[orthodoc]

I just lost my second post. I can probably shorten it. We moved to the US in 1992, there were no career opportunities for me and the kids were extremely needy, and the abuse worsened through the '90s until I tried to leave in 1998 and 1999. Didn't succeed. We went back to Ontario in 2003- 2005 and I cared for my mother-in-law (who hated me because I wasn't Ukrainian). Tried to help my kids in the Ontario school system. My second son became an addict. Ontario has no drug laws, in practice. Dealers hung out in the front hall of the high schools with their pit bulls. My son lost his meds weight and became very athletic when we arrived back in PA, but in college he succumbed to the drugs.

The summer after his first year was very scary. He went through rehab, took up with a woman who had an addict mother, moved in with them, and was lost. He now has terrible health problems - pulmonary emboli that have killed half his lung capacity - and gained 200 lb, and is depressed and addicted to narcotics.

My oldest son struggled through university and graduated with Honors in Bioengineering, went to law school, just graduated. He still struggles. My third son is an academic star. He came out to me, privately, after sophomore year. He is very verbal and can, has, cut my heart out as with a knife. He considers that he was never really loved. My daughter was diagnosed with ADHD in school, had problems due to the chaos of her violent older brother and all the other problems, but is a sweetheart and the sunshine of my life. However, she is vulnerable to abusive men.

So at the end of all this, I determined that I had to leave and find my own way, and now this.