Forgive me, but l came upon your post which touched a chord.
For some years l have volunteered in a Care Home with the majority of residents living with various types of dementia. There is something which l have been happy to recount to family members who can often feel apprehension when they leave their loved ones after visiting.
It is this. You find that when family depart it is not uncommon to see those very residents revert within a very short time to the situation around them which was in place prior to the visit. Sometimes it is literally minutes before things return to the "normality " of before. In the lounge residents "communicate" in a way which seems almost mysterious to the onlooker and yet that is a fact and it sustains a damaged brain, a dementia mind during those hours or days when family members are absent. In other words, there is ongoing 'contentment 'when you are not there, because there is no recollection, unless reminded. This is the only ' positive' aspect of dementia. Short term memory eliminates a lingering anxiety or sense of loss. Nothing is black and white of course and each story is different. But it remains something of a comforting factor to know that things are not necessarily negative or dismal as a given.
There will always be days when things are not so rosy and they can knock one off that calm and collected perch.
I can see now, my late mother on the very day she was admitted into Care as an emergency case. Bewildered, lost, vacant eyes and myself, physically and mentally exhausted and frankly heartbroken. Then, around three months later and l see myself arriving at the Home, creeping into the lounge and sitting down beside my Mother and simply offering up a chocolate as l opened up the conversation just as if l had never left the room. She would smile " oh, how lovely!" take the chocolate with glee and we would chat, often for an hour or so. When meal times came l would leave, knowing all was well. Thus, l am really saying that the initial experience in question, whilst extremely challenging and most certainly painful at the start, does " settle" as oneself adapts to the reality. Just as long as one retains the credo of "best interests " at all times, then the dementia journey can be an uplifting one..... even when accompanied with tears.