Children who were sent away from their homes to board can develop into successful achievers but are almost certain to find relationships and normal family life a challenge.
If your partner or loved one is a Boarding School Survivor you may be finding your relationship particularly difficult or confusing. You may find your partner suffers from some of the symptoms on our symptom page.
Perhaps you are experiencing more severe problems such as a breakdown of trust, a parenting difficulty or an affair. It may be that there are subtle but equally disturbing issues. For instance, you, or another family member gets repeatedly ignored, humiliated or bullied and your partner is unable to recognise the problem – or minimises it. It may be that the situation has changed out of all proportion following a recent event such as the birth of a child, a child reaching school age, a job loss, the death of a parent and so on.
It may be difficult for your partner to acknowledge Boarding School Syndrome, especially if you are not in a current crisis, or you may both shuttle between recognition and denial. If you are unable to persuade your partner to seek help, then it may be wise to get your own support initially. Your partner may need help to recognise the specific nature of their wounding; but eventually recovery is possible and will benefit your relationship and the whole family.
When you discovered our work you may have suddenly felt that you are finally not alone with this issue. You may have realised that feeling the way you do does not mean you are crazy. If this is the case, we suggest that you become better informed about the issues by visiting the other support services on the right of this page and we strongly urge you to check out our publications.
You should also check out the work of Professor Joy Schaverien who coined the term Boarding School Syndrome.