We talk so much about dementia—how heartbreaking it is, how heavy it must feel to slowly lose pieces of yourself. And I agree. I truly do. My heart aches for anyone who has to live inside that confusion, that fog, that unpredictable shifting of reality.

But there’s another side to it that we don’t talk about as often.

A quieter story.

A softer kind of ache.

It’s the experience of the ones who stay close.

This is something I’ve learned not from a book or a documentary, but through personal experience—the kind that settles into your bones slowly, through days that blur together. Dementia doesn’t always look dramatic from the outside. Sometimes the person can still do almost everything on their own. They can eat on their own. Bathe on their own. Move around. Even have normal conversations.

And then suddenly—there’s a shift.

A forgotten face.

A sharp word.

An unexpected outburst.

A moment where you’re reminded, sharply, that things aren’t the same and won’t ever be again.

The strangest part is having to hold two truths at once:

They don’t fully know what they’re doing.

and

Yet it still hurts you anyway.

There’s this emotional tightrope you walk—balancing compassion with fatigue, patience with overwhelm, understanding with quiet heartbreak. And there are days when the weight is heavier than others, days when you need a moment just to breathe through the things you can’t explain.

What makes it harder is how often people on the outside say, “intindihin mo na lang.”

As if understanding magically fills the cracks.

As if empathy replaces exhaustion.

As if patience never runs dry.

It’s such a gentle kind of struggle—quiet, almost invisible, and yet it lingers in the chest long after the difficult moments have passed.

I’m not writing this to complain.

I’m not writing this to blame.

I’m not even writing this to be understood.

I think I just needed to let it out somewhere—the mix of tenderness and tiredness, the love tangled with hurt, the sadness that doesn’t really have a name.

Dementia changes a person, yes.

But it also quietly changes the people around them—the ones who steady themselves during the unpredictable waves, who swallow their own emotions for the sake of peace, who keep showing up even when it feels like no one sees the weight they’re carrying.

This is just a small acknowledgment of that side of the story.

The part we don’t say out loud.

The part that lives in the spaces between the episodes, in the breaths we take before responding, in the softness we try to hold onto even when it feels like we’re unraveling a little.

Sometimes writing it down is the only way to make the heaviness shift—even just a bit.

And today, that’s enough.