Category Archives: Childhood Sexual Abuse

The Alexandria Papers Newsletter #68

Share

The Alexandria Papers Newsletter #68 | Dr. Alexandria Szeman 26 February 2023


Mindfulness

Stuck in a Rut? Here’s How Mindfulness Can Help | Mindful
When the same old same old isn’t serving us as well as it used to, our mindfulness practice can broaden our perspective and help us see different pathways that may have been there all along. I was driving through Ohio with a colleague when the GPS informed us that we were facing an hour-long delay…

Migraine

What Are Signs and Symptoms of Migraine? | Migraine Again
Migraine is associated with a surprising array of symptoms that can vary from person to person or attack to attack. In fact, while some refer to migraine as a migraine headache, a headache is only one of several symptoms people experience.
Chronic Pain Checklist: 9 Places to Look for Affordable, Effective, Low-Risk Treatments | Everyday Health
Many Americans live with pain. Indeed, according to a February 2022 article in the journal Pain , 50.2 million people in the United States reported experiencing pain on most days or every day. If you’re one of them, you know the many struggles of coping with persistent pain.

Trauma and Sexual Abuse

14 Self-Care Tips for Sexual Assault Survivors Suffering from PTSD | brighthorizonsne.org
For those suffering from acute or long-term post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, there are often times when these become so overwhelming that it can be difficult to even accomplish the basic functions of daily living.
RAINN Online Hotline
Do you need help dealing with sexual assault, rape, or incest? Call @RAINN ‘s Hotline 800.656.HOPE (4673) to talk to a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area. Don’t feel comfortable talking? Use chat/text instead.

Mental Health

Mental health: it’s not always good to talk | The Conversation
Few of us would question the need to break the silence around mental illness. Countless campaigns have drilled into us that such silence is harmful and that we should try to break it wherever we find it. Britain Get Talking is one such campaign.

Books

The Best Books of 2023 So Far (Updated February 2023) | People
It’s been decades since 17-year-old Thalia Keith was murdered at Granby, her New Hampshire boarding school. The man convicted of the crime- Granby’s athletic director-remains in prison. But when Thalia’s former classmate Bodie Kane returns to teach there in 2018, she and her students take a…

Cooking and Baking

Small-Batch Cheesy Focaccia | King Arthur Flour
Recipes Bread Flatbread Focaccia has many admirable qualities – the golden crust; the olive oil aroma; the tender, fluffy interior! – but a short shelf life. It’s best enjoyed the same day it’s made. That’s where this small cheesy focaccia comes to the rescue.

My Books

Auggie Vernon and the Eclipse (a poem)
He has everything he needs set up in the back yard: two triangular UPS shipping tubes held together by duct tape in the middle, with a pin-pricked piece of foil on one end and a piece of white paper on the other end of the box, but he’s not interested in the eclipse itself
Books by Alexandria Constantinova Szeman
Get ebooks at Amazon now:
created in Publicate

 

 

Share

Leave a Comment

Filed under Baking, Books, Childhood Sexual Abuse, chronic pain, Chronic Pain Treatment, Health and Wellness, hemiplegic migraines, Meditation and MIndfulness, Mental Health, migraine, Migraine with Aura, Migraine Without Aura, migraines, Newsletters, PTSD, Sexual Abuse, Small Business, The Alexandria Papers Newsletter, Trauma

The Alexandria Papers Newsletter #67

Share

The Alexandria Papers Newsletter #67 | Dr. Alexandria Szeman 12 February 2023


Mindfulness

The stress secret: 12 ways to meditate – without actually meditating | The Guardian
Meditation isn’t for everyone. Or at least not when life has taken you so far from calm that your brain is soup. “It’s the nature of the mind to have this ongoing conversation in the background,” says Joy Rains, a mindfulness practitioner and author of Meditation Illuminated: Simple Ways to Manage…

Migraine

Morning Migraine Again? How to Wake Up Pain-Free | Migraine Again
One of the most common migraine patterns many of us experience is going to bed feeling fine then waking up with debilitating headache pain.
Learning About Long COVID From Other “Invisible” Illnesses | Psychology Today
People diagnosed with ME/CFS must manage extreme fatigue, and their experiences have implications for those with long COVID. A challenge of managing an illness like ME/CFS is its invisibility to others, despite its severe impact on a person’s ability to function. Ensuring people feel believed is…

Trauma and Sexual Abuse

Self-Care for Trauma Survivors Dealing With Noisy Newsfeeds | Psychology Today
Sexual abuse fills our daily newsfeeds. Just this month alone, there is sexual assault news from the Boy Scouts, Catholic Church, US Hockey, Hollywood, and the White House. How can victims and survivors heal effectively while being constantly triggered as the stories, lawsuits, and judicial systems…
RAINN Online Hotline
Do you need help dealing with sexual assault, rape, or incest? Call @RAINN ‘s Hotline 800.656.HOPE (4673) to talk to a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area. Don’t feel comfortable talking? Use chat/text instead.

Mental Health

4 Questions That Can Reveal Your Psychological Needs | Psychology Today
Self-reflection can help you better get to know your psychological needs and how these are being met or not met. Try these question prompts for learning insights into yourself. The best compliment I received this year was when I was telling my doctor about breastfeeding struggles with my newborn.

Books

How Chaucer’s medieval Wife of Bath was tamed and then liberated in the 21st century | The Conversation
Chaucer’s Wife of Bath is one of the most famous characters in English literature. Since appearing in the Canterbury tales in 1387, her tale has been rewritten and adapted by authors from the French philosopher Voltaire in the 18th century to the contemporary author Zadie Smith in 2021.

Cooking and Baking

The rise: a history of American biscuits | King Arthur Baking
Flaky, fluffy, buttermilk or baking powder, biscuits are as old (and as complicated) as the country itself. Trace their history and their evolution across centuries.

My Books

The Lies Our Parents Tell Us (a poem)
The Lies Our Parents Tell Us begin in childhood: you’re not dumb, you were not an accident, the sight of you doesn’t make us sick, we don’t think you’re ugly, and we swallow the lies, with open hands and grateful hearts, because we’re so hungry, because the lies are all we have.
Books by Alexandria Constantinova Szeman

Get ebooks at Amazon now:

 

created in Publicate

 

 

Share

Leave a Comment

Filed under #CSA, Baking, Books, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Chronic Illness, chronic pain, Cooking, health, Health and Wellness, hemiplegic migraines, Meditation and MIndfulness, Mental Health, migraine, Migraine with Aura, Migraine Without Aura, migraines, PTSD

The Alexandria Papers Newsletter #64

Share

The Alexandria Papers Newsletter #64 | Dr. Alexandria Szeman 15 January 2023


Mindfulness

How to Use Mindfulness for PTSD | VeryWell

Using mindfulness for PTSD may be a good way of coping. Mindfulness has been around for ages. However, mental health professionals are beginning to recognize that mindfulness can have many benefits for people suffering from difficulties such as anxiety and depression.


Migraine

Guide Me: How Can I Prevent the Next Migraine Attack? | Migraine Again

It’s easier to prevent a migraine attack than treat one. Discover evidence-based strategies for prevention, including natural and alternative remedies.


Trauma and Sexual Abuse

5 New Year’s Resolutions for Trauma Survivors | Psychology Today

Trauma survivors struggle to take care of their mental health as much as their physical health, but this should be prioritized in the new year. Unmet needs in childhood often manifest in adulthood, leading to unhealthy behavior patterns-but 2023 can be the year to start unpacking.

RAINN Online Hotline

Do you need help dealing with sexual assault, rape, or incest? Call @RAINN ‘s Hotline 800.656.HOPE (4673) to talk to a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area. Don’t feel comfortable talking? Use chat/text instead.


Mental Health

How to spot an eating disorder | Psyche

When you are close to someone – a family member, a romantic partner, a longtime friend – you are likely to be fairly attuned to subtle changes in behaviour that could signal a shift in that person’s wellbeing. For many people, these changes are connected to eating.

How to Start a Self-Care Journal | Read Poetry

If you’re a writer, chances are you have a stack of journals tucked away in the back of your closet, likely filled with memories, heartbreaks, and musings. Many of us as a means of self-care to process thoughts, feelings, and experiences. But have you ever created a journal solely for self-care?


Books

Awards: Best Memoirs of 2022 | SheReads

Every year thousands of our readers vote for their favorite books of the year in the She Reads Awards. Find out more about the books that were nominated and see which book was voted the Best Memoir of 2022. The winner of the Best Memoir of 2022 is . .


Cooking and Baking

30 Easy Bread Recipes for Beginner Bakers | Taste of Home

Baking bread is more popular (and easier) than ever! If you’re new to it, don’t be intimidated. Consider these easy bread recipes and become the baker you always knew you could be! Be sure to check out our ultimate bread baking guide, too.


My Books

While the Music Lasts: Poem to My Younger Self

Each night, standing in the hallway at the open / door of the bedroom, I see you lying in the / fading light, his arms around you, your head on his / chest, his lips against your hair, and I want to tell / you everything. 

Books by Alexandria Constantinova Szeman

Get ebooks at Amazon now:

created in Publicate

 

 

Share

Leave a Comment

Filed under #CSA, Baking, Childhood Sexual Abuse, chronic pain, Health and Wellness, hemiplegic migraines, Mental Health, migraine, migraine self-care, Migraine with Aura, Migraine Without Aura, migraines, Panic Attacks, Poetry, PTSD, Rape, Sexual Violence, The Alexandria Papers Newsletter, Trauma

The Alexandria Papers Newsletter #60

Share

The Alexandria Papers Newsletter #60 | Dr. Alexandria Szeman 4 December 2022


Mindfulness

Guided Meditation: Notice How Sadness, Loneliness, and Anger Show Up in Your Body – Mindful

 

 

Instead of trying to make difficult emotions change or go away, you can simply tune in to how they show up in your body, and see how they’re always changing on their own. When we’re caught in the throes of an emotion like sadness, loneliness, or anger, shifting our awareness into our body allows us…

 


Migraine

Self-Care: The Struggle is Real | Migraine.com

 

 

A man with migraine shares how he put his loved ones and responsibilities ahead of his self care when he had episodic attacks.

 

7 Self-Care Practices Every Migraine Sufferer Should Know

 

 

A hangover headache is bad enough, but a full-on, out-of-nowhere migraine attack? What’s worse? If you are a migraine sufferer, no matter how long it lasted, you know what your brain and body can feel like after an episode. You’re tired AF, cranky, and probably feel like crying.

 


Trauma and Sexual Abuse

How to Actually, Finally, Truly Set Some Boundaries With Your Family This Holiday Season | WonderMind

 

 

If you’re dreading the holidays because they typically come with ~family drama~, I’d like to introduce you to the magical power of setting boundaries with family. You’ve probably scrolled past a TikTok or two about the importance of this powerful thing called a boundary…

 

Resources for Sexual Assault Survivors | Greatist

 

 

We include products we think are useful for our readers. If you buy through links on this page, we may earn a small commission. Here’s our process. Trauma is easier to cope with when you have support, just like a broken bone is easier to set with a cast.

 


Mental Health

Keeping a Journal Isn’t Lame, It’s Self-Care | YourTango

 

 

At one of my very first Scholastic Book Fairs, I begged and pleaded with my mother to get the “Dear America” package. It was one of my favorite book series growing up, and it even came with a hardcover journal so you could add pages when you ran out.

 

Exercise for Mental Health: 8 Keys to Get and Stay Moving | NAMI

 

 

Mental illness has deeply impacted my life. I have experienced the flooding of anxiety and the drowning of depression. I have waged, and won, several battles with postpartum depression and been through loss and grief.

 


Books

What Can We Learn From A 1794 Novel About Turning Points In Crime Fiction? | CrimeReads

 

 

Turning points are incredibly important landmarks in crime fiction. They are the peak or series of peaks we climb to, where everything shifts inside the story. These moments are when we realize nothing is what it seems. Once we reach them, whether it is the climax of the book or an earlier point of…

 


Cooking and Baking

A Guide to the Essential Regional American Pizza Styles | FoodAndWine

 

 

Before the 1950s, most Americans didn’t know what pizza was. Arriving to the U.S. in the late 1800s, it was considered a cheap “ethnic” food, eaten mostly by marginalized Italian Americans in hole-in-the-wall restaurants or on the street.

 

Top 20 Tips for Food Bloggers | Cookie+Kate

 

 

I wish I had some magic secrets or shortcuts to share, but the truth is that food blogging is hard work. I receive questions about the subject fairly often, so I sat down to compile my best tips for food bloggers and ended up with an even twenty.

 


My Books

Books by Alexandria Constantinova Szeman

 

 

Get ebooks at Amazon now:

 

created in Publicate

 

 

Share

Leave a Comment

Filed under #CSA, Baking, Books, Childhood Sexual Abuse, chronic pain, Chronic Pain Treatment, Cooking, E-books, Health and Wellness, hemiplegic migraines, Mental Health, migraine, migraine self-care, Migraine Treatment, Migraine with Aura, Migraine Without Aura, migraines, PTSD, Rape, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Violence, Trauma

The Louisville Slugger

I did my last three years of high school in a district that was cramped for space. Because there was only an elementary school and a high school, and the district had decided to create a “junior high” category but didn’t have the building done yet, the high school building was used for both groups of students. The high school students started at 6:00 a.m. and were done by 1:30 p.m., allowing us half an hour for lunch. Then, at 2:00, the junior high students came to school. They had to stay late in the evening, and the parents didn’t like it very much, but until the new Junior High building was completed, it would have to do. That’s how I was able to work two jobs in high school. We lived near a mall, so I could be at work by 2:00 every day and work any time on weekends.

In one of the stores, I worked in the credit department, calling customers to remind them their payments were due, stuffing envelopes, and eventually, becoming a supervisor and approving borderline credit purchases when the stores called in to our central location. My other job was in a prominent retail store’s catalogue department, which was located next to Sporting Goods.

That’s where I first saw the display of baseball bats. As soon as I saw them, I knew I had to have one. I let the Sporting Goods manager help me narrow down the selection. I don’t recall whether aluminum bats were available then, but I was convinced that a wooden one would suit my purposes better.

I got permission from my one of my teachers (and the principal) to take Spanish class, which was my last class period of the day, during my lunch period. (They knew I had two jobs so that I could save money to go to college, which my parents and the rest of my family violently opposed, and I think they were trying to help me out.) That released me from school half an hour early, since, technically, my lunch period was at the end of the day. I couldn’t leave the school grounds, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t spend my lunch period outside, at the edge of the parking lot, with my baseball bat. So that’s what I did.

I practiced every day with that bat, slamming it as hard as I could against the trunk of the stoutest oak tree on the school’s property. At first, my arms, shoulders, and neck hurt so bad from batting practice, I thought it would kill me. But when I remembered my plan, I got back to work.

I attracted a lot of attention from some of my fellow students, most of them guys, virtually all of them “dead-heads,” as we called the students who used illicit drugs back then, because they were the ones who skipped their classes but, for some strange reason, didn’t leave school grounds, though they all had access to cars. At first, they just watched me. Then Leo, whom I knew from my Political Science class, sent his girlfriend, Nessa, over to inquire what, exactly, I was attempting to do “by beating that tree to death with a baseball bat.” After she returned with the answer, Leo and several of the boys came over.

They all had girlfriends. They all knew I was a “brain,” a “teacher’s pet,” a “brown-nose,” a “suck-up,” and everything else that the College Prep students got called by everyone in the school because we made good grades. They all knew I didn’t wear make-up, dress in all-black clothes, dye my hair purple or blue with Kool-Aid, or skip classes to roam the hallways or smoke marijuana in the bathrooms. They knew I’d never had a boyfriend and that I didn’t drink, do drugs, or party. In short, I was the complete opposite of all of them.

None of that stopped them from teaching me to correctly use the bat, however.

I slept every night with the bat under the edge of my bed. I’d cleared a wide space in my room so the bat wouldn’t connect with anything except what I wanted to hit. I kept the curtains open, though I found it difficult to sleep with the streetlight shining in, because I needed to be able to see my target. I even practiced reaching under the bed, grabbing the bat, jumping out of bed, and swinging it in that virtually empty room.

When my stepfather Fred finally came for the last time, I heard him sneaking down the stairs to my bedroom, which was now on the lower level of the house, so I was already standing in the dark with the bat. It was the middle of the night, in the middle of winter, in the midst of my most extreme discontent.

He came into my room, dropped his pants, felt around the empty bed, stood up, turned his back to me, and cursed under his breath.

That’s when Mr. Louisville Slugger and I struck.

His bellows brought my mother Maida, who didn’t come near me. Instead, she ran out of the bedroom to call the number Fred gave her. About an hour later, one of his employees came from work. The employee said nothing when he was taken to Fred, writhing, without control of his limbs, on the floor of his stepdaughter’s bedroom. The employee said nothing when he saw me, teeth clenched and eyes narrowed, standing in the corner with a raised baseball bat. He said nothing when he put his hands under Fred’s arms and dragged him, screaming through dishtowels stuffed into his mouth, out of my bedroom, across the laundry room, through the dark garage, down the driveway, and to the bed of the employee’s pick-up truck.

As instructed, the employee drove to work and dutifully deposited my stepfather on an icy bridge over a ravine in the parking lot. Taking Fred’s keys, the employee retrieved Fred’s walkie-talkie from his office. The employee returned to the building in which he himself worked. He dialed our home phone number. Maida answered. She screamed. She ran out of the house, jumped into Fred’s car, and sped off to his workplace, a government installation that required high security clearance.

Here’s how their story went:

The employee, who worked third-shift, had phoned Fred, who was the Manager of Physical Plants and who was always on call in case something went wrong with any of the facilities, to inform Fred that something had happened to one of the generators and that no one could get it started. Later, after Fred had arrived at work, he radioed said employee, informing him that Fred had fallen on the bridge which led from the parking lot to the main building, and hurt himself bad. The employee called Security, who, after finding Fred, immediately contacted the hospital. An ambulance raced Fred  — and the stalwart employee, who refused to leave my injured stepfather — from the ice-covered bridge at work to the emergency room. My mother, who was not legally permitted to even be in the parking lot, accompanied them.

One week later, the stalwart, taciturn third-shift employee, now promoted to day-shift supervisor, came to the house to inform my mother that the company had installed a hospital bed, along with all the equipment necessary to care for Fred, hired several shifts of nurses, and was transferring Fred to the “hospital room” at work. It seems the company was not about to lose its hundred-trillion-hour accident-free safety record simply because my stepfather had slipped on an icy bridge. By keeping Fred hospitalized on its premises, Fred would technically be at work every day. Thus, despite the eight months that Fred would be unable to actually work due to his numerous and complex injuries, the company would not have to re-set its neon Safety Hours sign at the entrance to zero.

Fred’s injuries were reported as having occurred after his falling on ice on the very same metal bridge that Fred himself had apparently reported as “extremely dangerous during inclement weather” several weeks previously, when Fred’s newly promoted stalwart employee had slipped but, fortunately, not been seriously injured. Paperwork detailing Fred’s report concerning this very dangerous bridge as well as the stalwart employee’s minor accident was discovered in Fred’s office files by his equally trustworthy and ambitious personal assistant three weeks after my stepfather’s unfortunate mishap.

My mother bitterly and angrily related all this to me during the period Fred was not allowed to come home because of his grievous injuries, during the many long months she was not permitted to visit him since she did not have the security clearance to see him in the hospital room constructed for him at work.

A hospital room which absolutely no one was supposed to discover, not even his family members, as it was not only illegal, but unethical as well.

Medical Summary of Fred’s Injuries:
Fractured hips, pelvis, upper and lower left leg, upper and lower left arm, left shoulder, left collarbone, both hands, wrists, thumbs, multiple fingers

Words cannot begin to express my severe disappointment.
I’d been aiming for my stepfather’s spine.

Related Posts
read another excerpt (chapters 1-6) from my memoir
and related chapters that are not in the final, published version

At the First Meeting of The Liars' Club

At the First Meeting of The Liars’ Club

Trigger Warning Though not graphic, this post discusses childhood sexual abuse. I stood, mortified into silence, in front of my second-grade class. My teacher, a ...
Continue reading
O Coward Conscience

O Coward Conscience

Trigger Warning: This post, though not graphic, discusses childhood sexual abuse. O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me... My conscience hath a thousand several ...
Continue reading
Glue-Boy

Glue-Boy

His real name was Daniel David Davison III, but nobody called him that except Sister St. James and the principal every time he got sent ...
Continue reading
My Childhood on Planet of the Apes

My Childhood on Planet of the Apes

"Damn you," cried the practically naked Charlton Heston as he fell to his knees on the beach in front of the half-buried Statue of Liberty ...
Continue reading
The Louisville Slugger

The Louisville Slugger

I did my last three years of high school in a district that was cramped for space. Because there was only an elementary school and ...
Continue reading

 

  • This chapter, slightly modified, is an excerpt from my true crime memoir, M is for Munchers: The Serial Killers Next Door © 2014, 2017, 2019 by Alexandria Constantinova Szeman. All rights reserved. No content may be copied, excerpted, or distributed without the express written consent of the author and publisher, with copyright credit to the author. Please don’t support the piracy of Intellectual Property.

2 Comments

Filed under #CSA, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Memoir, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Violence