PTSD Living: That Cruel Voice In Your Head. Leading Therapist on War Trauma & Complex PTSD Recovery

Ana’s piece, “That Cruel Voice In Your Head,” is one of her most intimate and clinically profound offerings yet. Through the metaphor of the Captain, Ana doesn’t just describe hypervigilance—she reframes it as sacred, powerful, and worthy of respect. This isn’t a poem. It’s a clinical reorientation of inner survival structures, delivered through poetic narrative, and rooted in somatic intelligence, IFS (Internal Family Systems), and trauma-informed recovery.

 

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What Ana Is Saying

Ana is redefining the “cruel,” loud, command-like voice that trauma survivors often live with. This voice—the one that never lets them rest, pushes them through fear, shames their softness, rushes them to act—is not broken or abusive.

It is the Captain:
A once-curious, confident, alive part that was forced to transform into a hypervigilant protector in order to survive trauma, war, displacement, and injustice.

Ana isn’t just naming this part—she is witnessing it and inviting survivors to shift their relationship to it.

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Core Message & Teaching

What you call harsh or cruel inside yourself may actually be the most loyal part of you—the one that carried you through when everything else fell apart.

This “cruel” inner voice:

• Was not born that way.

• Was forced to become a warrior when peace, trust, and ease were no longer available.

• Became hypervigilant not to hurt you, but to keep you alive.

Ana teaches that PTSD and trauma healing is not about silencing this voice—but about bowing to it, witnessing it, and inviting it to finally rest.

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Key Takeaways & Lessons

1. The hypervigilant voice is a transformed part—not a defect

• It didn’t appear from nowhere.

• It evolved out of necessity when the inner child was left unprotected.

• It became the Captain: structured, fast-moving, commanding, and intense.

2. That part holds sacred intelligence

• It’s not sabotaging you—it’s holding your nervous system together.

• It led you through war, displacement, injustice, humiliation, and fear.

• It pushed you to get up when you wanted to collapse.

3. This voice is rooted in somatic memory, not weakness

• You can’t simply “quiet” it with self-help tools.

• It doesn’t respond to invalidation—it responds to being seen and honored.

• The Captain “goes nuts” at slowness because urgency was the survival language.

4. Healing happens when the adult self reclaims...

Chapters

• (00:00:01) - The HyperVigilant Part of People with PTSD
• (00:09:47) - A Moment of Rest for the Captain