Welcome Inside My Head · Track 03

PTSD

Caitlin Beadles3:44Out now

Official release

Listen to the song

Choose where you listen. Every stream opens the official release.

Listen on Apple MusicStream the official release Listen on SpotifyOpen this song in Spotify

Extended & alternate releases

More ways to hear this song will live here.Acoustic, extended, demo, remix, or alternate versions can be added without changing this page.

Lyric sheet

Lyrics

Verse 1

My body’s in fight or flight,

Even when my mind says I’m fine tonight.

DNA rewired by the things I’ve seen,

They called me “Trauma Queen” on a hospital sheet.

You don’t see the scars, you just see the car,

Sayin’, “What could you even be sad about?”

But you don’t know the nights that I bled,

Flatlined four times, awake on the edge.

Chorus

You say control it with my mind—

But my body’s screaming every time.

Triggers hidden in a sound, in a color, in a street,

And you think it’s that easy just to breathe?

PTSD—yeah, it lives in me,

Every cell, every bone, every memory.

Don’t ask me what I’ve got to be sad about,

You want the truth? Then I’ll spell it out.

This pain, this fight, it’s my history—

PTSD, it’s the pulse in me.

Verse 2

Missed sixth grade, sickness stole my youth,

Months went by until the doctors found the proof.

Boat accident—blood in the tide,

They prepped to take my leg, I never closed my eyes.

Watched a baby die in her mama’s embrace,

Brother overdosed, house was a war place.

Don’t tell me to smile when I’ve lived through war,

Every scar you can’t see is another I bore.

Chorus

You say control it with my mind—

But my brain is fractured, re-designed.

Every tick, every loop, every sleepless night,

Every trigger pulls me back to fight.

PTSD—yeah, it lives in me,

Every cell, every bone, every memory.

Don’t ask me what I’ve got to be sad about,

You want the truth? Then I’ll scream it out.

This pain, this fight, it’s my history—

PTSD, it’s the pulse in me.

Verse 3

Watched friends slip away, one took his own life,

Another died young while I clung to the fight.

Narcissistic abuse left me battered and used,

Break-ins, death threats, my brother I feared to lose.

Some nights I prayed for my pain to end,

But somehow kept breathing again and again.

Pulled dogs from the fights, trying to save their lives,

Every rescue became another goodbye.

Bridge

You see the smile, but you don’t see the weight,

You see the house, but you don’t see the cage.

Professional at pushing through,

But inside I’m breaking in front of you.

It’s not weakness, it’s survival,

Every day’s a trial,

And if you wore my skin,

You’d stop asking why.

Final Chorus

PTSD—yeah, it lives in me,

Not a phase, not a choice, it’s my legacy.

Don’t ask me what I’ve got to be sad about,

If you knew the half, you’d never doubt.

This pain, this fight, it’s my history—

PTSD, it’s the pulse in me.

PTSD… it beats in me.

From the notebook

The handwritten lyric page

PTSD

My body’s in fight or flight,
even when my mind says I’m fine tonight.

This pain, this fight—
it’s my history.

It’s not weakness,
it’s survival.

PTSD… it beats in me. ♡

Behind the song

The story inside it

“You see the smile, but you don’t see the weight.”

I wrote PTSD because people often see the outside of a life and decide they understand the inside. They see a smile, a home, or the fact that I kept moving, but they do not see the nights, losses, medical trauma, fear, and memories my body is still carrying.

This song puts words to the difference between knowing I am safe and feeling safe. My mind can say I am fine while my body is still in fight or flight. A sound, a color, or a street can bring the past into the present before I have time to explain it.

PTSD is not a plea for pity. It is my answer to every person who treated survival like weakness or asked what I had to be sad about. I am still here, but surviving is not the same as healing. The song asks people to stop judging the visible surface and believe the invisible battle underneath it.

— Caitlin

Community support room

You don’t have to carry it alone.

Step into a gentle, members-only conversation about what this song brought up for you. Share your story, listen without judgment, and leave a little hope for someone else.

PTSD Support CirclePrivate for Music Attic keyholders

Enter the support room

Keep a piece of the song

Wear the words. Keep the story.

Explore lyric keepsakes, album-inspired pieces, and merch made for the songs that feel like part of your own story.

Shop this song’s collection

Your private reflection space

Take this song to the Listening Journal.

Write down what PTSD brought up for you, the lyric you needed, or the part of your own story you heard inside it.

Open the Listening Journal