I’m new to the forum and have joined because my mum has (diagnosed) dementia and it’s becoming very hard for me and my brother to cope with her. Our main problem is that all her life she has been a domineering bully, jealous and demanding. She has managed to drive everyone away by her toxic behaviour, and so has very limited social contact, even though she has a large family. The only visitors are me and my brother, (I moved away at 16 and only returned 5 years ago, to be near my Sister and Brother). When she developed dementia she seemed to have turned over a new leaf, and we coped well, but as things have progressed she has returned to her normal behaviour plus a bit! My main support, my Aunt, her sister, died last October and this has had a deleterious affect on us all. Since then I have become very depressed and anxious, not helped by my Mum constantly going over how much she misses Aunty Jan, telling me long stories of what they did together on a weekly basis, all, I might add, confabulation. I do appreciate she misses her, but they did not have much face to face contact due to her behaviour, however, they spoke daily on the ‘phone. I’m pretty much at my wits end with coping with her, invariably public, tantrums and yesterday told her I would no longer take her out. My brother copes by going to the pub with friends, but he is also very stressed and unhappy.