My Shell

I remember different times through my life when I have played with creatures in shells. Some of them include random turtles, slugs, snails, crabs, and various creatures of the sea. All of these have the same thing in common with me. When we are scared, threatened or confronted we retreat into our shell.
After 40 years of living life I am just not realizing that that I use my shell all the time. Just recently I climbed into my shell after a heated conversation with someone that I care about deeply and stayed there for about 20 hours. Do I still function in my environment? Do I still work, eat and spend time with family and friends? Yes
I am still physically here or there but the rest of me is shut down. It is like the lights are on but nobody is home. I now see that this is apart of my life and I want bring this area of secrecy out so that there is no place for me to hide. I want to see healing in my life so that I can learn to confront others and be confronted by others with out feeling the need to run and hide. I want to learn to be open and honest in my relationships without having to pretend.
This is very painful for me but choose to stay right here. No running and no hiding, I am aligning myself with God so that He can transform me into He has already created me to be.