Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has only recently been officially recognized and is now the subject of a great deal of research because of the huge economic impact it has.

Often the result of being long-term bullied at work or online or even in volunteer organizations, it can lead to triggering the first episode of Bipolar Disorder, as well as Anxiety/Panic Disorders, Severe & Chronic Depression. It leads to sick days taken, even unpaid days taken, even simply becoming unable to any longer be able to function at work. It is an only recently recognized huge financial burden on businesses which is helping spur (but still too slowly) the training of managers and human resources to be responsive to bullying. Unfortunately, if the manager(s) or people in human resources are part of the bullying problem, sometimes bullies themselves or sometimes "snowed" by the charming, disarming and seemingly reasonable depiction of the bullied person as being the actual trouble-maker... Or as being emotionally disturbed to begin with, being the cause of their own THINKING they are being bullied.

The Complex Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by physical and/or sexual and/or emotional abuse during early childhood is considered to be the cause of the syndrome currently still officially known as "Borderline Personality Disorder".

Women (and men, too) who are emotionally abused within a close relationship, with the hallmarks of control-freakery, crazy-making, isolation from friends and family, as well as verbal and/or physical abuse - and, if the person tries to flee the relationship, stalking and terror-inducing behavior. This also leads to this type of PTSD.

This type of disorder is often seen, too, in law-enforcement in some work conditions and in many returning veterans, even if they have not had a specific critical trauma circumstance like being injured severely or witnessing the killing of comrades.

For many many years, beginning with what was first labeled SHELL SHOCK, PTSD was considered to be the result of a single overwhelming traumatic experience. A severe battle or assault, a terrifying accident (like a plane crash, et al), kidnapping, especially vicious rape - the "official definition" of PTSD meant something that was the result of a single instance of trauma.

Complex Post Traumatic Disorder due to Chronic Prolonged Abuse leads to a great deal of economic problems due to no longer being able to be productively employed, leading to bankruptcies, loss of home and sometimes family, even homelessness. Tremendous numbers will end up in on disability or, if they don't realize they can claim disability and wait too long, then extreme poverty and only SSI and Medicaid and limited housing opportunities.

Because of the increasing recognition of this type of PTSD, it is leading to the training of mental health professionals in recognizing the symptoms. Research is now going into trying to understand how best to treat the syndrome.

What the main problems are is
1) the victim being unable to seek mental health help or
2) the victim not recognizing that what is happening is abuse if it is not a fist in the face or
3) the victim's fear that seeking out a shrink will label him/her as "a head case" or
4) the victim thinking that all that is happening is somehow his/her own fault and that he can't yell help, but must just keep trying harder to get the abuser to stop the abuse. Of course, that doesn't happen.

However, what IS known already is that the best recovery for PTSD victims is when treatment begins as soon as possible. Once months and years of abuse have passed, the problems for the victim are deep and extreme, their very personality having changed..

So it is important that this group, this forum, recognize that PTSD is not a "one size fits all" problem. I think this post should be a sticky.

OneMoretime

are you saying that complex post traumatic stress disorder is different in some ways from PTSD or are you saying that the cause is different but it has the same characteristics as ptsd , or do both apply?

If the best chance of recovery for ptsd is to be treated as soon as possible, than complex post traumatic stress disorder by definition has a low chance of recovery?

I have thought about this in the past, never having heard of c-ptsd, that the definition of the cause of ptsd was very narrow and that people can become traumatized over time without having one specific life threatening incident.

I would imagine that this cause or type of ptsd is not accepted by the whole medical community at this time.

I have anxiety,panic,pain in my chest from chronic anxiety,OCD,depression,and now I'm out of work at 55,and cannot stand to many people because I had a dad who was most abusive with his flairs of anger,I was bullied at school,I was bullied at private school,I've been bullied at work over,and over by Bosses,workers,and others who could do their bullying thing. Now I'm 55,cannot stand people at work,I don't want to go outside,the center of my chest is hurting from stress,and my muscles are pulling in that area,and right at this time,I almost wish that I was dead. I'm living out in the country in a family member's old vacant house,and they don't understand what's happening to me. I'm angry,depressed,scared,and don't want to have contact with people,and I react emotionally now to the slightest thing that someone might do that I think is a violation of my honor,integrity,who I am as a person,my work,my hobbies,the way I think,and respond. So far Social Security disability won't help me. I have a sister who is trying to help me,but she has no clue of what I'm going through. Right now I just hate life,and I'm just trying to live day,by day. I have no clue what to do. I know that I'm not crazy. I even got hurt by a pastor. He was young, and inexperienced,and let some missionary punch me in the stomach two times,to expel a demon. They said I was that way because I was on my Doctor's medication,and they could not help me because of it. That was about 20 years ago. Around that time when I woke up,I would immediately have a panic attack. My sister says that she notices that I seem to have a hard time processing my thoughts in the beginning of what I'm doing. That's been true all of my life. I failed two grades even though my IQ is upper average. My chest is hurting deep down now,and there isn't anything that I can do about it. I cannot get much help at all,and this condition isn't getting any better. It seems to be getting slightly worse as the years go by. People in society never have cared much about people who are emotionally hurting,even though we are no longer in the dark ages.They only help what they see if they help at all. It's not fair.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex...tress_Disorder

<snip>Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) is a clinically recognized condition...<snip>

<snip>As a descriptor, PTSD fails to capture some of the core characteristics of C-PTSD. These elements include psychological fragmentation, the loss of a sense of safety, trust, and self-worth, as well as the tendency to be revictimized, and, most importantly, the loss of a coherent sense of self. It is this loss of a coherent sense of self, and the ensuing symptom profile, that most pointedly differentiates C-PTSD from PTSD<snip>

I think I may have more to add....just gotta log off for the moment...

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

Would this explain how someone could have borderline tendancies, and even bordeline time periods in their life...although seemingly 'healed' and not displaying those characteristics?

Because if this is true....I TOO have come A LONG WAY

Yes, Gladys ..

I just read the Wikipedia.org encyclopedia article - link ->
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex...tress_disorder

After abosorbing text, check out near the end you will find generalized Sources for the article, "See Also" which is a listing of relevant related topics, References, Footnotes and External Links to other "best sites" on the web. If you are interested in deeper background study, many local libraries operate on an interlibrary loan program where you can request the checkout of books not at your local library, but that are found at other libraries and even Colleges and Universities. All you need is the ISBN number, Author and Title, and working with a librarian to write out the request.

If you know anything about Wikipedia, not only is the entire content entirely free and reproducible anywhere, anytime, in any form.... But articles are also continually changing in minor and major ways. Click on the "Discussion tab" to see a relatively few discussions to explain editings and to seek consensus on major changes. ANYONE can register to become an editor and do everything from correcting grammar and punctuation, to clarifying a sentence or paragraph, to investigating whether a given footnote source is "clinically significant" where it represents a widely researched, well-supported, accepted and/or proven fact.

I suggest using Wiki as your jump off point if you want more information as this article has already been vetted, graded for the quality (at the date of the vetting), and is always being updated, so dead links are removed and biased inappropriate additions deleted.

To see how WikiPedia works, when you are on the Topic/Article page, click on "History" and you can see what I am talking about.

And Gladys, The Borderline Personality Disorder is considered to be the only PD that can be successfully treated (letting sufferers gain substantial interpersonal stability) with medications and various types of therapies. Cognitive therapy is was the first proven effective, but there are others now, even one involving moving the eyes (used in the aftermath of 9/11). Medications include antidepressants, epilepsy medications (to calm panicky agitation) and sometimes the lesser and major tranquilizers. It is best to work with a doctor who is flexible and responsive to your feedback.

There is a school of thought, supported by European "separated at birth twin studies" -(no longer allowed)- that there appears there may be a genetic component of vulnerability to "degree of reaction to stress." It will be some years along before the all this is proven or disproven, but through-out the PDs, there does seem seem a significant genetic component. Not all will develop the same degree of personality characteristics and symptomatic thinking, emotions and behaviors, but you get the idea.

I do, as I said, strongly encourage all who are interested in CPTSD to check out the Wikipedia Encyclopedia article link above. I read it carefully and found it to be, indeed, a significantly good representation of what I have learned from many authoritative sources since early 2000 when that doctor in Dallas first introduced me to the disorder.

OneMoreTime

I came accross this site as I was reading through what I can find on-line. Hope it's helpful to some of you!

http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/ncdo...plex_ptsd.html

<snip>There is a tendency to blame the victim.
A person who has been abused repeatedly is sometimes mistaken as someone who has a "weak character."

Because of their chronic victimization, in the past, survivors have been misdiagnosed by mental-health providers as having Borderline, Dependent, or Masochistic Personality Disorder. When survivors are faulted for the symptoms they experience as a result of victimization, they are being unjustly blamed.

Researchers hope that a new diagnosis will prevent clinicians, the public, and those who suffer from trauma from mistakenly blaming survivors for their symptoms.

Summary
The current PTSD diagnosis often does not capture the severe psychological harm that occurs with prolonged, repeated trauma. For example, long-term trauma may impact a healthy person's self-concept and adaptation. The symptoms of such prolonged trauma have been mistaken for character weakness. Research is currently underway to determine if the Complex PTSD diagnosis is the best way to categorize the symptoms of patients who have suffered prolonged trauma. <snip>

Thanks so much, Gladys for finding and posting this link. This is exactly why I have generally been referring to "BPD" for so many years as "so-called Borderline Personality Disorder", as I am (personally) virtually convinced that BPD is not a true extreme form of a particular "personality type", but is an outcome of childhood abuse. I think the older you are when the abuse hits severe levels is instrumental in whether or not cutting behaviors and strong suicidal drives develop. But, I will point out again, this is my own gut-level personal take on it (but based on research) ... but I strongly believe futher research will continue to support this understanding.

I think we are well on our way of giving this new forum an excellent start as a educational and supportive resource.

Oh and by the way, regarding how some feel that some persons are more vulnerable - that is not to suggest that they are "weak" or "damaged goods at birth" or "prone to mental illness" ------ it is more of simply personally type. Some of us are more sensitive.... women are moreso, I think the studies show, to be diagnosed as "bpd".

And as for abuse received as an adolescent or adult (particularly in a woman's case), she IS blamed for her own problems, as bringing them on herself. She is not seen as abused and needing rescue, validation and treatment, but is scorned and deprecated as a human being.

For those exposing the abuse of childhood, they often become the black sheep of the family for revealing the sick family secrets and for suggesting the public faces of the abusers are mere masks.

Hugs to my sister in recovery...
Teri
OneMoreTime

(((Teri)))

It's great to have another soul on this planet thinking along the same lines as myself.

I went into community forum and there is a request link for forums. I requested that this C-PTSD be stickied and for PD boards. I hope they can do this! I bet there's lots of people out there, reading this...and needing advice and support...especially from people who do indeed 'get it.'

I know that there is a psyche talk, but in all reality, I have a neurological disease, MS...and well I enjoy the 'one-stop' shopping benefits that this board seems to offer. And I know that there are indeed others like ourselves out there....

Blessings to you on this beautiful day!!!