Some of you met my little brother Peter at TCASU. He's the one who isn't Richard. Richard's the mad one with the jumpers and the hat and the leg. Peter is the one who joined in on Saturday (he cut Liam's hair) until about mid-afternoon, and then spent the rest of the weekend hiding in our room.
He's having some serious trouble. He's struggling to hold on to his sanity.
He took the death of our two remaining grandparents much harder than I did. He feels guilty about not visiting Granny when he was in England at the time -- and now, of course, it's too late. He has bouts of black depression whenever his daughter goes back home to her mother. He's previously suffered from major stress at work, and he's currently signed off sick for six months from the beginning of December. And he's still angry, all the time, about our father walking out on us twenty years or so ago.
He's on a generic medication similar to Prozac, and they've just doubled his dose -- taking it to the limit laid out in the guidelines above which they like to have the subject under constant observation. He arrived at Mother's for a week on Thursday -- she tells me that he's even having difficulty deciding whether he wants tea or coffee when she asks. It's not good.
I, on the other hand, am having a much easier time of it. I'm only going mad because four months is far too large a gap between visits for
scarlatti and me. It really is distracting us, playing with our ability to cope. But there's a little way to go before I get to the state that Peter's in. 