My 70 yearly old dad's memory is not good at all. He's always been a fiercely intelligent, hard working, argumentative man, and he's got away with his intellectually confrontational nature because he had integrity and a great deal of logic and understanding.
He doesn't now. He's just as forceful as ever, but now it's total nonsense. He tried to engage me in a totally bizarre argument about the difference between scampi and prawns this morning that was completely disorganised.
He forgets words and gets words wrong a lot. He gets the meaning of words wrong sometimes.
His ability to measure time has gone awry and he thinks several weeks have elapsed between conversations about things sometimes when it's been only a few days. This makes him cross and impatient. Why hasn't it happened yet!? He demands.
I'm a supply teacher and it's the summer holidays. It took him quite a few days to understand that I would not be teaching because there were no children, not because I am lazy.
He's critical and utterly lacking empathy. He's racist. He was never like this. less sympathetic and emotional than the adventure person, always unorthodox, but not racist. I was not raised with this kind of outlook. It's so sad.
This is made very complex by the following:
I am an only child who spent the last 15 years living overseas. Until the tail end of COVID, my dad lived in this house with his wife, his partner of 37 years. She abruptly left him and moved to a retirement community elsewhere. I'm now suspicious that he was being like this with her.
I gave my dad some of my savings to buy my stepmother out of this house to save him using the money in his pension.
After experiencing an abusive marriage and an event of quite considerable violence, and a very stressful job where I was sexually harassed, due in part to my ex husband spreading rumours about me around our workplace before he moved away, I've left my overseas life to stay at my dad's.
When I gave my dad the money he made it clear I'd always have this as my home due to my investment. I grew up living just me and my dad and we'd enjoyed each other's company.
Well, it's not working out, which is fine. I don't want to live round here anyway, but I did hope to be sheltered by my previously very loving dad while I tried to take a year to recover myself and set up in a country I've never really lived in as an adult.
But I now need to navigate his hostility before I leave and I'm very aware I actually am going to have to talk to him about his cognitive abilities. The childish part of me wants to say, fuck you, I'm never speaking to you again once I leave, but this is not really my lovely dad and I don't know how to best support him with this.
His sister has already died of early onset Alzheimer's. It hit her very young.
What the fuck do I for my dad without making it look like I'm pissy that he wants me to move out?
Obviously I will move out. I don't want him to be unhappy. That's not the issue. Just the cognitive stuff.