When I have overwhelming painful emotions, caused by something exterior like a break up or family drama I feel like my emotion can involuntarily shut off. Like I will be crying hysterically on the floor pulling my hair out. Then all the sudden I do not care about what was bothering, whats going to happen, and I feel like nothing happened. Its not because I became okay with the situation. The next time I am faced with the situation by surprise I completely freak out again and go through the same process. When I was younger this is how I delt with the hopelessness I had during a time when I had an abusive/alcohalic step father and an alcoholic mother. I also had an abusive boyfriend. During that time I was left alone to deal with my emotions and when I couldnt its like the same thing happened, they involuntarily shut off. Its weird how quickly I can go from total chaos to smooth sailing. Can anyone tell me the term for what I am doing. I need to stop doing this. When my emotions shut off I say things I dont mean and it stops me from working through anything. I want to stop doing this but I cant. I literally feel like I have no control.