Hi Joe and Gladys ....

When i said it was a relatively recently professionally recognized disorder that was a form of PTSD, you can see thru a search of PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez and put "Complex PTSD", you get two pages (37 articles) starting in 1996
AND, if you use the terms "Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder", you get 284 articles, dating back to 1983.
The oldest articles are from the study of military veterans.

Put "compound ptsd" in the search box, you get 11 articles dating back to 1985.
Put "compound post traumatic stress disorder", you get a different 11, back to 1985, many on children and long-term severe medical problems.

When my husband was in medical school, it was commonly said by the professors that by the time a textbook was published including "new information", it was already 10 years out of date. This is why it is good that the standard of "continuing medical education" began - where doctors cannot stay certified in their specialties without putting in "x" number of hours of study a year of specific material, and taking exams. It is impossible for ANY psychiatrist (or any specialist, unless the focus of his practice is VERY narrow) to stay up to date with all the research being published every week, reading the dozens of journals and publications, never mind buying another huge book to tackle.

I first became aware of the concept because of a woman, GD, who brought it to my attention that there was a child psychiatrist in Dallas Texas at Southern Methodist University in their pediatric psychiatric institute who had done long term, in-depth, studies of children exposed to severe repetitive prolonged environmental psychological, verbal and physical abuse. He discovered that these children were highly likely to develop the so-called Borderline Personality Disorder.

Stressors can be spaced out. Incesuous molestation over ten years, a parental rape in college, failure to cope with the pressures of a demanding professional school, losing a job when you do your job well, being abused within an intimate relationship, divorce, severe loss of living conditions, descending into poverty, being severely bullied over a period of months or years, losing all your community reputation in the process, while not a single friend comes forward to defend you --- all these stressors can progressively accumulate into SEVERE CPTSD, even tho a lessor CPTSD has existed for years.

Whether untreated and unresolved PTSD, or CPTSD, the same two brain structures SHRINK and do not begin to regain their normal size and resume normal functions until AFTER recovery.

It EXISTS. It is detectable, provable. Don't let a doctor's disbelief and lack of validating you stop you from looking for help. Help is possible, recovery is possible to a greater or lesser extent. It is worth fighting for. Read, participate in relevant support groups. If you live in metro areas or near military installations, you could call hospitals and psych clinics looking for support groups.

I've come a long way. Long way. I'm not who I was before. I am BETTER than I was before.

OneMoreTime