Shutdown

As much I like to think that I've improved the way I deal with the world around me, sometimes it becomes apparent that I still have a lot of work left. Admittedly, we are all works in progress and each of us have things to make better about ourselves. Today I discovered I still have something to work on that I thought was behind me.

At times when I'm confronted with a flood of emotions or thoughts, my brain just shuts down and I can't verbalize what's going on in my head. And instead of just saying that is what is going on, I'll pretend that there is nothing wrong. When in fact, my face will betray the opposite. I'd like to think that I'm rational and emotions don't affect me but the truth is I'm just as human as the next person. I just have a hard time identifying what it is that I'm feeling that shuts me down. Surely, this shutdown is a survival mechanism, something I picked up most likely as a child that provided some sort of refuge at the time. Seemingly, I didn't completely out grow it.

What's even more disturbing to me is that I don't even realize what's happening until afterwards. After that portion of my brain starts to function again it dawns on me that I have just gone through a shutdown. Although, before I would never even realize that much. I'd just be left to wonder why the person I would be around was so irritated with me and what it was that I had done. At least now I can recognize what happened. Which is a start of sorts, I guess.

As to how to work on this, I'm not sure how to go about it. It doesn't happen that often now (which I guess is some progress) but when it does, it sucks. There is a way I'm sure of working it out. Maybe pen and paper (or ones and zeros) would help.