I think everyone puts up a defense mechanism from time to time as nobody wants to feel pain if they can avoid it. I also think that no matter what happens in life a person is going to have moments of fear, anxiety, sadness, joy, excitement and many other things.

I guess the best way to live is to take it one day at a time and as you experience everything that comes your way take a moment or two to figure out what makes you most happy and try to fit that into you life as much as possible especially when times are tough. At least that is what I try and do.

There are times when I too feel numb and feel like I am just going through the motions but I also have other times where I feel the need to cry and feel the hurt because it helps me relieve a lot of the tension. I just know that for myself I find the little things that make me happy and try very hard to apply them to my life daily as it makes my life more enjoyable and fulfilling.

I definitely have a numbing response a lot of times. It's probably something my mind does to protect myself from the full impact. It's not a bad thing really considering the alternative.

I put on defense mechanisms a lot of the time, but I need to hide and cry my eyes out or else I can't function the rest of the day.

I found that there are times in my life where I felt absolutely forced to do this. It was either that or seriously comtemplate suicide. Yes, you are right! It is a defense mechanism, and a very powerful one at that!

In fact, sometimes, I think I have refined it so a fine art. In order to dump overwhelming emotions I have been known to stop eating for about 3 - 9 days. By the time you stop producing your own sugars, and start producing keytones, you are simply no longer able to feel anything but numbness.

Of course it is not novel, and not new. The group Pink Floyd even wrote a song about it called "Comfortably Numb". Although many supposed that they were referring to drugs and alcohol, this doesn't have to be the case, and is just one of the many subtle ironies of Pink Floyd.

I would say, shutting down your emotions is an effective way to "cut off" overwhelming emotions. However it is not sane nor healthy to shut down your emotions permenantly or regularly. In fact, if you find that you need to cut yourself off from your emotions on a regular basis, you are deligently making yourself sick - not only psychologically, but sooner or later you will get physically sick, too.

I have found that it's okay to shut down in a emergency, but it is extremely important to ask yourself questions about "why do I feel this way?" and "what is wrong that these emotions occur?" and "what are my emotions trying to communicate to me?"

What seems like obvious questions are not so obvious when you attempt to get to the bottom of it and find real answers - and the answers are about what you feel and not what you believe other people think are normal about how you should feel.