by Kenzy England

Created on: August 15, 2008

What did I do that was so bad that I deserved to be beaten? I was a good wife and a good mother. These I knew for sure. Something was setting him off, but for the life of me I didn't know what. To this day, my mind wants to hold on to each and every memory of what he did to me and to my eldest son from my first marriage. As much as I wanted the beatings to stop, 11 years later, I would like to get rid of these images that replay in my mind like a broken record even more.

Steve was drinking heavier than usual, had started cheating on me, and then I found out he had been smoking marijuana. Later in our marriage, he had at some point made the transition to cocaine. It didn't seem to make any difference when I begged him to stop for no other reason than for the children. In fact, I think it made his habit worse, sort of a "I'll show you" mentality. Changes in his mood were gradual. Flushing his drugs down the toilet earned me nothing but a black eye. There were times that I was afraid to go to sleep because I would wake up to his fists pounding me fiercely. I honestly couldn't understand what was happening to him. He wasn't the boy I knew and dated in school anymore. Something dark and sinister had emerged in him. Hindsight is 20/20, and I now know that a lot of what was happening was a result of his drug and alcohol abuse.

Our good days were just that: really good days. The kind of days where a person could almost forget about the bad days. The truth is, the bad days never escaped my mind. I never really knew when he would go off again. I tippy-toed around him, trying to never let my guard down.

One morning, shortly after the birth of our third child, I awoke to him screaming at me. I instinctively jumped out of bed in my defense. Before I realized what was happening, he had me on our hardwood floor. Grasping my ankles with his hands, he began dragging me through the house, still screaming at me and calling me names. He finally let go of me in the living room, but the abuse didn't stop. He began throwing things at me: plants, ceramics, whatever he could get his hands on. Each item hitting its mark. I scrambled to the door to make an escape. He hit me in the face knocking me to the ground. I was once again dragged throughout the house.

When I was finally able to get away from him, I ran to the nearest neighbor and called for the police. Upon entering the house, they immediately saw the aftermath. Finding a marijuana pipe, he was questioned about it. Without any warning,

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