Kids, education inspire woman to turn life around

Teresa Simmons' life was filled with drug abuse, a five-month stint in jail and an abusive relationship that lasted 18 years and cost her her children.

After the abuse and the drugs, she left her husband in 2005 and realized she needed to change her life. She had to figure out what was important: her kids and an education.

Fast-forward five years later. Life is on the upswing for Simmons. Her kids are back in her life, she has an associate's degree and is working toward her bachelor's.

And for a jewel in her comeback crown?

Simmons will graduate alongside her 24-year-old son, Timothy English, who will also receive his associate's degree, in Sacramento at Arco Arena next month.

Simmons grew up in Newbury Park in Southern California and had Timothy at 16. She moved to Merced when she was about 19 and met her husband.

Then it all went downhill.

Because of rampant drug abuse in the household, her three kids, two of whom are her husband's biological children, were taken away by Child Protective Services in 2001.

Between 2001 and 2003, she said she had charges filed against her by the police, which she declined to disclose. "Actually, I was in and out of jail when my kids were taken because I just lost all hope for anything," she recalled.

From 2003 to 2005 is when the physical and mental abuse escalated, Simmons said she "went onto the dark side."

Simmons, who's still officially married to her husband but is trying to file for divorce, said the day her husband almost took her life was the day "I just said, 'No more.' It was just not a very good thing. It was a bad road I took."

She detoured from that road: "On that day, I told him I was going to the store to get some cigarettes and I never went back."

Simmons said she wanted to get away from her past and the abusive husband. The only place she felt safe enough -- where he couldn't reach her -- was jail. The 42-year-old turned herself in 2004 or 2005 "because that was the only place he could not track me down and he was very possessive."

Jail was where she got clean and gained her independence. But behind bars, she said he would stalk her. She was incarcerated for about five months, and also worked at the sheriff's department, which meant "instead of doing jail time, you do services for the police department."

Sitting in her living room Friday afternoon, Simmons, with curly brown hair, teared up as she insisted she had to prove it first to herself that she could change -- and then to her children.

"I wanted to be their role model," she said.

Her office is a converted storage room off the front door with boxes stacked all the way to the ceiling. The desk, just inside the door, has books on the shelves and a flat-screen computer where she plays PC games and watches Netflix movies on her study breaks.

She was always interested in business, especially numbers.

"The harder the problem is, the better it is," she said with a smile.

She began taking accounting classes at the University of Phoenix online in July 2006 and received her associate's degree in January 2008.

"Education has opened up a lot of doors for me," she said. "I can be a role model for other people in that situation to go out and do it."

After her associate's degree and an overall GPA of 3.98, she was hooked on learning. She began her bachelor's, also in accounting, and has one more class to go before she graduates next month. She will graduate with a 3.97 GPA.

Rebecca Heinrich, a fellow classmate and friend from Bellevue, Wash., calls herself Simmons' study buddy.