of 20. Unfortunately, when I was 23, with two kids, my husband was murdered. It was a shocking blow but I stayed with my children and I made the decision that they will never feel any lack in this life; I promised to provide everything for them as if they had two parents.
But what does it mean for children to have two parents? I didn’t know, so my children had to go through the same route although in a different way. At least my children would have a mother, I decided. I would provide all the love and they would have a father too, that would mean that I would have to work hard to give them all the tangible things that fathers are responsible for. So I moved into business. I opened my first store. Later I opened my second, the same year I opened my car repair service. So I kept my promise to them. At the same time I went to get an education as a criminal lawyer. I had graduated and already had my internship, my practice and then I
realized that there is something bigger; something that happens before a crime, some psychological issues regarding why people do what they do and when you dig even deeper, into their childhood, their trauma, the abuse, the difficulties, the family learning issues. And this is how I decided to study and practice psychology. I wrote my book with my own trauma, with my own loss. I wrote out my childhood issues and parents’ divorce because all these are important to healing and helping others.
Going to boarding school at age 7; implications on familial love
Well, I felt I grew up very early and that's why I married so early too. Compared to my classmates who were kids and were dependent on their parents, I already had the experience of taking care of myself. You know what it means when you don’t have parents? It means that you have to be your own parents. Now, my parents are well educated and good people. I now have them in my life. My mom lives in Russia and my father, in Canada. I live in Canada and go to Russia quarterly. So, I'm very connected with my parents now. I don't judge them. They were about thirty years old then and were looking for their own model of happiness and acted with the best of intentions.
Q - How did you overcome your struggles?
A - As a human being, there are many struggles; there are the big and the small ones. My recent one
is immigration to Canada. I can talk about that because I immigrated to Canada three years ago. Losing my