Understanding OCD and complex trauma with Alexandra Walker

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:00

Coming up in today's episode, we are taking a close look at complex trauma and obsessive compulsive disorder. We are chatting with Alexandra, who is somebody who has experienced these things from her childhood, and we pieced together what has contributed to what she's experienced in adulthood. I think this is a really interesting topic. I hope it's one that you will relate to. I hope you find it so useful.

(: 00:31

Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, and I am a qualified clinical psychologist. For those of you who've been in my world for a little while, you might already know that working with people with complex trauma and grief is one of my clinical specialties. This is something that I started in my career in the NHS and have continued into my private practise. But what is complex trauma? What are the symptoms that will commonly crop up? What might contribute to it? And how can OCD make sense as a way of coping and surviving? This is what we are talking about in today's episode as I speak with a real person who has experienced these difficulties. I hope you find it really useful, really interesting, and I'll look forward to catching up with you on the other side. Hi, just want to welcome along our guest for today, Alexandra. Hi. Thank you for being here.

Alexandra Walker (: 01:29

Hi there, Marianne. It's lovely to be here.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:31

Thank you. So we wanted to have a chat today about your experiences growing up and how that's shaped you and what you've reclaimed from that, really. And I know that your book is called Reclaiming Christmas, so I'm sure we'll hear a little bit more about that if anyone that's like reclaiming Christmas, where are we? We are recording this in May, but this is just a book title. It's not a seasonal book, is it? It's a book for anyone that's interested in learning more about trauma. So just before we get going, tell us a little bit about yourself, Alexandra.

Alexandra Walker (: 02:09

Yeah, of course. So I started off life in academia. I did a post doctorate in applied maths, and I met my husband who did a post-doctorate in physics. That tended to end quite a lot of conversations when we told people that because it's a slightly scary combination. But then we moved to London and pursued corporate careers. So I was in the civil service for 12 years and then moved into the charitable sector, but I just wasn't happy and I wasn't well basically for that entire time. And so I've been through quite a long journey of getting better and understanding why I had a bit of a myriad of mental health issues. And I've now recently set up my new business damsel, not in distress to support people to recover after life challenges. And I now live in what is today the very sunny northwest highlands of Scotland.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 02:59

Wow. What a journey. What a journey. And I can see why that might have stopped dinner party conversations because of how daunted people must be by the incredible genius of you and your husband combined. But Northwest Scotland sounds beautiful.

Alexandra Walker (: 03:14

Yes. Well, it turned out Hillwalking has been a massive part of my recovery, and I slightly unnerved my husband when we were living in London. And it was just after my mother had died about 10 years ago and I said, I think we should try to climb All the Munros, which are the hills above 3000 feet. The only thing there being there are 282 of them, and it's quite a feat to try and climb them all from London because obviously you have a very long journey to even get to the foot of the hill before you can start. But we did it all in about seven years and finished just during the pandemic actually. But walking is just a wonderful restorative thing for me. So we're now here permanently, which is beautiful.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 03:54

Amazing. That sounds like a worthy pitch in itself, wanting to climb all of the Monroes.

Alexandra Walker (: 04:02

Yes, at the beginning I had no idea what I was getting myself into to be honest. But I got incredibly much fitter than I was before and scrambled up rock faces and into things I'd never imagined I would do I abseiled, which I seriously never imagined I would do. So yes, it's certainly got me to try out new things and get comfortable with new things.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 04:24

Well, I'm really pleased to hear that you found a wonderful coping strategy. But of course what would be useful to know is a little bit about what you are trying to cope with and why. And I'm aware this is not a therapy session, and so I always want you to feel protected and safe in what we're talking about. But in terms of our listeners, they are often psychology students or psychology graduates pursuing professional psychology qualifications. And so it would be a really nice opportunity for myself and for our listeners and watchers to kind of get a little bit of an understanding about what complex trauma is, what kind of things might create it. Would that be okay, Alexandra?

Alexandra Walker (: 05:13

Of course. And that is part of my mission in life now, so I'm very comfortable to share about it. So the crux of my issues I now understand has unfortunately been that I suffered emotional abuse from my father. And that I believe started before I was aware because my first memory of him as being wary of him when I was about four, but I did not realise what the issue was. A bit like just being that frog in ever increasing hot water. You just don't know what you don't know, and you certainly don't know what normal looks like or what good looks like. You just know what your environment is. And there's no doubt that my father loved me, but he was a very complicated character. And the best analogy I've come up with is that he was like Jekyll and Hyde, the Robert Louis Stevenson novel where he could be really loving and caring one minute and then suddenly become really angry and difficult the next. And for a young child, I think not knowing what version of your caregiver is going to pitch up is really, really unnerving.

(: 06:23

That is the crux of the story. But if you roll back 20 years, I didn't know any of this. I was a young adult, I already had a few mental health issues, so I had a spider phobia from pretty much as long as I can remember, which was very bad. Even talking about them was difficult, let alone seeing one which was way more traumatic. And then there were the early signs of OCD, which turned up when I was a teenager then. And it's interesting how these events kind of layer onto each other. The next thing that happened was that I unfortunately contracted pneumonia when I was 15, and I had to have very strong antibiotics to deal with the pneumonia, which absolutely categorically saved my life. Unfortunately. What they also did was basically strip my digestive system of all the good bacteria. And again, I know that now, I didn't know at the time what was going on.

(: 07:22

All I knew was that I got discharged from a hospital with a pneumonia a few days, I think it was Christmas Eve actually. And then a couple of days later I was in agony. I couldn't eat anything. I literally could not eat anything and nobody knew what was wrong with me. And to cut a long story short, I was in hospital for a number of weeks and it was an incredibly distressing experience and in particular distressing because unfortunately it was a very busy time and I don't remember anyone really being kind to me. So I was on my own a lot of the time in a lot of pain. And secondly, nobody knew what was wrong with me and I got some kind of misdiagnosis stuff coming in, which was really difficult to deal with as well. So basically in a nutshell, I developed post-traumatic stress disorder from that and it really intensified my OCD.

(: 08:13

So that was after that I was being incredibly protective about germs. I mean, it's kind of natural in a way. I never want that to happen to me again. So I am just going to be very careful. But of course it's steps over into being a disorder when it kind of stops you functioning very well. So I remember when I started my first jobs in London, it was things like touching door handles or buttons in the lift. And my particular favourite was having to shake people's hands. And I would actually try to actively avoid this by just holding bundles of stuff in my arms when I met people and just go, oh, I'm sorry I can't shake your hand. Because I didn't want them to feel bad because I knew it wasn't anything to do with them. It was my thing. But nonetheless, I want to shake their hands.

(: 08:56

And I also carried antibacterial gel around with me everywhere so that if I was forced into doing any of these things, I would just surreptitiously clean my hands afterwards to feel a bit better. And then the final bit of the story is that in my late twenties, and this was probably the most disturbing development, I got full-blown what I call responsibility OCD. So it was basically an action or inaction of mine harming someone else. And I mean literally I could hardly get to work. I had to walk to work and I could hardly get to work because I would see broken glass and think, oh, I better move that, otherwise someone might fall over or there's a banana skin, there's the classic banana skin or catching a stick or something in the corner of my eye and thinking, oh, is it a needle? Do I need to work all these things? It becomes all pervasive, and I know you'll know this. I get very frustrated when people say, oh, I'm just a little bit OCD. And I know they don't mean it badly, but I'm like, OCD is not a little bit, OCD is like a rogue programme in a computer that just takes over and stops the proper programmes from running. So that I suppose, is an overview of some of the issues that I faced. So there we go. There's at the start of a 10.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 10:15

Thank you. And I'm just really sorry that you kind of had to experience all of that. And it obviously led to you probably during treatment for your OCD and your PTSD from the hospital stay led you to explore and realise other things. And I just want to touch on the point that you'd said about, I've no doubt that my dad loved me, but I think this is something that crops up quite often with my clients and those that my listeners will be working with as well. It's like he loved you the best he could, but that doesn't mean that you didn't deserve more as a little baby as a child, even as an adult. You deserved something more compassionate, more consistent, more that helped you thrive. Yeah. So I don't don't want to discredit the love that you did feel from him, but actually he did the best he could, but that wasn't good enough.

Alexandra Walker (: 11:12

No, and I'll tell you something, Marianne. So I'm an active Christian. I'm on a real journey about what forgiveness means in this particular instance because it's really, really tough. I don't know whether I can say he did the best he could in the circumstances he was in, which is a phrase that I can't even tell you that there were times laterally where he showed me, he actually admitted he was doing things intentionally when his guard was down, he actually died an alcoholic, but towards the end, he always had an issue with alcohol, but it became much worse and more pronounced towards the end. And I remember once he was picking on me about something and I said, surely you wouldn't make my life difficult in this way. Please, please don't. He was threatening to do something that would make my life very tricky, and he just looked at me and said, what if I could get one over on you? And I'll never forget, I just thought, my goodness, you've just been really honest about actually being a bit premeditated about this. So yeah, look, it is very, very tricky to deal with situations where people have caused you harm and trying to figure out how much was unintentional and how much was intentional is tricky. Did

Dr Marianne Trent (: 12:19

You ever get a sense of what his upbringing was like and whether this was totally errant and totally rogue and all about him or whether he was kind of carrying on intergenerational intergenerational trauma?

Alexandra Walker (: 12:32

It's a really good question. And actually one of the things when I finally became aware of what the issue was consciously aware, I put it aside for so long. I remember my counsellor would kind of ask me about my parents. I think she had figured out very early on what the issue was in general terms. I would just say, oh no, don't look over there. Why are you asking me about that? Stop asking me about that. And then eventually I became aware of what was going on and began to kind of fight against it actually a little bit. Anyway, what I'm struggling with now, so my mother died 10 years ago, and then my father died last year, sadly after we had estranged because of his alcoholism.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 13:13

Were your parents together until your mum died?

Alexandra Walker (: 13:16

Yes. Yes, they were. But there's basically no one left. There are very, very few people who know about my past. There are some people who remember me as a child with my parents, and I've actually gone back to some of them and asked them, can I chat to you honestly just to get your impressions? And basically all of them in their different ways have verified my story. Obviously they didn't see my father behind closed doors in a family situation, but they definitely saw that difficult streak in him and they had. So I've got that validation, which is helpful. But when it comes to going further back, there is no one I can talk to. What I can say is that I do not think that he had a difficult childhood. I mean, I think everyone has aspects from what I've read, and I'm obviously not an expert in this, but when you come to narcissism, one of the backgrounds they talk about is where a child is put on a pedestal and that can cause those kind of narcissistic things to come, tendencies to come out.

(: 14:17

And I think with him, he was definitely the favourite of the three children in his family, and that was demonstrated in a number of ways. So my gut feeling is that it was more that, and that's still an issue that he had to deal with because my suspicion is that he was kind of told the world is your oyster. You are really special. You are going to go and do amazing things. And in fact, he did go and do really amazing things. Went to university, I think the first in the family and all that kind of thing. I then have pieced together that he had quite a lot of disappointments, really quite difficult disappointments that came his way when I was a toddler. Actually, a lot of things that happened all at once. So I just piecing it together. My working hypothesis, if you like, is that he felt that everything was brilliant in the world and he could do what he wanted and then he suddenly got shocks to the system, which showed him that wasn't true. And all of those things combined were probably what led to some of his more problematic behaviour. I dunno if you think that sounds feasible, but yeah.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 15:17

Yeah, it certainly sounds feasible. And often when we're working with people who have got a complex trauma diagnosis or complex trauma presentation should we say, which is a cluster of different kind of presenting problems that we might well go through shortly, there's sometimes been, in terms of making a therapeutic difference, it can be really important that somebody's had some caregiver or someone in their life that's been a good or good enough figure. Have you had that and was that your mum or was she kind of complicated too?

Alexandra Walker (: 15:57

So this is a really interesting question. Again, my mother was a beautiful, wonderful person and she wanted children more than anything in the world. And that's what everyone who knows her from the past tells me she wanted you more than anything. And I was the only child who survived. There were quite a lot of miscarriages and difficulties. She was definitely an amazing mother in my younger years. The bit which I'm coming to terms with now, which is harder, and this is not a reflection on her, but she was in a very difficult relationship with my father, and she was so loyal to him. She was unbelievably loyal to him, but it took its toll on her, which I can now see. So I've now realised, well, I physically lost my mother 10 years ago. Actually, I probably really lost her about 20 years ago because when I look back, she just changed.

(: 16:54

She became a bit of a shadow of her former self, and that is something I've only understood more recently. So yes, I think she was the foundation for making this easier for me than it might otherwise have been. That's for sure. And one of the ways I think that's played out is you often see children who've been through traumatic experiences in their childhood. They might then go and get a partner who is also difficult and displays similar problematic behaviours, and that you can get into a bit of a vicious cycle. I've questioned quite a lot, why did I marry such a wonderful person, which I did. I mean, he is just a wonderful loving husband. We're coming up to our 20th wedding anniversary. He married me not knowing what he was getting himself into in terms of the family dynamic and got a bit of a shock. But I think maybe that was a sign that I did have an understanding of what good looked like and I was actually seeking it and found it luckily, which was a huge part of my recovery.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 17:53

Yeah, I'm really pleased that you've been able to marry into a family that's predictable, consistent, safe, calm, respectful, all the time, hopefully. And that really makes such a difference. I dunno if you went on to become a parent yourself, but I think it just helps you really appreciate what it was that you didn't have.

Alexandra Walker (: 18:16

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Actually, my husband and I chose not to have children, and that's always quite a multifaceted decision. But I will say if I'm being really honest, I just knew I was not in a place to be a good mother, and that was part of it instinctively, I just thought, I'm all over the place. How on earth if I can't look after myself now, I'm not saying that would be the case for everyone. I think everyone makes their own decisions for a bunch of reasons. I think I just felt I also just didn't really want it and I was able to be honest about that and go, well, if it's not really something I am wanting and I think it's going to be a struggle, then maybe that's not a good thing to do. Whereas I think with other people I can see they think, well, this may be challenging, but it's something I really want and therefore it'll help me, that'll enable me to step up and do new things and learn new things and new ways of being. So yeah, I think at the heart of it was probably I didn't really want it and therefore decided it wasn't worth it for me, if that makes sense.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 19:16

It does. And I think with children, I think you need to really, really want it because they'll wreck your life. I've got two of the beasts, and I had them slightly later in life, probably not that late in terms of modern, but I had my first one when I was 31, and by that time I'd had such a wonderful life. I'd been travelling, I was a professionally qualified psychologist, I was married, I'd had many lovely adventures, lots of funny silly times, lots of serious times, lots of time to really work on myself. I mindfully chose to burn all that to the ground and become a parent and do something different the next generation of my life. But you have to really, really want to do that. You can't really be a little bit unsure because it is such a big choice.

Alexandra Walker (: 20:12

You are absolutely right. Exactly. And unfortunately by contrast, what I would say is I kind of feel like my twenties and my thirties were kind of stolen from me. I know that sounds a bit negative, but it really is how it felt that some of the physically best years of my life, I was just so unhappy. And it's not that I didn't have nice times, but I certainly didn't feel like I could take on anything else. I could just about keep my career going and I had a successful career, but it felt precarious to me because of everything that was going on in the background.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 20:43

Yeah, it sounds like you're already at capacity. And I just wanted to touch on what you've said about your mom, really. And I think what you nicely described there is that sometimes for a really deep depression, it can occur because someone feels like they can't take control or they're not able to take control. And so the other kind of variable that they can do is to just withdraw and stop caring and let everything happen around them. And I can't pathologise your mum nor what I want to, but from what you are saying, it sounds like that's what happened. So she retreated from you, she retreated within herself in order to just carry on showing up in that home and in that relationship.

Alexandra Walker (: 21:34

Yeah, I think that is a very good description of what happened. And she did have depressive tendencies, which were genetic. They came from her father, he served in the war, he came back very affected by that. And so there's no doubt I picked up a bunch of fear and anxiety as a young kid as well, just because that was kind of hanging around and there were just unfortunate times and they were rare. They were very rare. But there were times where she would turn and blame me for things that were going wrong. And it's like, oh, and at the time, I didn't know what to do with them. I just felt like I'd been kind of slapped in the face. But now I look back and I realise it was just, again, it was just a lashing out because she was trapped in a situation.

(: 22:21

But as I say, so loyal and I think it was a different age. I think that is part of it as well, which I have begun to come to terms with, is just, I think nowadays society's more accepting of couples splitting up and of there being a bit more empowerment to do that and perhaps a bit more support out there to do that. Not so much the case roll back a few decades. So that's something else. Sometimes I thought to myself, why didn't she leave him? Why didn't she protect me and get me out of it? She see how damaging it was. And again, I can't have answers to all these questions, which is quite hard. But it is just, I think for me, you'll know with OCD, a lot of it is about certainty. You want to have certainty about things. In my case, I want to be sure that I'm safe and that everyone else is safe with coming to terms with my past. I've had to realise I cannot have certainty and I have to come to peace with that and get the best possible understanding I can to help me move forward without getting obsessed about all the details that I can't know about.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 23:27

Yeah, absolutely. And thinking about what is kind of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, what I find is that with many of the clients I work with, they don't even necessarily realise they've had a traumatic childhood because actually when we look at the markers for it, the points add up quite quickly for things that might look like quite inconsequential things as standalone. Some of them are inconsequential, some of them are not, obviously. But people might say to me, I've always just felt a bit anxious, unsafe, depressed. I think it's just me. It's just my fault. I dunno why I've always been this way. And actually when we come to look at their experiences, if we're looking at a rough and ready measure, like the adverse childhood experiences scale, the ace scale, it's looking at 10 key questions. They might be scoring six or seven on the scale with the threshold for indicative C-P-T-S-D being four. And when you're able to just explain that to them, it can be light and day in terms of that's not the right term is it? What's the term? Night and day? I dunno.

Alexandra Walker (: 24:51

Night and day.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 24:52

Yeah, night and day. We'll leave that in just to show that we're human. It can be transformational for them. Just that one recognition that actually, oh, there's a reason why I feel like I do. And actually this makes a lot of sense for the way that I feel. And for then helping them feel more compassion for their younger self who they might well have been kind of dragging around with them hating actually and loathing what their experiences were like and blaming them for their experiences. How has that been for you?

Alexandra Walker (: 25:29

Again, masterful explanation there, Marianne. I mean, I think for me, I was just in rock solid denial. So if someone, including my counsellor, so I went to my counsellor for my OCD because with the responsibility OCDI literally thought I was losing my mind. And on top of that, I already had the hygiene OCD, the spider phobia. I haven't even mentioned to you the fact that I have chronic insomnia and I have done all my adult life. That's probably the longest lasting, that's still with me now. And it'd be interesting to see how that evolves. But I just thought I was getting mad and I thought it was my fault. I just thought I'm a crazy person. I dunno what else to say. And she obviously knew that she couldn't push me too far. The very interesting fact was my very first married Christmas, my husband watched my father blow up at me and blame me for something in a horrible argument.

(: 26:26

He always used to blow up just before Christmas. And then we all had to recover because my mother loved Christmas. And so we all had to make it work and it was hideous. And apparently, and I don't even remember this after my father had gone away and my husband was just sitting there stunned thinking, what was that? I said to him, I know this is wrong. I know it's not healthy, but I have to stick around for my mother. I cannot leave her. Now after that, apparently I didn't say anything for years. And in fact, my husband then went to see my counsellor as well. She was actually minister at our church and he apparently talked to her at one point about wanting to just take me out of the situation. He could see how damaging it was. Every time I went back, it's like I was taking another step back, even if I may have taken some tentative steps forward in the meantime.

(: 27:14

And she just apparently said to him, if you try to pull her out too soon, if you force her into making a choice when she's not ready, she may make the choice you're not expecting. And that may just be completely not actually what she wants in the long term either, but she might pick her parents. So I was just in total denial and it was a very gentle process. But I think in the end I would say he began to just do more and more outrageous things. And some of it was brought on by my mother's illness. She had cancer and it was as these things are not pleasant at all, and it's understandable that we would find that difficult. But he actually drove me out of the house just before midnight on Christmas Eve, the year she had had her operation. I mean, literally I was walking down a dark road in the middle of nowhere in Scotland with nowhere to go.

(: 28:06

My husband was with his family and I thought I wasn't going back. And then my father eventually picked me up in the car. We didn't say anything, just drove back. And I will never forget, we got to the driveway, he stopped the car and he looked at me and he said, well, Alexandra, are you ready to give in yet? I just thought, I can't believe you actually came to get me. You saw that I was so badly affected that I actually walked out of the house and you're asking me if I'm ready to give in. I said, no. That was a profound moment for me. I was just like, I don't care if Christmas is messed up this year. I am not giving in on this ridiculous argument that you have created out of nowhere. So we went into the house, I went to my room thinking, goodness knows where this is now headed.

(: 28:49

And eventually my mum came and knocked on the door and said, your father would like to see you. And I said, really? And went downstairs and suddenly I found myself sitting on his knee. I'm way too old for that now, but I'm sitting on his knee and he's saying, Alexandra, you do know that I love you, don't you? And my mother, in one of her wonderful moments of clarity just looked at him and said, I don't think she does know that right now, to be honest. And I tell that story just to say his behaviour got worse as I got older. I don't think he could cope with me being an independent human being who voiced my own opinions if they were not similar to his. And when he became more extreme, and as I was growing in confidence and had my husband and began to see other models, I just began to say no. And over time, that got to a point where I could say that I was my own human being and could see that that behaviour was not accurate, not good, not healthy, and not really what a father should be doing with his child.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 29:47

And when we are parents or even, I dunno, I care about everybody. I want everyone to be safe. I don't want you to be vulnerable walking alone in the dark at midnight on Christmas Eve. I don't want that for anybody, let alone my own children, to think that that's happening or happened. And people are knowingly doing that. It's just horrendous, isn't it?

Alexandra Walker (: 30:14

Yeah. It's tough to look back on. And it's been really interesting actually, as I have decided to talk about my story and to share it, to raise awareness because I still do not believe that emotional abuse is as well understood as other forms of abuse. I mean, you are absolutely correct. The Ace study shows how difficult these different experiences are for children. And yet I still think there's a difference in perception in people's minds. And sometimes they just think, oh, well just toughen up. It's just words. What are you worrying about? And it's so much more complicated than that. So I've started to share my story, and I'll be honest with you, there are the really supportive people. There are then the people who just don't say anything to me and they're just not comfortable to say anything. And then I've had a few people actually criticise it, which has been fascinating, but I am at least in a strong enough place now they can say, well fine, you can hold that view if you want to. But I am doing this not to shame my father. I am not doing it for that reason. I'm doing it because there's no other family member to be distressed by what I'm saying. There are no siblings, there are no other close family members. So I am actually at liberty to tell this story honestly. And I think I already have proof that people are coming to me and saying, this is really valuable. So that's kind of the essence of why I'm doing it.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 31:34

And more and more podcasts and media appearances that you get, it gives people more and more opportunity to really see what this has been like and what this is like. I understand your dad was reasonably high profile as well.

Alexandra Walker (: 31:49

Yeah, he was a member of Parliament for nearly 20 years. And I think it's really interesting because I think he was kind of drawn to that kind of career because there's a lot of antagonism there. I'm not saying by the way that all mps are like that. I've actually met quite a lot of members of Parliament as I was growing up. It was the environment I was in, and there are some really amazing people who want to serve us and help lead the country. But I do think that element of antagonism is just an interesting one. And I think he thrived on it, to be honest, to some extent. And yeah, not

Dr Marianne Trent (: 32:29

Sure he wasn't ever minister for children.

Alexandra Walker (: 32:32

No, no, he did not become a minister. But yeah.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 32:37

Okay. Alright. So I think it's been a really illuminating conversation. I feel like it probably could have been two or three podcast episodes to really do this topic justice. But tell us a little bit about your book.

Alexandra Walker (: 32:55

Oh, thank you so well, I've obviously told you a little bit about Christmas being difficult for me, and I think that is a story you hear replicated quite a lot because families are thrown together and Christmas therefore becomes a bit of a flashpoint if there are family difficulties. My mother loved Christmas, I loved it, all the beautiful stuff. But I got to the point where because all of these difficult things had happened year after year after year, I just retreated from it altogether. And this was roundabout the time I estranged from my father as well, where the relationship with him was kind of getting to the point where it was falling over. And there was, the year I just did nothing. We had no tree, we had no presents, we didn't visit family. It was just my husband and me in our house not doing Christmas.

(: 33:41

And in fact, on Christmas day we just went out for a walk on a rather wet Scottish day to a rather wet Scottish waterfall just to do something. So the next year I had estranged from my father by that point. And I remember just thinking, do I want to have lost this thing forever because of what happened to me in the past? Well, no, I don't. I want to reclaim it. Hence the title of the book, reclaiming Christmas. And I did an active experiment over about six weeks. And I did all sorts, all sorts of different wellbeing techniques and healing techniques focusing on different aspects. So for example, around the mind, I was thinking about affirmations. Now positive affirmations can be done really badly. And with my scientific background, I have quite, I care a lot about evidence and how these things are used. So for me, for example, just saying I am not fearful, I'm brave enough to do anything I want was just not true because fear has been such a core aspect of my life. So it's more about saying, I am becoming less fearful. I am learning to words like that. So the mind, the emotions, the body and the spirit, just finding different ways to, yeah,

Dr Marianne Trent (: 34:52

I was just going to interject because you've really nicely given us an in to OCD as well. So with OCD, you might have a magic thought or phrase or action that calms whatever it is that makes it okay. And that affirmation almost could have been that I'm safe, I'm okay, but actually that loses its potency over time, doesn't it? And then you kind of need to ramp it up.

Alexandra Walker (: 35:20

Yeah. And I think, as I say, for me, with me affirmations, it's a bit like have a statement that is stretching you but not stretching you so that you break or a bit like a muscle. You might pull your muscle if you try to stretch too far. And so the way I try and do it with clients is just you are stretching yourself more and more over time, and that gets you to a stronger position to give you the inside scoop. I did reclaim my Christmas, I now do love it again. But it did require being quite intentional and things like when bad memories came back to me, what did I do with that? How did I deal with that? So it wasn't all just fun and games. There was an element of how do I hold space? I remember one day in my journal and journaling has become very important to me. I just did a huge great scribble on the page in the run upto Christmas. It wasn't even words, it was just a massive scribble. And I'm really quite, I like my journal and I treat it quite well, and I felt really bad, but I just had to get it out. And there are different ways, obviously, of expressing our emotions safely, but also being honest with ourselves as well.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 36:29

Absolutely. Where can people get the book if they would like to? I'll obviously pop a link in the show notes, but if they want to head straight there, where can they get hold of a copy?

Alexandra Walker (: 36:37

So it is on Amazon, you can get paperback or Kindle or I even recorded an audio book version upstairs in a little cupboard. So you've got all the options if you want it.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 36:47

Amazing. And I think just before we started, you're saying that you've got a little sibling for your book coming along as well. Could you tell us a little bit about that one?

Alexandra Walker (: 36:57

Yes, thank you so much. So my second book is in its early stages. It hasn't got a title yet, but effectively it's about sing after the storm. And the idea is how do you find your voice? How do you find your song and then sing it with gusto after you've been through a storm. And I think particularly for a lot of us, it's not just one storm, it's kind of multiple storms that one goes through and it can leave one a bit disorientated, a bit small, all of those things. So my work and that book is going to be all about how do we make that journey not just to get out of the storm in one piece, but then to grow positively afterwards. So yes, I'm working on that now. And if you're interested, you can head over to my website to have a little poke around and that's Danzel not in distress.co.uk.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 37:45

Okay, lovely. Can we also follow you on socials somewhere as well, Alexandra?

Alexandra Walker (: 37:50

Yes, I am on. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram. I can give you the details and we can pop them underneath variations on damsel, not in distress basically.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 38:00

Okay, perfect. You're not on LinkedIn though? I love LinkedIn.

Alexandra Walker (: 38:04

Yes, I actually am. I don't think about it so much these days because I'm not so much in the corporate space, but I'm still there.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 38:11

Okay. So you are Alexandra Walker on LinkedIn.

Alexandra Walker (: 38:14

That's right.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 38:15

Perfect. I'll make sure that I connect and we'll share all of your details. So if you ping those over to me, we can make sure that they're all in the show notes and magically on screen as well. For people that watching on YouTube, thank you so much for your time and helping illuminate our audience about your experiences, but also the more wider concepts involved in emotional abuse and complex trauma. You're so

Alexandra Walker (: 38:40

Welcome. It's been a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Marianne.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 38:43

Thank you. Oh, thank you so much to our guest for today. Alexandra, please do go and connect with her. And if you'd like to know more about her story, please do consider checking out her book, reclaiming Christmas. What has this evoked for you? I would love to know what you think to it. Come and let me know in the Aspiring Psychologist community on Facebook, which is also the home of Marianne's mindset and motivation sessions, I want to be on your team. I want to help you keep striving for whatever professional qualification route it is that you want to achieve. Please, with that in mind, do come and connect and follow with me over on my social channels. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent, everywhere that you could hope to imagine. And if you're watching this on YouTube, please do like, subscribe, share your favourite episodes with your friends, that would be so appreciated.

(: 39:39

And if you're listening to this as an MP three, please do take a moment to rate and review on Apple Podcasts and to give me a rating. And if you could consider following the show, that would be so appreciated. And if you'd like to know more about career roots to clinical psychology or career roots to professional psychology, please check out the Aspiring Psychologist Collective book, the Clinical Psychologist Collective book. And if you're ready for the next step, the Aspiring Psychologist membership, and come and download your free 10 page psychology success guide, which you can do by going to my website, www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk. And then looking at the free resources tab at the top, you can be the first to know that there is going to be a change in my websites though there's going to be a new home for you, my wonderful aspiring psychologists, and then a separate page for my media work and one-to-one.

(: 40:43

So as soon as I have information about that, you will be the first to know. Thank you so much for being part of my world, wishing you well with whatever stage of your career you are at. If you've got specific requests for podcast episodes or content you'd like me to cover, please don't be a stranger. Let me know. Thank you so much for being part of my world and I'll look forward to catching up with you for our next episode of the podcast, which will be available for YouTube from 10:00 AM on Saturdays. And for the MP three version 6:00 AM on Mondays. Take care, be kind.

Jingle Guy (: 41:15

If you're to become a psychologist, then this podcast.