Her modest home is happy chaos, and that's just how Charlotte Fedders likes it. She once lived in a rigidly ordered, impeccably clean house - with a violently abusive husband who demanded it.

After years of beatings and terrified children, Fedders says she and her five sons have recovered. "We're just a normal, functional family now. ... We just are. I feel extremely lucky."

With shocking allegations of cruelty and abuse, her divorce nearly a decade ago from John Fedders, then an official of the Securities and Exchange Commission, catapulted her into the news and put a national spotlight on domestic violence. Lindsay Wagner played her in the TV movie adaptation of her book, "Shattered Dreams." Today, Fedders is quite pleased that the O.J. Simpson case has reignited the subject.

"I have no idea whether he is guilty or innocent," Fedders tells Post special correspondent Michael Farquhar from her home in North Potomac, "but I will say any man who is abusive to a woman is very capable of murdering her. It doesn't take a lot to go from hitting to crossing the line where there's serious injury or death."

She says that neither she nor her children have contact with her ex-husband, a downtown attorney. "It isn't because they wouldn't forgive him," she explains. "It's just that we didn't see any change in his need to control. For whatever reason he still has that." (John Fedders did not respond to a call for comment yesterday.)

Currently working as a nursing supervisor for a home health care organization in Potomac, Fedders also speaks on the issue of domestic violence, with a particular emphasis on the effect it has on children. She's very proud of her own boys, who range in age from 13 to 25, and cheerfully relates the activities and accomplishments of each.

"They're all really balanced. It's amazing. Thank God!"

She notes that the learning disabilities her children confronted, especially the older ones, dramatically improved after the father was out of their household. "As they've gained more and more peace in their lives, it's become much easier to overcome the difficulties."

She's also pleased with her own accomplishments, evolving from "one of the most dependent people on the face of the Earth" to an independent woman. And then speaking like someone who's done no small amount of self-analysis, she says, "I know I'm a good person, a good mother, a good provider."