My T helped me learn to see the build-up of stimuli in my environment and keep better internal tabs on my anxiety levels. Now, I'm pretty good at noticing how agitated or anxious I am. That has such a huge impact on my reactions to otherwise normal stimuli (people being in my space, noises, activity around me). I used to snap and yell at my family much more - made me feel awful when I would snap at my kids, particularly. Now, I am pretty practiced at recognizing when the external stimuli are too overwhelming for me, based on my internal state. So I either go in a room to get some calm and quiet, or I tell my kids/husband that I'm feeling really anxious or agitated, and that I need their help in keeping the environment around me really calm. That's hard with the kids sometimes, obviously, so I just tell them that I can't listen to the noise they're making right now, but they can either go outside or in another room if they want to keep doing what they're doing. Or I tell them that I need a break and that I'm going to close my door and need them to not interrupt me.

Taking the time to create an externally calmer environment helps when my internal environment is chaotic and out of balance. It helped a TON explaining all this to my husband and kids - that when I'm out of balance on the inside it makes it really hard to process other things the way they do or I would otherwise do. Enlisting their help in addressing the things that promote my negative reactions has been great; it also shows them that I'm working really hard to not snap or yell, because it's important to me to treat them well.