Abandonment and
Healing
I suppose everybody
hurts in different ways, and the path to healing may never be a prescription
like a pill to deal with a simple headache. Over the past year, as I have lived
in the expectation of turning 60, I have also relived memories and events from
my early childhood that exude all kinds of pain.
On several occasions,
I have shared my experience of secondary boarding school and how the lasting
impact meant I have no enduring relationships from that time, neither with
friends nor teachers. Whilst there are occasional messages from old
schoolmates, I received only one congratulatory message representative of my
time in secondary school.
The Trauma of
Boarding School
Whilst I was aware of
the broader decision-making process my parents engaged in when putting me in
boarding school far away from home, it was only recently that I began to
appreciate some of the trauma associated with that phase of my life. The
privilege of going to boarding school should not mask the lifelong consequences
of that experience.
It was meant to
toughen me up and give me a sense of independence, but it also destroyed my
trust and willingness to confide in them about other aspects of exploitation
and abuse that I had suffered before, during, and after the boarding school
period. I internalised so much when I should have been screaming for help.
Even when I took
therapy, it was limited to addressing the catastrophic loss of status, means,
and livelihood after my first encounter with cancer. I still had to fight for
that service because I presented none of the indicators of ideation that people
typically display with depression or even suicide. Yet I was hurting and
suffering, coping mostly through what I learnt in my religious beliefs.
Understanding
Boarding School Syndrome
The psychologist Joy
Schaverien, who died in 2025, described the hidden trauma from early
boarding school experiences using four key elements: Abandonment
(separation from parents), Bereavement (grief from loss of family), Captivity
(powerless feeling in an institutional setting), and Dissociation
(detaching from feelings to cope).
She termed this the ABCD of
Boarding School Syndrome, though it should not be limited to the boarding
school experience in England alone. I was in boarding school in Nigeria, and it
extends beyond those institutional settings to family and life in general.
Abandonment came in
many forms: the early months of incubation, being left with foster parents (a
norm in the 1960s that acquired the term "farming"), even one
'caring' family starving me, the mental torture of being threatened with
reliving a dreadful experience to buy my silence, the lack of curiosity when
abuse was reported, and obviously the boarding school experience itself.
This was compounded
by the refusal to bring me back after realising my coping mechanisms were
highly stressed. [The
Guardian: ‘Farmed’: why were so many Black children fostered by white families
in the UK?]
Given time, I could
develop the other elements of 'BCD', but there is enough in Abandonment to see
how it can be the root of additional trauma. None of this has found any means
of discussion between the affected parties, except in the catharsis of my writing
over the last two decades.
Love and Protection
This is not to say
that I am unloved. I am deeply loved, but trauma can set you up for feeling
both unloved and unlovable. Love cannot be passive; it needs expression and the
conveyance of tangibility and feeling.
Much as we do need a
hedge of protection around us in all the issues of life, that hedge can easily
look like prison walls, giving you the earnest desire to escape because you are
caught in a claustrophobic enclosure that suffocates every facility of self-expression.
Their protection becomes your prison, an overcompensation that does no one any
favours.
Faith and Letting Go
In three situations,
this aspect of hurt has been challenged: from preaching tapes I have listened
to, in a sermon at the crossover service I attended on New Year's Eve, and from
Brian. "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past." [Bible Hub: Isaiah 43:18].
You wonder, how do you let go of the past when it still has that much of a hold
on you?
It involves taking
your eyes off that and looking to see something else that God is trying to
catch my attention with. "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up;
do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the
wasteland." [Bible
Hub: Isaiah 43:19]. This would suggest I do not need therapy, but belief,
trust, and faith. A bit of empathetic counselling could help build that trust
too.
Finally, much as it
is difficult to explain, there is healing in reconciliation: just reconnecting
and carrying on rather than raking over the coals of angst and trauma. Let God
handle the broken wings, as we get beyond the narrative to become more than
just Boarding School Survivors of childhood and adolescent trauma. The eagle
will fly and soar again.
References
Bloomfield
Health: Boarding school syndrome
LinkedIn:
Boarding School Syndrome: Understanding the Hidden Trauma Behind Privileged
Education
Hope
Therapy and Counselling Services: Did Boarding School Shape Who You Are?
