Boarding School Syndrome: Interview with Psychoanalyst Joy Schaverien

I can relate totally to the effects and hell of boarding school...the feelings of abandonment and loss of family. Emotions damaged....list is endless. I went at age 13 following my parents separating, so already feeling sad, and left at age 16. The whole experience was incredibly damaging....

My first day at boarding school, 50 years ago, is still one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. My mother left me - her 10 year old daughter - without saying goodbye. I turned around at one point and she was gone. For hours I refused to believe it and kept searching for her. I was not allowed to phone home. I cried every night for over a year. I did not get over this but life goes on.

Well done, Joy. I am a classic victim of BSS having been at boarding school in the UK from 8-18 whilst home was in Hong Kong at that time... Made me understand clearly why I never trusted my own mother; married (still very happily!) a woman completely different to my mother (to my mother's disapproval!); and felt a sense of relief when she died last year. Thank you, Joy.

This was a great interview. I went to boarding school and feel all these things. Now in my early 30s I am really seeing the issues manifest themselves in my relationships and ability to communicate properly about my feelings.

I went to boarding school from the age of 8 in England. It's good that there are now therapists and others who recognise the damage it causes. I recognise everything that is said here. I still can't speak about the violence meted out to me and other children there. Today I am helped by Buddhist teachings: being awake in the moment and compassion.

It has taken me a long time to realise that my childhood was not a normal one. As a young child I went to boarding school at the age of 6. It was only recently that I linked boarding school with like being put into care. There are good things mixed in with the bad but i believe you get used to loss and after a while when you loose something it is no surprise. For such a long time I felt I needed to cry internally but could not express it externally. If you were bullied there was often no escape. If you tried to run away you would be brought back. After all, a white kid in a country full of black people you stood out a mile. Even when you were back with your parents, with your local friends you were still seen as a foreigner even though you had grown up with them.

That’s me too. Thank you for this video. I loathed every minute I was there, I remember the first day with clear imagery. One upside for me was that I was not at home where there was violence. I did experience bullying, developed an eating disorder and so on and so forth. It’s good to be freely talking about it, thank you again for the platform to do so.

Yep thats me

This is absolutely horrendous. I am so sorry.

I was sent to boarding school in a well known public school from 13 to 18 abd it was the best 5 years if my life. I became a nhs surgeon and i have empathy formist of my patients and the ones i dont. I try! I couldnt tbank my parents enough and i got on well with them now.

I'm just really starting to make sense of BSS. I've struggled all my life with mental health and damaging relationships & friendships. I always felt it was something wrong with me. Trying various things counselling, medication, etc never quite worked and diagnoses never quite fit, compounding the feeling of failure... 'why can't I just get it right?' Reading about BSS is like a light bulb. Finally, a description that absolutely fits. But what to do about? I'm 44, single, broke and feel like times slipping away.

I was a boarder. Ended up with a very serious eating disorder. I didn't enjoy it at all.

Your childhood, good and bad experiences in life define you. As boarding school taught me, pull yourself together and get on with it. The institutional beatings (or dorm raids) where 18 year olds would come into your dormitory at night with hockey sticks and beat the shit out of you inevitably led to emotional damage. This was relentless, being put in a dirty laundry basket and rolled down flights of stairs or having your head shoved down a toilet and flushing (bogwashing) was child abuse. It taught me to find a part of myself I would never have known existed. I think it's where I got my tenancy from which led me to my success, it taught me life is tough and you have to find a way through it. I have many failed relationships, but only because I had emotional immaturity and chose the wrong women. I'd never send my children to boarding school and I doubt anyone who has experienced it would unless they are into abusing their own child!

I went 2 weeks after my 8th birthday until I was 16... whilst I have not suffered from depression, I have certainly had many other of the traumas and life experiences discussed in this video..😕

Absolutely correct. Thank you so much for articulating all this for us. I can't talk about it. We weren’t allowed to call our parents. .

Intesresting, I was a boy and went through this. I didn't look forward to the weekly call with my parents. In fact I would pretend there were connection issues and avoid it. During exeat weekends I would try to go home with my friends instead of going home, it suited my parents fine... They didnt have to spend 6 hours on the M25 taking me home. As to how this now goes in my adult life? I no longer speak to my parents, I learned my grandfather died recently and didn't care. I felt nothing, I will probably feel nothing about my parents when they pass. The only profound sadness and regret I feel is the lack of empathy I feel, I sometimes question if I am some kind of sociopath.

Thank you for this video. I have multiple friends that went to boarding schools and it’s sad to think about.

I went to boarding school aged 11 and I was looking forward to getting away from home, not that I wasn't loved, but my parent's relationship was odd (my dad was a boarder in the bad old days of corporal punishment, from 6yrs old, and seemed distant somehow) and my mum was manic depressive and had attempted suicide during post natal depression a year or so before I went. I was used to carrying a lot of emotional ballast as an only boy, trying to cheer my mum up when she was depressed or in a rage. I was keen to get away from this dynamic and thought boarding would be like a sleepover with friends. In some respects it was and it's easy to forget the laughter and camaraderie, but being at the mercy of housemasters, their wives, and compulsory 'games' often led by really nasty bastards was an exercise in survivalism more than anything for me. The first week of boarding when everyone was homesick we weren't allowed to contact home. At the end of the week we were forced to write a letter home, but we weren't allowed to seal the letter until matron had collected and read them all, to make sure there wasn't any complaining going on. So my privileged education in emotional dishonesty began! I found the letter recently and it was very emotional - I remember trying to subtly say 'get me out of here'! I was able to 'fit in' and used the sense of humour I had developed at home to deflect any bullying. I certainly faked illness once or twice as a reprieve, and once was caught faking a doctors note to get me off compulsory games (I changed a 1 to a 9 on the chit that said how many days I was to have off games). Since being caught for doing that the housemaster hated me! Games involved cross country runs followed by laps of a rugby pitch followed by rugby. I'd never done anything like it and found it physically/emotionally abusive to be forced to take part. I tried my best though. Once on an away trip to play rugby the scrum was really violent - the opposing team punching us in the face. As the scrum broke I punched back and got sent off. I was absolutely terrified of my games teacher, who walked down the touchline towards me red-faced and with boggling eyes. I'll never forget he leant forward and whispered in my ear: 'well done!'

Cried for a week? I cried every night for a year and a half starting from an 8 year old.

Boarding school was awesome great times and memories. Te Aute College New Zealand.