My Two Dads PART 2

Update:

It's 1:39 and my dad called asking me to take him to see Dotti. I'd go but I don't have my car key. 

I'll take you. Oliver will come with me.

He can't. How? He's in school. How can he come too?

After school. He gets out at 2:30. I'll be there by 3.

Yeah right. You always say that but you never follow through.


This is what is hard. I should be looking for work. Instead, I take care of my dad and he's nothing but ungrateful. Even worse, he's abusive. Emotionally abusive and puts me down. My friend Sarah who just went through this last year exclaimed, “I could not take that.” This is why taking care of someone with dementia is so difficult. You expect children to throw tantrums. When adults talk like this, we view them as abusive and toxic. Since I have been in several toxic relationships, this is doubly hard. My life has no one toxic in it anymore, at least not directly. I have trouble with my ex-husband and his wife at times, but there is a distance between us and those relationships are not bad, just challenging. If it gets tense between any of us, we just keep a little extra space between us all until we can all calm down — ha, or maybe it's just me that needs to calm down. :P Regardless, toxic, abusive and angry people are not part of my daily life.

Until now.

Sigh. It makes me sad. If I don't do this, who will? Do I just let him drive around Milwaukee looking for his sweetheart's nursing home? Yesterday he drove for hours and got lost. He left at 3:30 (I noted the time we spoke last). He made it home finally after 7pm, after dark. My aunt, his sister, called him at 6:30 and there was no answer. I called him at 7:05 and he said he just got home. He was angry and agitated. He told me last night that he went to the VA because I had screwed up his meds, and then he read aloud the dosage (he sounded drunk, but that is a part of the disease) and didn't make a lot of sense. He concluded, “I don't know. Call me later. I'm too mixed up right now,” and the phone went dead.

Earlier today, before he chased me out of his house, he told me he went to see Dotti last night but couldn't find her. This is how it is. He’s independent. He’s sweet. He’s thoughtful. Kind. Mean. Beligerant. Generous. Loving. Mean. Forgetful. Needy. Engaging. Creative. Strong. Resilient. Unstable. Unpredictable.

And no longer has a filter.