I don't think of defense mechanisms as being "bad". They helped me and it's another indication that I'm doing the best I can to take care of myself.

I use my stronger ones. Like it sounds like VoNPD does, I put myself out even when I don't feel like it. My self-defense is so strong that I can close up faster than anything bad can happen to me so I use that to explore scary things, relying on "myself" to close up and protect me as in the past if it's truly a problem for me but to check things out as well as I can first if nothing "jumps out at me" The more experience I have where things don't go wrong, the fewer I will have had where they did or I was afraid they would.