Numbing it was never a conscious choice, and it's not like I even noticed it happening while it did. It was a learned response to significant pain over years / decades, without having a support network to help deal with it in a healthy way. This is one of the theorized ways schizoid personality disorder presents itself, and it's not a conscious choice that people make. And it's not just a switch I can turn on and off at will, it's much more complex than that.