The hidden trauma of boarding school

I recently came across an article called "The Long-Term Impact of Boarding School", talking about the psychological and lifelong impact of boarding school life on kids or young adults. The article itself, from a therapist's point of view, describes quite accurately and thoughtfully about the hidden trauma that early boarding school life brings to people. This is further echoed with plenty of comments from various people under that article describing their own experience of boarding school life and how it has impacted them leading to adult life. I find it quite resonating as well with my own past boarding school experience and my present personality traits or challenges. It's intriguing and revealing for me to explore further into this connection of past and present to understand better who I am and what has happened to me.

My boarding school life

I started middle school when I was 11 years old. To many children, it's an exciting time to meet new people and even go to a new school. I was very much looking forward to it as well. However, where I grew up, most if not all the middle schools are in the town center, but my parents' house is in the countryside which is a little far from the town center. At that time in the early 2000s in China, the most convenient transportation for every household in a small town was still just a motorcycle. Cars were such a luxury that most people couldn't afford. Therefore, for many kids who graduated from primary school in their country side, going to a good middle school means leaving home and becoming a boarder. At 11 years old, I started my boarding school life. 

My parents would drop me off at school on Sunday evening, and then pick me up a week later on Friday afternoon. They would hand me over some money allowance for my whole week's expenses, and off I go to make everything work for myself for the whole week. We have a dorm of 30 kids living in bunk beds in a big room, which was actually a good thing in some way because I got to be constantly surrounded by other kids, allowing me make friends over time. I had to learn to manage everything including changing and washing my clothes, buying my own meals, arranging my classes, and of course managing my own money balance for the week so I can make it to Friday.

Did I do a good job in the start? Of course not. What do you expect an 11 years old who has never lived by himself to do, when suddenly being left into such a situation? My parents told me later on that when they picked me up every Friday evening at that time, I would look like a homeless child with dirty clothes, messy hair, and even dirt on my face. I did learn to do better as time went on, not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I had to survive and find solutions to any discomfort that I felt from my surroundings. I probably was confused and scared but I had to put all those feelings away because I had no one or nowhere to express them to. Hiding my feelings away and dealing with whatever new situations that come to me, that was my way of surviving. Do I resent my parents for that? I don't, because then and now I always understood that there was no other option for me to get a better education except to be sent away. Living away in a boarding school was the only choice as there was no other good middle school close to my home.

I wish it had been different though. I wish I had been able to stay at home, go to school in the morning and come back in the evening. I wish I could have a family meal together every night where I get to enjoy my mom's cooking, and tell my parents what happened at school on the dining table. After dinner, I could play in my room or do my homework, and tucked away by my mom when it's late at night.

I lost all of that when I was dropped off to boarding school. I left that familiar home environment and was then pushed into an unfamiliar surroundings and had to survive by myself. Thankfully and luckily, I was able to make it work and gradually adapt to the life of managing and living on my own in the boarding school environment. However, it's done only via a gradual yet unconscious period of loss and gains, which inevitably created lasting impact and shaped my personality and who I am.

The hidden trauma

One of the most resonating trauma I find from the article is the person's loss of reliance as well as trust for people. Forced to be independent, the child suffered a loss of dependent state of childhood and premature death of the child self. The child realized that he or she can no longer depend on the care from the parents or anyone close. The child is forced to get out of the dependent state and become independent. This is, however, not a conscious or voluntary decision. Independence is achieved by starting to manage various aspects of life by the child himself or herself just to make things work, without an official realization or decision that he or she needs or wants to be independent. The child learns that the parents are no longer gonna be there and no one is there to care for him or her. The child then armors the self with skills acquired gradually through daily living, but under that armor is a child that trusts no one. This leads into the child's adult life where it's difficult for the person to be close and trusting of other people. One particular pattern is that the person prefers to take care of tasks on one's own and does not trust handing the tasks over to other people. The person fears trusting other people on important work and often prefers to do it himself or herself. This pattern can sometimes create difficulty in relationships or leadership, where the person often encounters situations where he or she needs to delegate tasks to a partner or teammate. The fear of delegating due to a lack of trust, however, can in return lead the person to be overwhelmed or unable to effectively lead a team. 

Another point I find resonating is the potential inability to get in touch with one's feelings as an ex-boarder. The child develops an armored personality and encapsulated emotional self which extends into adulthood and influences the way an ex-boarder interacts with the world. In the process of forming this armored personality, the person splits off part of his or her vulnerable self and distances oneself from any vulnerable feelings, in order to survive. The person gradually becomes less and less sensitive to one's own emotions and feelings, and may eventually become not in touch with them at all. What's worth mentioning is that this process happens in such a gradual and hidden way that the ex-boarder often has no idea why he or she has a hard time getting in touch with one's own feelings in adulthood. The ex-boarders may be described by their partners or friends as stoic, emotionless, or not expressive enough. However, this is often not a sign that the ex-boarder does not value the partner or friend, but more in that the rational understanding of the importance of one's partner or friend can't easily transfer into corresponding emotions or feelings for the ex-boarder. The ex-boarder would need to relearn that it's safe to have feelings and be trained or helped with therapy to identify their emotional reaction to daily events or activities.

Final words

There are more insights from the original article that I find quite revealing, which I will not go into details here but I strongly recommend any reader to explore. It's worth mentioning that while the article focuses mainly on the negative impact of boarding school life, it does also have positive impact on the ex-boarder, including a better living environment if the parents lack time or ability to offer support, an opportunity to develop strong skills to be independent and take responsibility for themselves, and a social circle to socialize with fellow boarders in group settings etc. One can argue that a child can acquire similar kind of growth without having to be left alone in a boarding school environment, which I do agree. As a child, we often can't control our surroundings and situations and rely heavily on our parents for our care and welfare. What's happened to us is the past, but the impact it had on us may well be long-lasting. However, what happened to us should not define us. It's important for us, as we become adults, to explore those impacts and raise our awareness. Through a better awareness we can then better understand ourselves, and by better understanding ourselves we can then take better actions to grow and change.