When I was 12 my mom and I went to a shelter for women running away from domestic violence. When the social worker did intake, she asked my mom and I whether I had ever been abused. My mom and I made eye contact; no, we both said. No. But, of course I had been hit and felt the psychological impacts of what was going on. But I was off the hook. This was not happening to me; it was happening to her. This is how I learned to survive, by not showing up emotionally. It has worked.