Understanding the difference between Depression and Grief: For Ex-Boarders.

When I work with ex-boarders, I often encounter deep feelings of grief. Grief that was suppressed as children when they first left home, and grief for the lives they’ve lived without realising how profoundly boarding school shaped them. Sometimes, it can be difficult to tell whether what they’re experiencing is grief or depression. In this blog post, I explore the difference between the two.

The Ex-Boarder's Vulnerability to Depression.

Ex-boarders face a unique set of conditions that make them particularly susceptible to depression. From an early age, they learned to suppress their internal feelings and emotions, building an armour of competence and strength that the outside world admires. Beneath this carefully constructed exterior, shame festers about having feelings at all.

The boarding school message was clear: don't upset your parents. This becomes a pattern that plays out in adult relationships, where expressing needs or difficulties feels forbidden. Some say depression is anger turned inwards, and for ex-boarders who grew up fearing anger and conflict, having witnessed or experienced violence, punishments, and humiliation at school, this rings particularly true. They develop people-pleasing behaviours, desperately trying to make others happy to prevent conflict or rejection, which might reignite their initial abandonment wound.

The fear of reaching out for help is profound. To ask for support feels weak and pathetic which are the very things they were taught to never be. So they suffer in silence, unable to share what's happening inside, trapped by their own protective mechanisms.

I experienced depression myself in my late thirties when I realised I was unhappy in my marriage and felt trapped, unable to see a way out, consumed by huge amounts of guilt for feeling the way I did. I tried and tried to change how I was feeling, but I couldn't.

Looking back now, I see that period as life-saving. The depression saved me. It shut me down because I could no longer cope with the feelings. The first time it occurred, I took antidepressants and continued on the same path, not listening to what my soul was telling me. I pushed on, becoming a long-distance runner, clocking up various marathons until eventually my soul spoke again and I cracked. 

This time I listened, and I made huge changes to my life. Far from easy, but I have never experienced depression since. From that point, I made a conscious decision to never shut myself down again, to trust my feelings and intuition, and to make sure I brought into my life the things that gave me joy and boosted my soul, such as exercise and sea swimming.

Depression is often a sign that we need to change something about how we are living our life, or that we need to share how we are feeling with a compassionate, understanding other.

If you're aware that you may have depression, please see your GP before it becomes severe and clinical. There are different stages of depression, and early intervention matters. If you're feeling suicidal, antidepressants may be helpful in giving you a lift so that you can find the energy to make the changes you may need in your current life.

Understanding Grief:

Grief, while it can feel similarly heavy, is fundamentally different from depression. Grief is a natural response to loss. It moves, it changes, it processes. Depression, by contrast, can feel static, stuck, a heavy blanket that refuses to lift.

For ex-boarders, grief often arrives decades late. When people go through my course, they frequently get in touch with suppressed feelings from years ago. Sometimes from decades ago. They grieve the feelings they never allowed themselves to feel aged seven when they first said goodbye to their mum, their dad, their dog, their country even.

They go through a period of grieving for the child who got left outside the school gate. The child they had to abandon in order to build themselves into a character that could survive growing up in an institution. There's grief for the authenticity sacrificed, the vulnerability buried, and the softness hardened.

Depending on their age, a huge amount of grief is felt about the years they didn't realise how impacted they were by boarding school. "If only I had known," they say, "maybe I could have made different choices and had a different life." If a person has been emotionally numb all their life, this outpouring of grief can last a long time.

What helps with the grief?

If you find yourself in this place of grief, know that what you need is different from what helps with depression. What's needed is:

• A loving, supportive other who can hold space for your pain without trying to fix it
• Individual therapy with someone who understands the boarding school experience
• Someone who can reassure and soothe you through the waves of emotion
• Patience and self-compassion as you allow feelings that have been frozen for decades to finally thaw

Most importantly, you need to realise that it will not last forever and it will pass. Even though you may feel it never will, grief does move through us when we allow it to. Unlike depression, which can keep us stuck, grief is a journey with a destination. Integration, acceptance, and ultimately, peace with what was lost.

The difference is this: depression often asks us to change our present circumstances or seek medical support. Grief asks us to finally feel what we couldn't feel then, to honour what was lost, and to reclaim the parts of ourselves we had to leave behind.

Both require courage. Both deserve compassion. And both, when properly acknowledged and supported, can lead to profound healing.

If you're struggling with depression or working through grief related to your boarding school experience, please reach out for professional support. You don't have to do this alone.