I think we're like peals of an onion. We learn more and more over time and we integrate it. When upset, stressed, tired, the outer layers can come off.

That is how it happens for me anyway. My outer layers are the construct how people are created, that they are created as whole persons with their good and bad. When I feel too stressed I lose this layer of thinking and regress into seeing things as details. And if a friend just upset me, I only see that, that IS the person in front of me. I can't think, in that mood, that they are a friend, a creature a whole of many traits. I don't have to say that can make friendships hard for me.

We all have different types of layers, which are most likely to come off in a pressured situation.