The Visit That Changed Everything
Last September, I decided to use my vacation days to visit my grandparents. I hadn’t seen them since Christmas, and honestly, I was looking forward to some quality time with Grandma and Grandpa in their cozy little house.
What I walked into was nothing like I expected.
The house felt different the moment I stepped inside. Grandma barely looked up when I arrived. “Oh, you’re here? How long are you staying? I’m busy right now – wait until I’m done before we talk about your arrangements.”
I was confused. Arrangements? I’d stayed here countless times before.
Grandpa just shook his head slightly, silently telling me not to ask questions.
Then things got really weird.
The Ritual
It wasn’t even 4 PM, but dinner was already prepared – some leftover fish and steamed vegetables. When I offered to run to the store for more groceries, Grandma waved me off.
“I need to check the kitchen first. Once I start checking, no more cooking for the day. This is what we’re eating tonight.”
That’s when the checking began.
Grandma walked over to the kitchen cabinets and started what I can only describe as a bizarre ritual. She pointed at each cabinet and said, in a sing-song voice: “Cabinet, first check – good. Second check – good. Third check – good. Now you say it three times.”
Grandpa immediately stepped forward and repeated the exact same words in the exact same tone.
I stood there, mouth open, watching my 83-year-old grandfather follow his wife around the kitchen like this was totally normal.
“Sink, first check – good. Second check – good. Third check – good. Now you say it three times.”
When Grandma suddenly shouted at me to pay attention and participate, I pulled out my phone and started recording. I sent the video to our family group chat immediately.
The Diagnosis
My dad had warned me that Grandma was getting worse, but I had no idea how bad it had become.
At her last doctor’s appointment, she’d been diagnosed with late-onset depression and severe brain atrophy. The MRI showed her left brain had shrunk to about one-third its normal size.
The doctor explained that the combination of depression and brain deterioration would make her behavior increasingly erratic. Confused thinking, manic episodes, anxiety attacks – it was all going to get worse.
Dad and my aunt tried to visit every couple of weeks, taking turns so someone checked on them regularly. But they’d never witnessed the “checking routine” because Grandpa had been hiding it from everyone.
The checking went on until 9 PM that night. We ate our cold dinner in 20 minutes, then continued inspecting every single item in their two-bedroom house. Even the towel hanging behind the bathroom door got the treatment.
I barely slept that night, thinking about my grandparents living like this every single day.
The Daily Prison
Grandpa was up at 5 AM. Grandma coughed a few times in the bedroom, and he immediately got up to start making breakfast. The man was running on maybe six hours of sleep, max.
I noticed right away that most of their dishes were missing. The beautiful china set my mom had bought them was down to one piece. Everything else had been replaced with cheap plates from the grocery store.
“Grandma broke them,” Grandpa whispered in the kitchen. “Don’t tell your dad or aunt.”
He looked like he’d aged five years since Christmas. His face was gray, his shoulders more hunched than ever. The constant stress was killing him.
“Do you go through this every day?” I asked.
“If I don’t do the checking exactly how she wants, she gets angry. Really angry. She screams for hours.”
Just then, I made a mistake. I opened the sliding door to the balcony to say hi to a neighbor.
Grandma came charging out of the bedroom like a bull.
“WHO OPENED THAT DOOR?! I HAVEN’T CHECKED IT YET!”
“I just opened it to—”
“THIS IS MY HOUSE! IF YOU’RE GOING TO MESS WITH MY RULES, DON’T COME BACK!”
Then she broke down crying, talking about how hard her life had been, how everyone had always treated her badly, how nothing good had ever happened to her. She sat on a little stool and sobbed for an hour.
The Breaking Point
My aunt rushed over the next day after seeing my video. Grandma hadn’t eaten anything and had been ranting nonstop for 24 hours. When my aunt finally got her to drink some milk, she collapsed on the couch from exhaustion.
That’s when Grandpa and I got a chance to talk outside.
“She has these meltdowns every couple of days,” he told me. “Sometimes it’s in the middle of the night. If I don’t wake up immediately when she needs to use the bathroom, she starts screaming. When it gets really bad, I come out here and sit on this bench until she calms down.”
I looked at the little bench by the flower bed. The thought of my 83-year-old grandfather sitting alone outside at 2 AM, hiding from his wife’s rage, broke my heart.
“Sometimes I get so tired,” he continued, “I think about taking some rat poison and mixing it in our dinner. We could just go to sleep and not wake up. It would be easier.”
I started crying right there on the sidewalk.
The Nursing Home Experiment
We had a family meeting. Well, we tried to. Grandma kept interrupting and screaming at every suggestion we made.
The decision was either to split them up – one living with my dad, one with my aunt – or find a good assisted living facility where Grandma could get professional care.
Grandma refused to live with us. “I’m not leaving my house! I don’t want to live with strangers! Your grandfather takes care of me just fine!”
My aunt had had enough. “Mom, Dad can’t be your punching bag anymore. This isn’t fair to him. He deserves to enjoy his retirement too.”
We found a decent nursing home about an hour away. It wasn’t cheap, but it had good reviews and could handle residents with mental health issues.
Getting Grandma to agree was like negotiating with a terrorist.
Brief Relief
The nursing home was actually pretty nice. Private room, private bathroom, flat-screen TV, three meals a day delivered to her room. They had activities, exercise classes, movie nights.
Grandpa moved in with my parents for the first time in months, he was getting real sleep.
My mom and aunt visited Grandma twice a week, bringing her homemade soup and taking her out for tea on weekends. My uncle even bought her a mini-fridge and kept it stocked with her favorite snacks.
But Grandma was miserable. Every time we visited, she was crying. She refused to join any activities. She just sat in her room, complaining about her life and cursing everyone who had ever wronged her.
The Midnight Call
Two months later, Dad found Grandpa sitting in the living room at 2 AM.
“Dad, what’s wrong? Are you feeling okay?”
“Your mom just called, crying. She says she can’t stand it there anymore and wants to come home. I know her depression makes her angry, and the nurses don’t put up with her outbursts like I do. She’s probably miserable.” Grandpa wiped his eyes. “Maybe we should bring her home. I’m not going to die tomorrow…”
Against their better judgment, Dad and my aunt gave in.
The Final Arrangement
They moved my grandparents into a nice apartment in my aunt’s neighborhood and hired a full-time caregiver. The hope was that having an outsider around would keep Grandma’s behavior in check.
It worked, sort of. Grandma was more polite around the caregiver. But her condition was getting worse. Her memory was failing faster, and she’d forget what she was angry about mid-sentence. When that happened, she’d get so frustrated she’d hit herself in the head.
Grandpa felt sorry for her and became even more accommodating.
April 21st
The caregiver had the day off. Grandma decided the living room curtains needed to be fixed immediately. She was convinced something was stuck in the curtain rod, and she couldn’t rest until Grandpa checked it.
There was no ladder in the apartment. Grandpa pushed the dining table over to the window, put a chair on top of it, then balanced a small stool on top of that.
At 83 years old, with high blood pressure and chronic exhaustion, he climbed up nearly six feet to check a curtain rod that probably didn’t need fixing.
He blacked out and fell straight down onto the hardwood floor.
Grandma waited four hours before calling my aunt.
The Hospital
Grandpa had a brain hemorrhage and multiple fractures. At his age, the surgery was incredibly risky. Even if he survived, the doctors weren’t sure he’d ever wake up.
He was in a coma for a week. My aunt, my parents, and I took turns sitting with him around the clock.
When he finally opened his eyes, he looked around the room like he was searching for someone.
“Are you looking for Grandma?” I asked.
He nodded.
The Last Words
We brought Grandma to the hospital that morning. For the first time in months, she seemed like her old self. She spoke to him gently, lovingly.
“You’re awake? When you get better, we’ll go home together.”
Grandpa stared at her with such love and worry in his eyes. Then he looked at the rest of us.
“Promise me you’ll take good care of your grandma. I know her illness is hard on all of you, but it’s hard on her too. Please be patient with her…”
Those were his last words. He closed his eyes, and I swear I saw a tear slide down his cheek.
The Reality of Elder Care
According to the World Health Organization, 12-25% of people over 65 suffer from depression. But unlike the young people whose mental health struggles make headlines, elderly depression often goes unnoticed and untreated.
My grandparents were both highly educated people – college graduates who had successful careers and raised wonderful children. But Grandma’s disease didn’t care about any of that. It erased the woman she used to be and trapped both of them in a nightmare.
We’re still taking care of Grandma. Some days are better than others. But I think about Grandpa every day – how he sacrificed his final years trying to love and protect someone who could no longer love him back the way she used to.
If you have elderly relatives showing signs of depression, confusion, or dramatic personality changes, please don’t wait. Get professional help. Don’t let pride or stigma stop you from asking for support.
And don’t let anyone – no matter how much you love them – become someone else’s daily torment. Everyone deserves dignity in their final years.
This story was adapted from a Chinese account to raise awareness about elderly mental health issues. Names and some details have been changed to protect privacy.
