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I found this link from the UK Trauma Psychological Society, even the Royal College of Psychiatrists recognise as well as the NHS, but it's not mentioned in the NICE guidelines (national institute for care excellence).  I suppose the organisation is waiting for the WHO to list it.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwis2rKjp-PVAhWsBsAKHaFBDYkQFggoMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bps.org.uk%2Fsystem%2Ffiles%2FPublic%2520files%2FPolicy%2Fukpts_guideline_for_treating_complex_ptsd_draft_for_external_circulation.docx&usg=AFQjCNEl6Lw0LwjzMJNX3a0L3B-WVQklgQ

Thank you Libby, I work with adults who have learning disabilities/autism and anxiety. It's through my safeguarding adults and person-centred-care and equality and diversity training that has enabled me to transfer the skills to parenting the two youngest children who are 4 and 21 months, plus I'm in a stable marriage and husband has a nice family.  I also love learning so have researched attachment styles and how to provide a secure attachment.  I vowed never to treat my oldest, the way I was treated but did fall back on emotional abuse as I didn't know how to parent effectively, the saving grace was/is that I loved her the moment I found out I was pregnant.  Our relationship wobbled as she hit teens but we are in a good place now.  She feels safe with me when life gets difficult for her.  Breaking the cycle of abuse is an uphill struggle, I want my children to be strong, happy and confident.  I want to shake off my chains which anchor me in the past and enjoy life, reach my potential.

I am so grateful that there are people like you who can empathise.  I'll also let you know how I get on with the initial counselling assessment.  I see that NICE and the NHS do have CPTSD guidelines.  I suppose because CPTSD is in the beginnings of being officially recognised, treatment will be hit and miss to begin with.

Thank you Three Swans, I am so pleased to have found this group.  I now know what's wrong with me.  I have a counselling session on September 4th, over the phone for depression, but I will tell the therapist that I have CPTSD and hopefully will be referred to appropriate services as this therapist will only be offering CBT.

Hi Libby12,

I've always thought that I've had depression, but some of my symptoms didn't seem to fit.  I developed trauma during my last pregnancy because of previous bad experiences with my other two.  One member of the birth trauma group yesterday posted about PTSD, so I did some reading.  PTSD seemed to fit the bill for my pregnancy, but I became curious about the feelings etc of the last goodness knows how long, from a newborn baby I suppose.   PTSD and depression didn't quite cover my experiences.  I found an article on CPTSD and bingo! I found exactly what I am experiencing.  It is exhausting going through this.  My trigger is my mum, when she becomes more of a presence in my life and the old issues of not quite knowing if I a the parent or therapist and then the lips tightening and silent treatment, having to listen to her same problems over and over again and then saying that my father was a decent man as he came from better stock than my stepfather who was a very gentle man but allowed my mum to control him and reduced his life to sitting in an armchair when he retired.  He wasn't even allowed to go to the kitchen to make a cup of tea without it causing an issue.  My oldest child spent a lot of time with my mum while I was working and now has social anxiety, rock bottom self esteem.  But what makes me so bloody angry is the fact my mum says on occasion that my father was a decent man, that is the ultimate smack in my face.

My father from as long as I can remember hated me, anything could trigger he to tell me to get to my room and wait for him.  Sometimes I would be in my room in a heightened state of panic for up to an hour. He would then come in, make me pull down my clothes and bend over the bed and hit me in the backside, lower back area until I was begging and my body twisting the pain, the more I begged and pleaded the harder he would hit, until he was exhausted.  Oh my god this is painful to write.  Anything would be the trigger, eating chewing gum a friend had given me, I wasn't allowed to do that.  Laughing and playing with friends, I'd be called in by my mum and my father would ground me, one time for 6 months.  If I didn't finish my food, I would get another beating.  I would feel physically sick while having to swallow the food down.  Other times when I was 5 years old my mum would make a packed lunch with food she thought I should eat, not what I liked.  If I didn't eat my packed lunch, I would have to go to my room, have my clothes pulled down and be beaten and sent to bed with no tea, so not only didn't I have lunch I also didn't have tea.  One time in Canada, after not being allowed into the living room for a few days my father allowed me to sit in their, but I had to sit with my back to the television, if I looked he threatened that I would return to my room and wait for him.  Those thirteen years were a constant state of alert, fear and the start of internalising my anger. At the age of 10 I used to fantasise of running away and living on the streets in Vancouver.  My grandparents did emigrate to Canada and hen the level of abuse got so bad, my grandparents made my mum and father take me to theirs for a week or two in the summer where I was given the love and kindness I needed.  My grandparents, aunt, uncle's wife and cousins are the ones who showed me how I should have been treated.  My mum left my father when friends of hers witnessed him kicking me because my mum's friend had put lipstick on me.  I don't remember this, but I do remember him trying to make me look like a boy, by having all my long hair cut off short and the clothes I had to wear were awful, this was aged 13.  Things didn't improve when we left my father, my mum was extremely controlling, at age 16 she would lay clothes out on my bed which she had chosen and I would have to wear.  I was the laughing stock of all my peers.  This is when drugs such as MDMA really took hold of my life and running away from home etc. Another incident which sticks out in my mind is when I was in my final stage of pregnancy with my oldest child, I was doubled over in pain on all fours and my mum asked me to do something.  She was stood in the bathroom putting lipstick on.  I said I couldn't I was in pain, she then called me a selfish *, I was in the first stage of labour.  By this stage in my life, aged 25, I no longer feared her, even though she did make me anxious with her threats escalating to things such as she would phone social services to remove my child, because she saw a man help me up the steps to my flat with shopping and pushchair.  But the fear had now been replaced with rage and hatred towards my mum.  My mum on the other hand has no recollection of any of these incidents and has a way of saying that she did her best for me.  I am terrified of parenting my children the same way and try to provide a secure attachment but there a periods of time where my memories break through and the rage comes and my children look at me with fear.  It breaks my heart, I try to explain that I'm not well and that they have done nothing wrong and that I'm going to try hard to get better.  But my depression has been rumbling on for a couple of years now and recently I have developed dermatillomania and now have a bald patch on my head where I've been picking my scalp.  Sorry for long post but this is a brief summary of my life.

Hi, I'm 43, for the first 13 years of life I was physically and emotionally abused by my father while my mum would say we'll leave one day.  I was bullied at school from age 6 to 16, every day, threats of violence at school then go home threats of violence and actual violence at home.  My mum and I left my father when I was 13 but my mum was psychologically suffocating and would control who I was and flit between being nice and giving me the silent treatment to being downright nasty.  I have long thought that I've suffered with depression when old memories start to surface of my childhood to the point they consume my every waking moment and go on for several months.  In this time I go into rages, overwhelming guilt and numbness, making life miserable for my children and husband.  I believe my husband is trying to control me and I start getting paranoid and feeling trapped in my life.

I have been diagnosed with narcolepsy with cataplexy through a lumbar puncrure which shows low hypocretin levels.  I also have chronic pain/suspected fibromyalgia which both conditions can be brought on by abuse. 

I turned to drugs when I was 15 and by 19 was on heroin.  I gave up the drug when I was 23, had my first child at 25 but my mum maintained a tight grip on my life even though I didn't live with her, this feeling of anxiety she would cause me.  I don't have anything to do with my father.  I don't really want anything to do with my mother but I end up feeling guilty if i don't phone. 

Anyway just wondering if this cyclical thinking that takes over my life is CPTSD or depression?