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My name is Jodi Walsh. Mother of two children, and
a victim of domestic violence.
 As
a single mother, my two children are also victims of
domestic violence therefore scared for life. The
severe emotional and psychological trauma that my
children have endured at their father’s expense has
robbed them of their innocence and forced them to
live in fear at their father’s expense. The trauma
we all went through and are still encountering is
hard to re-live, but to re-live is to recover and
that is the road we must travel now as a family.
For
eight years I was involved with a man, Edward Munao,
who was addicted to pain medication, recreational
drugs, and anabolic steroids. My life was ruled by
his constant mood swings and abusive nature.
Initially I was not strong enough to distance myself
from the man I loved; however, finally I was able to
end our relationship, or at least so I thought.
After children become involved in a relationship
characterized by domestic violence the abuse
continues and so does the insanity. Therefore we
were never "really” able to get away and the abuse
would continue.
My
son was three years old when he first told me “Mommy
has to die then I can live with Daddy”. Those words
never left my mind. That’s when it all
started...the emotional torment, the mind games at
the expense of our beautiful little boy. His dad
would encourage him to be aggressive towards me
....kick, punch, pull my hair, throw objects, and
swear at me. The outbursts became so bad that I
sought professional help. A psychologist diagnosed
my son with oppositional defiant disorder
characterized by extreme violent behavior. I began
to question why my son, now six, was acting this way
toward his mother. He did not have these outbursts
at school, with the babysitter, other family
members, or his father. All of his anger was
directed towards me. Why?
I
explained too many....case workers from Department
of Children & Families, judges from St. Lucie
County, the police, and doctors but no one
listened.... no one!! There was even an abuse call
to DCF in 2001 stating my son’s father was causing
emotional harm to our son teaching him to throw
things and hit his mom. A DCF investigation
followed and I was asked to take a drug test. Even
though DCF had documented that Munao was a drug
user, he declined to take a test but I complied in
order to keep my children and prove that my son was
not living with a drug user. Once again, my
concerns regarding my son’s well being were
expressed, but his father was still allowed
visitation rights and the insanity continued
on..........
In
July 2003, I received an injunction for Domestic
Violence against my children’s father. It clearly
stated what was happening to the children, but
despite my insistence the judge denied supervised
visitation. My hands were tied and I needed to
comply.
A
few days after the injunction, Munao called me in an
enraged state. He continually threatened to put a
bullet through my head saying “no cop, no judge, can
keep you safe.” I went to the police but they only
filed a report. Four months later the abuse
culminated in a conversation between Munao and my
son where he told my son to get a knife and kill me
and if my son couldn’t do it, he would come over and
do it for him. This was not the first call but I
recorded it. This is when the criminal proceedings
with the State of
Florida started against my children’s father.
Edward Munao is now serving 10 years in prison. He
was convicted of two lesser charges; Solicitation to
commit aggravated battery, and child abuse. Even
though he was convicted of child abuse, the State of
Florida and the Department of Children & Families
did not see it necessary to terminate his parental
rights.
Too
many children are victims of abuse each year and
numbers continue to climb. Last year, almost one
million children were affected by some form of child
abuse. No matter what type of abuse a child
encounters, each child suffers on many levels,
mentally, physically, and emotionally. It is a
parent’s worst nightmare to helplessly watch their
child suffer from a pain than cannot be fully
described or understood.
A
child may experience post traumatic stress,
significant dates, holidays, or reminders of the
traumatic event may trigger the unsuppressed
emotions to reoccur. My son’s post traumatic
stress is characterized by nightmares, self-blame
(It’s my entire fault), powerlessness, aggression,
loss and betrayal, stigmatization, low self-esteem,
fear, sleepless nights, destructiveness, anger and
sadness.
Everyday we live the roller coaster of emotions and
what a scary ride it is. Sometimes I want to think
that this whole experience was nothing but a bad
dream, but each day I am reminded that it is not a
dream but our life. Waking up I know this is our
reality. As my son says “This is my life.”
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CHILDS CRY FOR HELP INC.
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