Jason's personal story
Allow me to preface this by saying that I have been an abuser of women in my past as well as an addict of meth for nearly 20 years of my life up until I entered recovery on April 25, 2012 during my treatment for my addiction. God himself removed not only my meth addiction, but also removed from me the abusive behaviours that had afflicted me for many years by the white light experience God gifted me while I was still in treatment, nearly 7 years ago.
The reason for this email is that there is a great crisis/injustice in the child protection system here in Ramsey County, Minnesota as well as the domestic abuse system for men that are victims/survivors of domestic abuse. On October 18, 2018 I was violently attacked by my wife in front of my 22-month-old daughter and my 16-year-old step daughter. While my wife was beating me with a solid brass musical horse statue my step daughter tried defending me this enraged my wife to the point that she stopped attacking me and went to attack my step daughter who was holding my 22-month-old, but thank God my step daughter is able to defend herself. I have the whole incident audio recorded on my cell phone from beginning to end.
After I left my home that day, I had gone to my office where I took pictures of all the injuries she had inflicted on me. After speaking to a couple of different people, they urged me to go file a police report. I went to the police department in St. Paul Minnesota and sat down with an officer who took the report. The following Monday I had gone to file for an Order For Protection. After filing that, I went to the Domestic Abuse Project located in Minneapolis, MN where I had sat down with one of their representatives and informed them of what had happened the previous Thursday. The lady I had been talking with had informed me that they were mandated reporters and that she had to inform child protection of the incident. Upon her reporting the incident to them, child protection had informed her that they would not be perusing an investigation because the children were not the focus of the violence. Which is in direct contradiction to what had happened during the assault of not only me in front of them, but also when she turned from me to attack my step daughter that had been holding my 22-month-old.
I feel as though nobody is listening and if they are, the subject of being a man that is being abused is so taboo per se that I feel as though I’m supposed to just “man up” and forget about it. That is not something I’m willing to do. The one resource I should have had access to, Saint Paul Domestic Intervention, was not available to me the victim because my wife obtained their services. This is because it's based solely, I was told by them, on a “first come first serve basis” which leaves no help for the actual victim/s. I witnessed my mother being beat and raped, at a very young age and it affected me for years after. I can not nor will I take this sitting down. Change is so drastically needed to the system in an effort to protect our children from physical abuse, mental abuse, abuse in any form, and/or brutal violence that takes place in front of them. I implore you to help make this issue a need and not only a topic here in Minnesota, but across this great country of ours. I am in fear for my 22-month-old daughter because in 2006 my wife was charged with domestic strangulation of my step daughter when she was 4 years of age. If my wife had that capacity to strangle a 4-year-old what would then stop her from strangling a 2-year-old. I am getting zero help because of my gender and this injustice needs to change.
I got a call yesterday from the city attorney saying that they would not be pursuing charges against my wife because my step daughter corroborated my wife's story to investigators that I'm sure she did only out of fear of her mother and what may have happened if she didn't go along with it. There is a real injustice going on in societies around the world when it comes to this taboo issue of male victims and God willing I'm going to help change that some how, some way.