Defense mechanisms.

A lot of people have that defense mechanism where they don't feel certain things because if they did they would probably die or something. I used to think I didn't have that at all because I didn't choose to. Then I realized psychology and the unconcious mind are very complex and that even if I don't choose that defense mechanism, it still exists for me too.
Lately I've been beginning to realize that I'm starting to not feel as much. I don't mean less empathy, but I mean less sadness and pain. I just kind of push thoughts away and run from them. If something comes up in my mind I just push it out and don't deal with it. I'm starting to have second thoughts about my mission trip coming up as well. I feel like it's either going to emotionally break me in half, or that I'm going to unconciously have a wall built and be able to feel NOTHING the whole time.

A large part of me is deathly afraid of more emotional turmoil. It just seems that whenever I begin to get tearful, I jerk back into my little cage that is supposed to shut out emotions. I understand that certain people have this defense mechanism for a reason, and I've met those people. Sometimtimes things happen that shut something off inside of us, or break some part of the human spirit. It's very possible to break someone. After all, we're all fragile.
Sometimes my past feelings crash on me like a fierce wave that only rises to drown me in its downfall. Sometimes people seem to be like that for me as well.
I did not use to understand, am I am furiously angry that I now do understand, what it's like to want to shut out emotional stimuli. I used to question how anyone could find comfort with walls up around them, but now I seem to understand that. However, I am faced with a choice: take that easy route, or do everything I can to continue to feel.
When someone likes me stops feeling, or when I choose to shut out all feeling, the world is a bit more hopeless, and I have failed.
Now I don't want to do that.
But there is a part of me that believes the emotional intensity of the trip coming up will either
A. break me apart and cause me to feel the harshest pain ever, or
B. start to hurt me until I unconciously put up a guard that leaves me numb and unfeeling and sends me to a dusty corner somewhere in Vermont with something sharp so I can try to find meaning and feeling in what pumps through my veins: messy crimson blood.
I don't want that to happen. I really really don't.
And no, I'm not deep in that rabbithole habit again. But I suppose when you first start it, ever, it can always come back to you and will remain a struggle in some way.
And you can always break down and make the mistake of doing it again, but it doesn't mean that the whole pattern needs to start again.

I'm teetering on a thin line between numbness and intense pain, and I'm trying to jump over to that far away plateau of... being happy.
I'm gonna need a goddamn teleportation device for this one.