I got my first diagnosis (history of trauma w/reoccurring nightmares and severe flashbacks of those even, with a tendency to run) in 1983.
I don't still have my shoes ready to go at all times anymore cause I have finally settled into the safety of myself now.
I have my membership requirement just read the paper and you will find a huge part of my story there although that would probably still be on microfiche. Lol

Oh, c'mon, Arfster, y'know I got my Nerd Hat on.... all the time!

What's fascinating to me is, the acceptance of it with a "real name" around 1980 simply gave Hollyweird a chance to warp it for "entertainment value". Ugh. If I had a dollar for every 1980s TV show or movie where PTSD was a convenient plot device (and misrepresented).... OK, never mind.

It's interesting that it took so long to really get from naming it (sort of) to *doing* something, and to finding a place to put it in the DSM.

OK, rambling now...

hmmm... taking this brief moment to read this and reflect on it explains SOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!! it was very much like a fad thing when we entered to mental health programs trying to get help. that was in the late 90's *snort* not much has changed.

Leo, I thought you were the founding president of the Nerd Club... I put a laurel crown on a stuffed puma and crayoned a plaque saying, "Leo. 1st Nerd Prez."

My first consistent therapy series in the Army, from 1973 to 1976. As a history refresher, the US pulled out of Vietnam on 29 March 1973. http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0329.html#article . The draft had ended in January, 1973. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/72085.html US military recruiters were some of the loneliest people on the planet that year. They had time to do mission work. I was one of their community projects. It saddens me that my 2015 counterpart would not qualify for today's US military. Considering how much we pay for our Armed Forces, seems like giving a few throw-away-kids a break is the least they could be doing for us.

I think often about the combat veterans I shared therapy with in Germany from 1974 to 1976, along with other survivors of the undeclared war on our city streets who went through boot camp, etc., with me. For sure, we were not using much of the same language that is being used in this forum. "Flashback" was still a Hollywood film technique. Neither "trauma" nor "stress" were commonly used words. Strung together??? What language are you speaking???

Still, two decades later, when the PTSD dx started bouncing around the VA centers where I was still attending groups, et al., we pounced on the label like nerd club pumas starved for an ounce of respect.

Sigh... I often wonder if I just suffer PSD (Psychiatric Slang Disorder). Comes from reading too many self-help books???

Now, now, Arfie, don't de-actuate your self-realizing psychoneologistic potential!

(Can you tell self-help books once wandered into my lair? You need a special thesaurus. And yes, the word "psychoneologistic" was in one. On behalf of linguists everywhere: *ow*.)

I do understand that need, and never underestimate it. SUDEP is a rare complication of epilepsy, not named until the mid-late 1990s (depending which side of the Atlantic you're on). It killed my sister. Until then, of course, nothing did. And yet, she was dead. To have a name, a label, gave us comfort. It reduced our confusion to a manageable state. Years later, but hey, at least we got that hook to hang the hat on. We pounced on that label like, well, y'know, data-starved nerd-pumas!

"Shell shock"was much easier. My dad was treated for years, they fried his brain several times, but the anger always came back. But "shell shock"could not take into consideration what those that had it came home and did to their families, or the ripples of reactions that carried on to their children. I am the mess in petri dish of that experiment.

Here's a timeline, too.
1. Uruguay's dictators took over in Feb. 1973
2. I was tortured in Dec. 1973 (PTSD)
3. I got out to safety in USA in Dec. 1976. Bounced around with symptoms for a decade.
4. In 1985 first got into counseling with first meds for depression AND democracy returned to Uruguay.
5. 1995 published my book about Uruguay and received my first formal PTSD diagnosis, starting on my first real road to recovery.

Thanks for putting that all in perspective, arfie. Wow!

Leo, of course I had to do a web search on "psychoneologistic." Looks like just another creative word kludge that didn't even make it to the Urban Dictionary, much less the academic dogma halls. Leave it to me to qualify for yet another fringe potential no one even wants to learn how to pronounce, much less understand. Think I'll go hide my apiarist head in a honey comb.

Jewells, most of the Viet Nam combat vets I shared therapy with responded to the term, "Shell Shock" with an enthusiasm roughly equal to my acceptance of "Manic Depression." Yea, it gave us a name to call it for the sake of discussion, but the theories and treatments had holes big enough to sail aircraft carriers through. Those holes swallowed entire families with tragic regularity. So sorry you were in one of those families. May we search for the healing strength together?

Interesting to add to PTSD timeline, historic moment when world leaders emerge who admit to having PTSD:

1. Michele Bachelet, president of Chile, torture survivor (her father died during torture)
2. Jose' Mujica, president of Uruguay, torture survivor, spoke openly of his own PTSD at speech he gave when cutting the ribbon on a new mental hospital in 2013
3. Dilma Rousseff, president of Brazil, torture survivor.

Is PTSD coming out of the closet to show that some PTSD survivors actually can achieve more?

No comment on the age thingy. Ok wait, I was in diapers. Look! PTSD was born right out of the shoot!

I think people are still confused with the labels. I have a young friend of the family who has extreme trauma but did not know what to call it and he was angry he had to label it because his entire life he was tired of being labeled a nerd (there were other words used for him I will not write here). His thoughts were very deep and I understood exactly what he was saying. His question to me was:

"why do we need labels? It is like we are being inventoried. Why do doctors not just say 'you are feeling this way because...' and treat it rather than label it. We are all different".

I told him... the way I see it is pretty close to that, being we need to treat the symptoms but at the same time we do need to categorize symptoms to a point so that we know how to begin treating them. Take a tumor for instance. There could be two people with a tumor in the exact same place. One is cancerous, one is not. We need to know the difference and name it because each would be treated completely different.

It got a lot deeper than that and he was adamant on no label. I agree to a point I suppose. I told him I have PTSD. He had never heard of it and asked what it was. I explained my situation and what PTSD is (Post Trauma Stress Disorder) and what happened to me to "classify" it as such and his face lit up. "Now I understand, I know what is going on with me and the post trauma makes a lot of sense".

I don't know if this is on the same track of what you are saying but it is what I got out of it

My understanding is that PTSD for not vets is not that old of a diagnosis. Before a lot of people who had suffered trauma were diagnosed with schizophrenia, psychosis, BPD...

It was not until the maybe late 80s in like NYC but like you said early 90s that they started realizing child abuse and neglect could cause PTSD as severe as in vets.