Do you recognise this?

Christmas comes round, then Easter, then perhaps a birthday. You arrive and you do pleasantries.  You talk about the traffic and the weather and who is doing what. However, you are aware there is a superficiality to the conversations and lurking underneath is a conversation that has never been had. 

My stepfather died in September, and a sudden death propels us into shock. We are jolted into our grief with no time for preparation.  I had done a great deal of work on my relationship with my stepfather, but when he died, feelings I thought I had made peace with came back, and I realised parts of them still needed to be felt and expressed.  

For many of us who boarded, the hiding of our inner world starts on the very first day. We are praised for settling in well and we learn to hide our feelings that may seem difficult for our parents to be with.  A child is rewarded for managing without their parents and one way of doing this is to tell themselves that they don't need them and they can do this, and subsequently life on their own. 

That lesson builds a capable, independent adult. However, one of the many costs can be a distance from their family that can last a lifetime, either emotionally or physically and often both. 

When former boarders begin to look at how their childhood shaped them, and I ask them why they were sent to boarding school, they usually know and have the explanation they were given. They often understand why their parents made the choice they did and don't blame them for it. It may be a posting abroad, a family tradition going back generations, or a culture where it was simply what was done. Better education, better opportunities. Most parents believe they are giving their child the best start. 

However, that understanding can make the complex emotions that arise when exploring the impact your schooling may have had on you seem impossible to share. How do you tell someone who loved you and meant well that the thing they chose for you hurt, at the time or in the years that followed?

So the conversation is never had.

The family still gathers for Christmas, Easter and birthdays. Yet, underneath, something is held back and resentment can settle there quietly, year after year.

This is something I have explored deeply with my own mother. In my late twenties I realised I needed to tell her how I had felt about my childhood, and that it had left me feeling unloved by her.

Those first conversations were very hard. She was defensive at first but we kept going and she  stepped fully into those conversations with me. Today there is nothing left unsaid between us and have built a relationship that lives in the here and now, because together we have repaired what happened in our past.

However, when a parent becomes ill or dies, and the conversations have not been had, the unspoken does not always stay quiet. Anger can arrive in surges, and secrets held within the family system can suddenly come to light. Grief becomes tangled with everything that was never said, and is far more complicated to move through.

Many former boarders wait until their parents have died before they let themselves fully explore what boarding school did to them. They wait out of care, not wanting to cause distress and fear a defensive response. I understand that completely, and I also see what it can cost.

I know how hard these conversations are. The first step is not the conversation itself but it is allowing yourself to express your own feelings.

In my groups, I invite people to write a letter to their parents. It doesn't need to be sent. It is simply a place for the feelings to go. Anger is allowed here. So is sadness. The aim isn't blame but for those feelings to be felt and processed.

Once that has happened, and if your parents are alive and of sound mind, a conversation may become possible. Some of the heat of the anger will already have been felt and heard, and what you bring to them can come from a steadier place.

If you would like to begin, here are four sentence starters. You might use them in a letter, or one day in a conversation.

• What I have never told you about my boarding school experience is…
• It has impacted me by…
  
• What I want you to know about me is…
• What I want to hear from you is…

Start with these and see what emerges.

We may not be able to have these conversations in person for many reasons, but we can connect with our feelings without judgment and express them on paper or to another. They will come out one way or another, so this gives you a chance to notice what emerges for you, if anything.