A day of intelligent, thoughtful, funny, silly, intimate, non-confrontational discussion and conversation with close women friends, and now I’m back in hell on earth.

Argumentative and malcontented for decades, my brother thinks being such is normal, and so he doesn’t understand the symptomatic convergence of depression and dementia. And she has both. He insists on getting her off her depression medication. I disagree. She is not on medication for dementia for other health reasons.

I no longer have the energy to keep arguing with him over her care. And so I just have to deal with watching her again slip into feeling constantly sad and fearful. At least the anti-depression meds alleviated that a little.

She is becoming increasingly afraid to be alone. She follows me everywhere, keeps asking me whether I’m going out anywhere. “Where are you going? Where are you going? Where are you going? Don’t leave me.”

I try to dance with her every night, since it’s the one thing that seems to relax her anxious mind. She follows intuitively, seems to get into some kind of “zone.”
She gets very agitated when he and I argue, and so I’ve decided to become a rope. “You can’t push a rope.”

I let him go on criticizing me and just ignore the criticism. I just nod my head when he tries to bait me into a row. If he starts shouting, I leave. Go into my room and close the door. I leave him to deal with the my mother’s upset.

This is not how it has to be. But this is how he makes it.
This post is not only my venting. It is documentation.