I appreciate your suggestion. Thankfully I have a devoted (hasn't run away or quit) long time therapist and a psychiatrist.
We are working on a homework project where I write down the triggering thought, and the emotions, the memories, and finally the result and how I feel. Then I get back to the present (DBT). Love DBT. Do we have a forum for it?
The therapy sounds simple but usually our sessions are 50 minutes of me crying and telling about my week, and then he gets a word in edgewise for 10.
So now I'm noticing the thought and the sensation between hyperarousal, window of tolerance, and the one on on the bottom (hypoarousal?). The structure and homework gets my attention so I don't keep going on and on with the suffering or trigger, if I have the means to do the thinking and give attention to the homework.

I think this homework and DBT are really helping me. I have a problem with recovery though because the more I've been diagnosed with the less support I have from my family (they are all long distance--military/college/etc)

I didn't see the value of therapy too until maybe a year after we started and I stuck with it. The momentum built up and I trust him more than anyone. It's very professional and I feel so thankful because I go to the VA and this is the one exception that baffles me. Someone will get that.