the best quick advice I can offer is to understand that no matter how much you may think she is over reacting to whatever her perceived fears or perceived threats are, in her mind she is probably controlling a much stronger reaction. If you think you are helping her by telling her to calm down you are probably wrong. She is more likely tostart seeing you as a patrt of the problem, and unfortunately you will be the part she can do something about, something like get angry at you instead of the perceived threat.
An example: I have seen so much carnage and death caused by plain careless driving, peoples lives changed or ended because another person was trying to change a CD or answer a phone call, way too many times, way too many times. I don't road rage when someone drifts into my lane of traffic, I pull over and OD on adrenaline for awhile. I see careless driving for what it is, a threat to the safety of my family and friends and myself and i get scared, just like I would if someone levelled a weapon at me or them. If my wife thinks I am over reacting, she knows better than to say so because I will go ballistic on her for daring to argue the case of the jerk that triggered me. I will see her as being in favor of careless driving and argue the point with her as if my life depended on it.
Does that make sense? When she is triggered and reacting to a threat or the memory of a trauma, the best thing to do is to try to see it the way she does, and resist the urge to try to get her to see it the way you do. She can't, just like I cannot look the other way when someone does a life threateningly stupid thing on the road. I react. we react. Sometimes over react, but thats a big part of PTSD for me.
