# Ah - So NOW I Get It



## Guest (Jan 10, 2009)

See I'm genuinely curious - now I'm well and have been for the better part of 3 years - I do occassionally wonder why I battle or have battled with depression. My sis and I talk long about this - she's not clinically depressed but she's certainly anxious, almost obsessively so about her health (sound familiar). To meet her, I'd doubt anyone would realise this - like me, she's very outgoing, abit of a laugh and unlike me - is also a busy business-woman (in her own alternative way - she seems to be the one person who is weathering the economic downturn rather well - a fancy dress hire shop - go figure - as you chaps would say). Both Fay and I were shuntled off to boarding school - I was 11, she 12. Not because our parents were cruel and heartless but because like many nice upper middle class children growing up in the early 70's - it was the "done" thing - whatever that is.However - I have heard so many stories - both from folk who went to boarding school with us, other folk who went elsewhere and public figures - most notably the wonderful Stephen Fry who have had tussles with mental health issues into adulthood.I mean it can't be "natural" being separated from all thats familiar, parents, the family home, the beloved pet and all your friends and social networks - to battle in a strange environment - living and sleeping alongside people that you don't necessarily want to spend every waking and sleeping moment with. I know things have improved now - but in our day - if you were short-sighted, rather bright and s**t at sports - you were worse than the devil incarnate.Thus there seems to be something written about - though not extensively called Separation Anxiety Disorder - classic signs are obsessive worrying (yes), obsessive anxiety about health (yes), attachments to particular objects (yes - certainly in the past), obsessive tidiness (well, I try, I certainly panic if things aren't where they are supposed to be).Its difficult to find out more - so few folk have been subjected to life in a boarding school - though I suspect folk in the forces might very well suffer similar feelings - worse for them, cos much of the time they are in physical danger too.At the end of the day - its how you manage to overcome and sometimes reconcile yourself to such feelings that counts isn't it. I would consider I cope pretty well, my sister too most of the time and I think now such institutions are very much more "normal" places where regular visits home are encouraged and there is plenty to do whilst you are not there. Fay and I are rarities, dinosaurs from another era really but its perhaps a mite reassuring to know we and our mental "wrinkles" aren't completely unique.Sue


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## baz22p (Dec 1, 2008)

Sue, you probably wont expect anything different from me, but one of the easiest (I think) way to see this in others is to look at Separation Anxiety in dogs - yes, you may think I'm being as weird as ever but just think about it for a mo. A lot of dogs cannot be left at home alone for even a short whle because they loose their 'comfort zone', in other words, they want the presence of someone or something else to make them feel safe. When Separation Anxiety happens, a perfectly domesticated and wel behaved dog looses all rational sense of control - they behave in strange and unacustomed ways. But dogs, unlike some people, haven't necessarily got the stength of character to cope with this unwanted new situation. It is a situation that is governed and controlled by fear - fear of the u nknown, fear of something new. A lot of people do not like change for this reason - when faced with an alternative, they will often stick to the 'safe bet'. 'Fear of change and adaptaton' is, I think, another definition of SA.Baz


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## overitnow (Nov 25, 2001)

I think you are on to something with all of this. At the furthest end of the spectrum are the children of the First Nations here in Canada, who were forcibly separated from their parents and many subjected to horrendous abuse by the church missionaries who ran those "schools." In the end, at least one generation were so separated from their culture that for many, basic parenting skills were never passed on, with horrific rates of alcoholism, abuse, and general disfunction the result. (This is really so recent that many people I knew in the Yukon were survivors of that system.) As well as boarding and military school children, it would be interesting to know of adjustment problems from children who lived in orphanages for a comparison. I suspect there would be a range of outcomes presumably in relationship to the degree of separation experienced.Mark


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2009)

Yeah - this business of First Nation Separation has been widely researched - leastways there are alot of "hits" on Google when I went looking for information Marko. I'm currently reading Stephen Fry's first part of his autobiography "Moab's Washpot" - which Fay gave me for Chrimbo - and I'm hooked. He waxes lyrical about this phenomenum of middle class separation - add to that mix his emerging homosexuality, his Jewishness and his superior intellect - he was a misfit on a number of counts - how far all that contributed to his precarious mental health in later years and how much is genetic - who knows. See I have a mix of both - external factors like this separation in fairly early childhood and a history of mental illness. My paternal grandfather committed suicide and my dad battled with depression at Cambridge. What worries Paul and I of course (since he has depression in his family too) - what sort of legacy will we pass onto Jack, Clare (most worryingly) and Soph.Sue


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