The Symptoms of Boarding School Survivors & Boarding School Syndrome

[@AnneFabienneRaven]

super helpful thank you 🙏🙏🙏

[@richardrickford3028]

So glad to hear Piers that you will be there at the conference for boarding school survivors on November 11th. It is always great seeing you in 3D! I found this a very useful talk by you. I think also in terms of boarding school survivors and their symptoms there is also the issue of shame. Shame of being bullied and not being able to stand up for yourself. Shame of being a bully. Shame of seeing bullying and abuse and not intervening because of being scared to. All of these can work in all sorts of combinations. Also teachers and the schools themselves can have a dynamo of shame and a culture of shame to control the pupils. People such as myself may come to the school feeling ashamed for all sorts of reasons (the vast majority of them deeply irrational but very real) and bullies like a wild animal can pick up on this starting a viscious cycle of bullying and the vicitm feeling ashamed and physically looking and acting ashamed - which leads to more bullying. Shame has its own particular body language which a primitive bully can almost smell. The bullies themselves can start to feel ashamed of their behaviour. This frightens them which turns to anger which turns to more bullying which turns to shame and so on. They can also really be angry at physically abusive parents but take out that anger on fellow pupils because they would not dare answer their parents back let alone hit or smack them back. They may even try and protect themselves by making out the abusive parents were doing a good thing and teaching them right from wrong. So shame is a perpetual spaghetti-junction of an issue. It feeds on itself with all sorts of highly undesirable bi-products. It could actually be good to draw a flow chart or diagram of it to map out the ways it can manifest itself. We are as humans more programmed to understand things in pictoral or diagrammatic forms rather than a slab of text like this one. So I will give it a go.

[@pierscross]

Thank you Richard, so true. Shame is also a common symptom for boarding school survivors. See you soon, Piers

[@bengreatorex502]

As usual this is incredibly brave and helpful, thank you Piers.

[@helpstraykg7131]

I suggested your channel to my ex. I hope he’s listening

[@gail777]

Thanks Piers, very useful! Anger is an important one. I was totally unaware of my serious anger issues until I began doing classes on meditation and Buddhist philosophy at a Buddist temple. In the class we had discussions about anger as it is considered to be one of the three poisons: hatred (anger), greed and delusion. People in the class spontaneously gave examples and our teacher said it was his greatest problem. Their examples woke me up to the fact that I had big issues and meditation training helped me to identify situations where I was angry and after some time I became able to identify and name my feelings as they arose and before I exploded. Viewing criticism as a personal attack is a big one for me too. It's hard to stay calm long enough to be rational and not react.

[@RussellBowman-x1l]

Great to get the discussion around symptoms expanded on Piers. It was only through a period of desperation that I connected with them - the emotional bluntedness particularly. And even now, find I can quite easily question "do these really apply to me?" in moments of doubt / denial.

[@Yeshuaseekinggirl]

Piers, I would love to talk to you If you see this about my situation- hoping you might could give me any insight. My husband who claimed to love me so much, and pursued me so hard… abandoned me in March of this year. He went to an over night boarding school, and I’m wondering if that is a one of the reasons he abandoned me and my son. None of it makes sense.

[@pierscross]

Hi, thank you for your message. At the moment I am at capacity with my 1-1 work and I have a waiting list. What I would suggest is to watch through some of my playlists on boarding school and relationships and that should give you a lot of answers: kzbin.info/aero/PLc8DzH2Z1rJipnOGtwYI0eD2oNAxhqLNL kzbin.info/aero/PLc8DzH2Z1rJiCCDJ3cuZl0KhwhzCsrlIS Take care, Piers

[@pauldeeley1]

where can i see y in person thank you

[@pierscross]

Hi Paul, thanks for your message. I do see 1-1 clients but have quite a long waiting list at the moment. Please feel free to visit my website and you can message me if you would like to join the waiting list. Take care, Piers

[@DaveBeaven-tx2tp]

Don’t always blame wealthy people sending their children to residential schools. There is a lot of children sent to special needs boarding schools or kids homes. Anyone remember the notorious kids home in North Wales. Cumbria had more than its fair share of boarding schools-the list is as follows: Underley Hall, Witherslack Hall, Greystone House, Eden Grove, Broughton Towers, Stonecross School. I think there was one called Riverside? The list goes on. In Warrington there was Massey Hall School which I believe is under investigation. Half of the schools in Cumbria opened in the mid 1970s under Labour Government. The Labour run Lancashire County Council sent children to these schools paid by the state. Social Services are the usual culprits in sending children to these institutions. There are rumours that Cyril Smith may have had links with Underley Hall school in South Cumbria. I think it’s fair to say that all the authorities that pay to send children to special needs residential schools are Labour run whether it’s Lancashire, Calderdale, Wirral or Rochdale councils.

[@pierscross]

Thanks Dave, for sharing. Yes, you are right - there are many residential schools out there. Take care, Piers