TERRIBILE TWO'S question...?

My son just turned 2 at the beginning of January and for the last two weeks it has felt like a war zone in our house. Kai's will against mom's. I don't care to him, I tried that once and I felt like the biggest ****** in the whole world. I just can't see how hitting someone and then telling them not to hit is an efficient discipline, besides being hypocritical. I have used time outs for a while now, 1 minute for every year of his age and for some things it seems to help almost immediatley, but not this mean behaviour that is occuring lately. My sweet child has turned into a hitting, punching, kicking, pinching, poking, scratching, hair pulling machine just in the last 14 days and I keep putting him in time out every instance but it keeps happening so will it eventually work? I am at the brink of tears every night, I want so badly to be able to enjoy every minute with him but the last few weeks have been extremely rough.