Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was released by the team on Monday and received an indefinite suspension from the NFL after TMZ Sports released a graphic video that appears to show Rice assaulting his then-fiancé Janay Palmer in a casino elevator.

The latest action from the Ravens and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell follows a two-game suspension Rice received from the NFL six months ago for the incident. At the time, there was only footage from February 15 of Rice dragging an unconscious Palmer from the Atlantic City, New Jersey elevator.

Palmer and Rice have since married, and Palmer spoke out about the situation on Tuesday morning in an Instagram post.

Image Source: Baltimore Sun

Palmer wrote:

I woke up this morning feeling like I had a horrible nightmare, feeling like I’m mourning the death of my closest friend. But to have to accept the fact that it’s reality is a nightmare in itself. No one knows the pain that the media & unwanted options from the public has caused my family. To make us relive a moment in our lives that we regret everyday is a horrible thing. To take something away from the man I love that he has worked his ass off for all his life just to gain ratings is a horrific. THIS IS OUR LIFE! What don’t you all get. If your intentions were to hurt us, embarrass us, make us feel alone, take all happiness away, you’ve succeeded on so many levels. Just know we will continue to grow & show the world what real love is! Ravensnation we love you!

Glenn has been quite open about his family’s history of abuse. On radio this morning, Glenn shared a very personal experience about his childhood in relation to Palmer's post.

Below is a edited transcript of Glenn's monologue:

Here's the thing. I am quick to judge these things, and it's not right of me to be so quick to judge these things. But I will tell you this: I have no soft spot in my heart for anybody who is abusing a woman. You also have to understand the women that are involved in this, and I say this from experience. I say this as a boy, who was 12 years old when my mother and father got a divorce.

My mother was an alcoholic. She was a mess. I didn't know what was going on in our family. I was just beginning to figure it out. This was the time when I was now starting to mark the liquor bottles in our kitchen cabinet because I had noticed that the vodka bottle was being drunk by the gallon. The vodka bottle was being lowered quickly every day. I would go in and get my breakfast cereal, so I would quietly mark the bottles to see how much was my mother drinking? What was happening here? Because my mother was a functioning alcoholic.

She started dating guy who was Navy captain. He was a really nice guy. Loved him. I thought he was a great guy. I was wrong. Didn't realize it until too late. He was a guy who had a serious drinking problem as well. Misery loves company. My mother would suddenly have a black eye. What happened? ‘What happened, mom?’ ‘Oh, I was out working and I did something and I feel down, and...’ ‘Really?’ She'd of a big black and blue spot on her arm. ‘What happened?’ ‘I just got caught...’ ‘Really?’

Until he came over one night, and I will never forgot it, I was sitting in the ground in our living room. Our living room was right near the back door. This house must have been 800 square feet. And he came in the back door. He had been drinking. And clearly my mother – at the time I didn't realize – but clearly it was at that time of night where my mother must have been drinking as well. And I'm just being that child of an alcoholic family trying to be invisible as whatever is transpiring is transpiring. I don't even remember what the argument was about. I have no idea. But I saw this barrel chested giant, a Navy captain, rear back and start to swing at my mother.

At this point I'm a kid who has no skills. I'm not a fighter. I'm not a guy who likes getting punched in the face. I have no idea what to do, but what I saw somebody rear back and get ready to swing at my mother, suddenly I found myself in between them. He grabbed my shirt collar, and he reared back, and everything in him wanted to hit me. And I think it was my naiveté, I think it was my stupidity that he saw that made him not hit me. I think it was, ‘This kid actually believes I'm a good guy.’

He didn't hit me, and I kicked him out of the house. Now, here's where the story gets interesting. This is why I have very little sympathy or very little belief because it is the same story over and over and over again. My mother apologized for him. I said, ‘Mom, please don't apologize for him. Please.’ ‘You don't know him honey. He's a really good guy.’ ‘Is he, Mom? Is he? He almost punched you in the face. Is he a good guy?’ ‘Honey, you don't know he's got so many pressures and so many troubles and so many things.’ ‘Really, Mom? Really?’

She convinced him to come over and apologize to me a week later. He stood sheepishly at the back door. ‘Glenn, I have no right to ask you this, and you are the man of the family. But I would like permission to come in. I would like permission to see your mother again. I'm a changed man.’ And I was dumb enough to believe him. The story ends with both my mother and this man dead.

So I find this a little close to home. I would say that we should pray for her. Her life has been wrecked. But her life has been wrecked long before she met this guy because there's something and someone in her life, there is some hole in her life that makes her think that she has deserves this, makes her think that it was a night that we both look back in horror. What did you do to deserve getting punched in the face? Were you coming at him with a knife?

I'm sorry. You don't punch a woman ever. Ever. Ever. I don't care what she has done. You don't punch a woman. You walk away from the situation. You leave it alone. You have much more control than that. And these two, God help the child that is born into this union.

Now, I don't know what happened to her in her life to make her think that it's okay. I can't judge. I don't know. I don't know him. I don't know her. I'm not judging them to hell or anything else. I wish them both happiness. But you're not going to find happiness as a recovering alcoholic. As a guy who understands some abuse, I will tell you now: There's no way you solve this by dismissing what happened in that elevator. There is no way you solve this by immediately coming to the defense and saying, ‘Oh, my gosh, he is so sorry.’

I'm sorry. Her response sounds a little like my mother's response. That's a woman who's in an abusive relationship. And he has convinced her and experiences in her life have convinced her that this is the way it should be. This is the way it can be. ‘He loves her.’ ‘He's just sometimes a little out of control, but it's because sometimes I do things that just really set him off.’

Sorry. I don't believe it.

Front page image courtesy of the AP