm missing something obvious as she told me she wasn't like this with previous partners. That does point either to me being the problem or the combination of us.
Yeah, no. This has nothing to do with you. It's entirely to do with her, and her illness. The more one reinforces one's triggers by allowing them to exist completely unchecked, the worse one's condition gets. Purely a function of time. And I'd really encourage you to get your head around this. Your thinking that the explanation must be found in either you being the problem, or the two of you together being the problem...Nope.
The problem is, she was traumatized and now cannot regulate herself.
And until she sees it that way, there's absolutely nothing that anyone can do to help her.
