Thank you so much Christina for your reply. You're so generous and thoughtful in your replies to people in distress I really admire you...


It actually wasn't the therapist who suggested that he be able to show his anger, such as he does, with those he feels 'safe' with (my mother, me, and his girlfriend), it was his girlfriend. Not only is this patently absurd, but clearly he has behaved this way towards her as well, and she frankly sounds like someone making excuses for an abuser...


My mother can actually get to her appointments, or most of them, without my help. She has a friend who can sometimes take her, one of her homecare attendants, or the home care agency can send someone else. The problem is that, though she is generally still cognitively intact, she does forget what happens at her appointments, and isn't good at giving her medical history (again, because she forgets), and she's not good at advocating for herself. I work in healthcare, and I've seen what poor care people like her can receive when they don't have family helping out. So that's why I feel I need to go.


My brother and I were able to have a long, mature conversation about my mother's care the other day. That was a plus. Generally, when we discuss things, I feel so much control on his part, and him pushing me hard to do one thing over another. His girlfriend said that he has 'no sense of self.' I asked my therapist about this, and she said that he having meltdowns can partly explain this: he takes everything personally, as an assault on a very shaky foundation that is his fragile sense of self. I'm, in fact, discovering more and more, through what his girlfriend has said, what his girlfriend has said the therapist has said (no sense of self came from her), and from his behavior, that he might be suffering from BPD. I wish he would get the proper therapy for that instead of PTSD therapy, and a PTSD therapy that apparently does not encourage him to take responsibility for his behavior or learn healthy ways of expressing his emotions. At least that's my impression of his therapy, and certainly the results from it.