28M I go out to eat with my family for my birthday and had a really hard time during dinner. Mostly due to the fact that my mother is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at 57 years of age. Dinner was fine until she started having problems with reading the menu and communicating with the waitstaff, which is normal at this point but hit particularly hard at dinner last night.
My mother was the nicest most caring person in my entire life but she is now a shell of her former self unfortunately and this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with. We had a couple drinks before dinner and for some reason I ended up getting emotional during dinner and my eyes were welling up the entire time during dinner on and off. Felt like I could not control it and the worst part is that I think my dad noticed I was crying at the dinner table.
I have been looking for a new sales job for 5 months, and it has been very stressful.
Unfortunately, my brother 26M and I do not see eye to eye, and will get in very stupid arguments all the time. I feel like I am a very reasonable person and get along with everyone for the most part, but not him. He comes off as very rude and selfish, never apologizes for how he acts, and will always “die on the hill” of being right. So whenever we have an argument I always have to bend the knee and try to make things right, while he never puts in effort.
At the table last night he asks me if he can taste some of my meal, which I am more than fine with, so I respond “sure, can I try some of yours too”, which he responds abruptly and rudely with “Never mind”. My mind was just absolutely blown that someone can be so rude and communicate like this.
For some reason this hit me particularly hard because he is such a hard person to deal with and constantly very rude to me, he either does not understand or does not care. My dad agrees with me that he acts like an asshole and is a very rude person. After this I started welling up again at the table just thinking about everything between my employment, mother, and how my brother is so incredibly rude towards me all the time.
Life has just been tough recently and I understand that things can always be much worse and I should be grateful for what I have. Just complaining at this point but between my mother, lack of employment, and distressed relationship with my brother, I really wish things could just be great again. Unsure of how to proceed.