Tag: Grief

A Bereaved Child at Boarding School

Amelia

What does September evoke for you?

Many ex-borders have spoken of a level of melancholy that comes over them at this time of year. Grief. Their body is reminding them of how they experienced pulling out their trunk and packing again to return to boarding school, leaving their family, pets, and all that is familiar behind.

The summer holidays may have been long enough to have adjusted back to being their “home self,” and then they have to pack that self up, along with their trunk and pull on that armor and adapt back to being their “school self.” This pattern is repeated over and over again, which can cause a split in personality and a disintegration of the self.

Many young children will be feeling “homesick” for the first time over these next few weeks as they are left by their parents to begin life at their new institutions.

Advice online by the Independent Education Consultant encourages parents to “not give in to emotional blackmail. You have made this choice for the right reasons so try not to take seriously any miserable communications from your child, which may imply that you do not care or are in some way cruel. Quite the opposite. You have made a selfless decision in giving your child what you believe will be an amazing opportunity.”

Reading this and various advice given on present-day Boarding School Website pages to parents on how to manage their child’s feelings, as well as their own reads like propaganda. Joy Schaverien in her book “Boarding School Syndrome,” claims that the term homesickness does not do justice to the depth of losses to which the boarding school child is subjected.

The broken attachments of the first days in boarding school amount to a significant, but unrecognized form of bereavement, and the child must learn to live without love. Often children’s losses are minimized and glossed over as insignificant and therefore many children hide these feelings for fear of being seen as childish and pathetic and subjected to bullying.

The term homesickness encompasses a complex system of unprocessed grief and many children are emotionally wounded (traumatised), exiled (homeless), and bereaved (grieving). Suddenly children are abandoned and have to adapt to the abrupt and irrevocable loss of the childhood state. Children lose their role, their sense of themselves as people who belong in a family group and they have to prematurely appear grown-up.

So, what do the children do with these emotions? Not wanting to upset their parents who want them to be happy…? It is not uncommon for the repressed distress to come out in symptoms such as bedwetting and vomiting as tears do not appear permitted.

If you are an ex-border and this resonates with you, try and do nourishing things for yourself this September. If you notice your mood dip as the season changes, think what that little child would have wanted and needed to express. Try and give that to yourself. xxx

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A grown up child’s grief on Father’s Day.

Amelia

On June 11th, 1976, whilst we were on holiday in Wales my dad died suddenly of a heart attack. He was 34.

I was 11 months old.

Whilst growing up, Father’s day was irrelevant to me. He was rarely spoken about and Father’s day was never acknowledged.  It is only now, in my 40s, that I have really started to take a moment on this day to think of him and carve out my own special way to have a connection with him.

It can be so easy to hold onto the narrative that when a child is so young, they will not be affected by a parent’s death as they have no memory of him.

My body remembers.

My heart and my soul remember.

I created a story that I was glad my father had died. That I was better off without him. I was fiercely proud of how my mum had raised me single handily and did not believe I had missed out on anything.   I had heard negative stories of his personality and had clung onto those so that I did not have to feel any of the pain of the loss and abandonment that may be lingering underneath.

Aged 23, I developed gallstones and went to see a Holistic Therapist who told me gallstones can often be the result of blocked emotions and asked me if anything traumatic happened to me when I was younger. Looking blankly, eventually I said that my father had died. She responded by saying, “And you took on your mother’s grief.”  She asked me his name and as I said  “Andrew,” tears started to fall.  I was shocked as I had no awareness I felt anything for this stranger.  That evening I went and called a helpline, began Counselling and slowly started my own journey with my grief.

Throughout my life I often sought male validation in an attempt to fill the void that was left by my father.  I have also grown up with an existential outlook having come face to face with death at such a young age. An important part of my own healing was getting to know him. I created my own photo album, read obituary letters written about him and slowly started to build a connection. I needed to bring him to life and get to know him in order to grieve him. A few years ago, I took my own children to watch a pantomime put on by the amateur dramatic company that he was a huge part of shortly before he died. I continue to find ways to keep my connection alive with this man I unfortunately only knew for 11 months of my life.  That void inside is no longer empty.

Working as a Therapist, I see daily how important it is for children to know they are loved by their parents.  They need to know they are loved and that they are important. Unfortunately, the majority of adult clients I work with lack this belief because they did not receive this message clearly enough from their parents.

So, on this day, I applaud all those fathers out there who show up for their children and I want you to know how incredibly important you are. Children are very good at believing your absence may be their fault. So, as you receive your Father’s day messages, make sure your own children, whether they are 5 or 50, know that you love them and that they matter.

If anyone is seeking any grief counselling then please get in touch at Counsellingamelia@gmail.com.

http://www.ameliawhitecounselling.com

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    How to emerge out of Lockdown and find our Selves again…

    Amelia

    On Thursday I went into Brighton and wandered through the North Lanes. I bought a coffee and sat outside at a café. Later I bought a falafel wrap from “I Love Falafel, an old favourite of mine.

    As I sat at the café watching people go past, I felt part of myself returning. In the past, I would cycle into Brighton along the seafront daily to work.  My bike currently sits rusting in my garden….

    I would go to the office, chat with my colleagues in between clients and wander the Lanes. I may sit in the Pavilion Gardens for lunch, observe the buskers and the street goings-on. I may take in a film at the Duke of York Cinema after work, or meet friends for a few drinks in a pub.

    What I realised is how much of myself I have lost this past year.  I have predominantly become an Online Therapist and a Mum. Many are talking of losing their ability to make conversation, how our memories are foggy and it seems we need to relearn how to do those everyday tasks we took for granted. Our brains over this past year have processed those regular occurrences as past experiences and stored them as memories. We need to learn our way of being again.

    How do we bring back those parts of our identity we have lost?

    Our Self-concept is our personal knowledge of who we are, encompassing all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves physically, personally, and socially. Self-concept also includes our knowledge of how we behave, our capabilities, and our individual characteristics.

    Our self-concept develops most rapidly during early childhood and adolescence.  As a baby we develop our sense of self by having it reflected back to us by our caregiver. If we receive love from our mother, we grow up believing we are loveable. The holder of the mirror then switches to our peers at school, hence that time of life for so many who have difficult experiences at school can be so crushing for developing a positive self-concept.

    However, our self-concept continues to form and change over time as we have new experiences, and it changes as we develop new friendships and relationships with others. Our self-concept is dependent on the social situations in which we find ourselves and the feedback we receive from that environment.

    Our isolation this past year has meant that many of our interactions with others has been very restricted.  We have lost our sense of self. 

    This week I returned to CrossFit, an important community that I have been part of for the past 5 years. A place outside my four walls that I have a sense of belonging.  There, I am not “Mum” or “Therapist” but someone who does some crazy exercise routines, laughs and connects with others on all sorts of levels. I have missed that person. She needs to emerge again.

    There used to be this person who would jump on a train to London Victoria and take herself off spontaneously to explore the delights of London. She would take that free spirit further afield and find herself on a solo trip to Goa, looking for new environments and connections with people from different backgrounds and cultures. That part of myself has laid dormant for this past year, rarely making it past the end of my road at times. I want her back.

    So, as we start to emerge out of lockdown, is it safe for us to start to give fuel to these lost parts of ourselves? Can we allow ourselves the space to grieve their absence? For many of us, they may not return. Certain relationships and parts of our Selves are lost, and we feel irrevocably changed by this past year.

    But just maybe…..as Spring is here….a new Self can now emerge and our Lockdown Self can take a backseat.

    I’m off to get my bike fixed….

    September – A Month of Transition.

    Amelia

    I noticed how the long-awaited relief of children returning to school was entwined with a feeling of loss and sadness this week. My mood dipped and I started to recognise this feeling as a familiar tone that sets in year after year in September. The sea suddenly becomes less inviting, I notice the evenings start to draw in and that abundant energy I had in June and July is no longer present. As the leaves start to fall from the trees and the seasons change, so do I.  The familiar feeling is one of grief.

    As a child I was sent to Boarding School, so each September my trunk would be packed and off I would go, leaving behind my mum, my cat, my house, my bedroom and have to quickly make the transition to being one of 30 girls sleeping in an open dormitory. There was no space for grief and transition then as I had to adapt quickly with a brisk goodbye at the door to my mum and a goodbye to the summer holidays and the time I had spent outside of this institution.  As an adult I have always viewed September as a new beginning and am able to see how I have developed a pattern of often shedding jobs and relationships in the summer months, preparing for this new term to start. 

    However, these days those feelings of grief show up and I am no longer able to push forward as I have in the past.  This has shown up in a cough in recent Autumns that I have struggled to shift.  As a child in that first year at Boarding School I developed Asthma out of the blue. Many of us associate sadness and grief with the heart, but In Chinese Medicine your lungs are seen as a repository for these emotions. We have all encountered so much grief in the past six months.  We may have individually experienced the physical loss of a loved one, we may have lost the job we cherished, the financial security we had, our space away from our children, our routine, our holidays, physical touch and our freedom of movement.  We have all collectively experienced the loss of the lifestyle that we once knew. The ground that once felt solid beneath our feet is now like sand as we move into Autumn uncertain whether another Lockdown is on the horizon and we are still unable to plan for the future.

     So, as the leaves have started to fall this week, and my energy levels started to droop, I have stopped in my rush to push forward and decided to be kind to myself.  To give my body and my mind what it is asking for.  Nourishing food, warm baths, and plenty of rest.  I have started giving myself a massage each evening before bed with Bergamot aromatherapy oil, known for its mood balancing and uplifting properties. So often our minds can race ahead of our bodies with all these intentions and plans, and our bodies then crash with burn out / depression or a physical ailment that causes us to stop.  Hopefully this year, I have spotted the signs early on and have started to slow down into Autumn and give my body and mind what it really needs and deserves. We are unable to fully go forwards and transition unless we make space to let go of our grief. We have all had to adapt so much these past six months and we are incredibly resilient to have done so, so make sure going into Autumn you give yourself the nurture that you need and deserve.

    A Community Witnessing of Grief.

    Amelia

    “There is a deep longing among people in the West to connect with something bigger — with community and spirit.” Sobonfu Some

    Leaving the revelry of Pride behind this Saturday, I took myself off to the beautiful space at the Ecotherapy Centre at Stamner Park to take part with others in a Community Grief Tending ritual. I had little knowledge of what to expect, but soon learned that we were to spend the day – a group of 10 of us, connecting, sharing our stories if we wished and experiencing and expressing our grief amongst each other. So often many of us experience the heart wrenching deep pain of grief alone. For a few days after someone has died, friends pay us visits or check if we are ok, but as the days turn to weeks and the weeks into months, the grief seeps deeper inside us and we can often worry that our feelings of despair, loneliness or anger may not be welcomed by friends. We numb ourselves with alcohol, food – or whatever is at our disposal in an attempt to cover up these feelings and distract us from them. But they don’t go away. The plaster gets wet, worn round the edges and falls off, revealing the deep wound that is still in so very much in need of healing.

    In other cultures, such as the Dagara tribe of West Africa, grief is communal and they partake in weekly grief rituals where the community come together to support and witness each other in their grief. This enables those grieving to be able to process and release their grief. Very opposite to our own culture where so much grieving is done behind closed doors, with people feeling ashamed of their emotions, feeling there is something wrong with them for not being “over it” and friends too afraid to ask how they are in case they “upset them.”

    The day flowed as we moved across the land creating an altar of gratitude and an altar for those ancestors whom we wished to honour, remember and share with each other. A fire was lit as we gathered around it to feast on the wonderful nourishing food we had all brought to share with one another. The main part of the day was the ritual itself in which those who wished to, were invited to handle objects which represented fear, sorrow, anger and numbness. As each member held the various objects, they shared and released some of their pain and feelings, which were witnessed by each other in an environment that felt safe and holding. There was no judgement, other than for ourselves, and people were able to unlock some of their deeply held grief and express it in front of each other. For some, this took the form of words, for others with tears or anger. I was struck by the courage of every participant to take that risk to show their pain and express that part of themselves which at times can feel so unwelcome in our society. For some the grief was so far hidden they shared their frustration at not being able to access it, knowing it was there bubbling underneath the surface. There was something incredibly powerful about having our grief witnessed and feeling that connection with others. I left that day feeling full of gratitude for the connections I had made and the opportunity to express my own grief and feel seen and heard.

    Our society has become so much about the individual, but we need each other. We need communities. We need to come together. We need to be witnessed and held and know that we are okay, however we are feeling that day. We need to know that Grief is a natural process and a journey that will continue to affect us all throughout our lives in one way or another. Yes, it is hard and yes, it is painful and heart wrenching at times and can take us to the pits of despair and isolation. However, if we can reach out, support each other, and accept that this is a consequence of loving and living in this world, then we can make the process of grieving that little bit more bearable for us all.