Growing up. Yes, that's right, I said growing up. I know that growing up is a normal progression in everyone's life, but in my case it took a lot of hard lessons (that I am very thankful for) for me to "wake up and smell the coffee".

To begin with, I am 26 years old and have two incredible children and am recently married. I am a college graduate and have a good job. I have a modest home and a decent vehicle. My family is great and we live a normal life on a daily basis. Getting to this point in my life was a struggle on a daily basis to put it mildly and I am very proud of how far that I have come.

At the age of fourteen I had my first child. I was in high school and when my classmates found out that I was expecting, I soon found out that I had no "REAL" friends. My dancing career that I had been working towards was at that point over and fear and disappointment with myself set in. The depression, not to mention an abusive relationship nearly drove me to insanity. I thought that my life was over. My mother and my family helped me through that time and my son was born in April of my ninth grade school year. I made the decision not to give my son up for adoption and to complete my high school education. I did okay with my new motherhood role (with a lot of help), but my education took a sharp nose dive when I acquired my drivers license in eleventh grade. I ended up quitting school and moving out of my mother's home at the age of sixteen with my two year old son in tow.

Hanging out with the wrong crowd, working two jobs, trying to have fun and being a mother was the balancing act that I tried to conquer for a while, but that soon proved to be impossible. I the midst of all the confusion that I called my life, I ended up getting married to my first husband, which was a disaster. He was emotionally and physically abusive to me on a daily basis not to mention that he was a heavy drug user. That marriage ended after a long and difficult year.

I knew that something had to change so I managed to obtain my GED after only a week in the program. I was so proud of myself and thought that I was FINALLY on the right track, but I was horribly wrong.

Another man came into my life that I thought was going to be right for me, but unfortunately, he was the furthest thing from it. He too was abusive and even more than the last. I ended up in jail for defending myself against him. One would think that going to jail would be enough to wake me up, but I ended up

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