In The Alphabet Of Unrecognised Neglect

 'A' stood for abandonment-the rupture children felt
when they were taken to school and left with strangers.
'B' stood for bereavement and the sudden loss of the familiar:
family surroundings, friends, toys, routine, even home food.
Teacheers and carers called this “homesickness” and trusted 
that it would pass when the children had no such sense of certainty.
'C' stood for  captivity, the realisation that there was no way out
from rigid and often punishing routines, no escape, though some tried it.
This often lead to 'D',  dissociation and  the development of a false self
that the child felt helped them appear be brave, and survive the situation
whilst cutting them off  from their truer self without them realising it.

And so this alphabet goes on whilst the author of the theory behind it,
Joy Schaverien (1943 - 2025) outlines the theory of 'Boarding School Syndrome',
where what is presented as a materially privileged life hides from parents,
puupils, and the staff who ran boarding schools a multi-generatonal sense of loss
where difficulties with intimacy are passed of as 'normal'. The recognition
of life-long mental health problems is slow to arrise, waiting until adulthood
for the neccesity of therapy to be clear, where the syndrome gets easier to use
as an excuse to explain away previoiusly unexplained offhand behaviour. 

But that is the world some people, lots of people, live in.
Some of my best friends might recognise this picture
and remember how I used to behave, without knowing
that I grew up in a care home for five yearss, where I
saw my parents for thirteen weeks of the year. When I left
the home I had no close friends: I left who I knew behind.

I have survived: in a country with the safety net
of a welfare state and a strong charity sector
people will. But I find thatt the safety nett
for retrospectivle repairing my mental health,
and the family the helps indiduals connect for life
are harder to recognise and find. I have what is left
of my true self, which the care home cared enough
to not touch, when with hindsight it easily could have.

For a fuller explanation
of Boarding School Syndrome
than what I have room for
on this blog please left click here.

Boarding School Syndrome: The Psychological Trauma of the ‘Privileged’ Child by Joy Schaverien