On August 18, my dad got the best birthday gift he could ever want — my mom. After waiting more than twenty years in Heaven, he is now reunited with her. My mom passed away on Tuesday after battling dementia for several years — a battle which I can actually say she won. She was 90 years old.

Because my mom was such a private person, I vowed not to publicly share anything about her health for as long as she was alive. Whenever matters concerning her health took me away from my music duties, I simply referred to those matters as "other priorities." Now that she has passed, I can share more about what those priorities were.

In the fall of 2013, Mom suddenly became partially incapacitated due to compression fractures in her back. Up until that time, she was fully self-sufficient. She drove herself everywhere, handled her own grocery shopping, mowed the lawn, weeded the garden, planted flowers, mulched the leaves, fed the birds, etc. My brother John and I took over all of those tasks.

In the years that followed, she aged. Her memory lapsed more often and she had trouble comprehending new information. She also dealt with occasional bouts of dizziness. In 2019, she broke her hip. Her mind, under the effects of anesthesia, foretold of what was to come.

In May of 2022, Mom fell outside, hitting her head on the concrete. I was in my recording studio with Steve Meisner at the time, recording his vocals for my Escape to Polka Paradise album. My nephew and brother were there and helped get her off in the ambulance. After hospitalization, she spent some time in rehab at Care-Age in Brookfield. Although her memory had already started slipping by that time, the fall exacerbated the problem tremendously. Her lost grip on reality, while in rehab, was alarming.

I think most families would have kept their mom in memory care at that point, but we knew our mom better than that. If there was one thing that would straighten out her mind more than anything else, it would be returning her to the familiarity of her own home. That house in Greenfield, where she lived for over a half-century, held her mind together. We knew that if we could get her back into that house, she would recover and come back to reality. My brother John pressed hard to get everything in place that would be needed for Mom to return home, including 24-hour caregiving service, hand rails installed everywhere, and a stair lift.

She came home, and as the weeks went by, remarkably, she recovered to where she was before she had fallen.

We dropped the 24-hour caregiving service, but she still needed some caregiving, so we found a couple of phenomenal caregivers to work a four-hour shift every morning, seven days a week. This went on for the next couple of years. During this time, I took care of all the bills and my brother took care of all of Mom's healthcare matters. We also subbed for caregivers as needed and continued taking care of my mom's property.

At the same time, I was also caregiving for my diabetic cat, Arthur. All of the responsibilities were taking a slow toll on me. I was still managing to create music, but I could feel I wasn't the happy-go-lucky person I used to be. Life became 95% working, solving problems, and fixing things, and 5% enjoyment.

Mom's dementia slowly progressed, so later in 2024, we started adding additional caregivers and caregiving shifts.

In the spring of 2025, it became evident that Mom needed round-the-clock assistance, so from that day on, we went with 24-hour caregiving. My brother John and I took the brunt of the shifts in the beginning, but the whole family pitched in until we found and hired enough caregivers to work around the clock.

Still, we had to cover some shifts and fill in the cracks between caregivers to ensure Mom did not go a single minute without a caregiver, all the while continuing to manage her health, finances, and property, and all the while trying to run our own businesses and lives. John somehow summoned Superman powers to take on whatever task needed to be done, and did them without complaint, but the toll on my mind was becoming harder to bear. I was slowly turning into a shell of myself. My physical health was deteriorating. Mentally, I had nothing to look forward to in life but more work and responsibilities. Whatever time I could find for myself brought me guilt instead of joy.

Mom's dementia continued to progress. From the beginning of the year, we watched her lose her ability to use the TV remote, operate light switches, write anything sensible, comprehend what was happening around her, and speak coherently. In October, the family made the decision to find her a memory care home.

In early December, we moved Mom to Harbour House in Greendale, WI. The timing of the move was perfect because her dementia had just progressed to the point where she couldn't fully comprehend where she was living. Her dementia actually worked in her favor, helping her acclimate well to Harbour House, where she received phenomenal care.

For me, a weight had been lifted. For the first time in years, I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. Mom was now in good hands 24 hours a day, and all the responsibilities of shopping and managing caregiver schedules and compensation were removed from my plate.

But the free time was short lived as we now had another massive task at hand — cleaning out her four-level farmhouse and selling it. My nephew literally lived at the house for a few weeks and put in countless hours on this task. My sister drove into town frequently, sacrificing whatever free time she had. I had a big job, too, because of how much stuff I had in the basement (where my studio was located) and in the garage. So for me, the spring of 2026 was pretty much a write-off. But just like we did to take care of Mom, the whole family came together and did their part, and by mid May, we got the house sold. All this while, Mom was doing well in memory care. Selling the house felt like the final burden had lifted because it now took property management off my plate.

Last week, Mom fell. My brother took her to the ER. After a couple days they moved her to a hospital room where they ran tests, and determined that she should return to Harbour House and enter hospice care. She passed away the night before she was scheduled to make the move. We did not expect that quite so soon, but we could tell her time on Earth was coming to a close.

No matter how bad her dementia was at any time, when I spoke to her in my reassuring, optimistic tone, it always elicited a positive, lighthearted response. The day before she passed away, I was still able to elicit that positive reaction from her. If you ever met my mom, then you know that's who she was at her core — amicable and jovial. Dementia did a lot of things to her, but it couldn't vanquish her spirit. Dementia tried, but it had no idea who it was up against.

As I sit here and wonder if there's anything we could have or should have done differently, I can honestly say, no. Mom's quality of life was maximized all the way to her final day, and it's because we all pitched in with our skills to the best of our ability, whether it was researching information, cleaning, caretaking, caregiving, managing finances, or managing health care.

But it was my brother John who sacrificed the most, tackling the lion's share of the work managing her health needs, property, home alterations, doing research, hiring caregivers, personally keeping watch over her as he visited her every single day while in memory care, and everything else you could imagine. He went beyond the call of duty and self-sacrifice, and dedicated a huge chunk of his life to Mom's happiness and comfort... just like he had done for our dad over two decades earlier.

And we had the best at-home caregivers on earth — Jazmin, Vicki, Dawn, Kaydann, and Debra. Without them and all the wonderful staff at Harbour House, none of this would have been possible.

The last few years have been the most challenging of my life, and they did change me, but I am committed to getting my life back on track to where it was. I had clear sailing ahead when we sold the house, but only three weeks later, an unrelated hurdle got tossed in my path. This hurdle will take a few months to clear, but then I expect to get back on course. My goal is to revert my mental state to where it was just a few years ago, when the future presented more possibilities and promises than problems that needed fixing. I miss those days, when my mind was carefree enough to create music, travel, and enjoy life instead of thinking, "Someday, after the dust settles."

Now, I have to mention my cats here. Late in 2021, my cat Arthur was diagnosed as diabetic, when Snickers was already in constant need of caregiving. Between Arthur, Snickers, and my mom, I was feeling mentally drained. Then Snickers passed away. As heartbreaking as it was, his passing allowed me to focus more on Arthur. Then in 2025, when Mom suddenly needed 24-hour caregiving, Arthur passed away just weeks later, which allowed me to focus more on her care. Losing these cats was painful, but it were as if they sacrificed themselves for me.

When I rescued Viola in 2014 and brought her to Mom's house to live, she provided Mom with wonderful companionship. I prayed that Viola would remain healthy for many years to come because losing Viola would have been hard on Mom. Viola did remain healthy, and she faithfully served as Mom's loyal companion for the next 11 years until dementia had deteriorated Mom's emotional attachment to her. A few days after moving Mom to Harbour House, and exactly six months after Arthur passed away, I brought Viola home to live with me... something I could not have done if Arthur were still alive.

Viola is a special cat because she had an important job to do — be there for Mom — and she did it perfectly all those years. The day Mom moved into memory care, Viola officially "retired" from her job (although I occasionally brought her out of retirement to visit Mom at Harbour House.) At 14 years old, she's lived longer than Snickers and Arthur, but today she's a happy, healthy cat. I'm fortunate to have Viola because she's not just a member of the family, but she is a living link to Mom, carrying over a decade's worth of memories of Thanksgivings, Christmases, and happier times spent with her in the big, old farmhouse we all called home.

Link: Obituary for Janet Brusky

A celebration of life has been planned for the afternoon of Wednesday, September 9, in or near her hometown of Greenfield, WI. As of September 1, the location of the event HAS CHANGED due the number of people expected to attend. I sent out new emails with the information. If you knew Jan and would be interested in attending, please contact me or any of my siblings for the details.

In tribute to my mom, please treat yourself to a Double-Stuf Golden Oreo cookie. Better yet, plop an extra pat of butter (or four or five) on whatever you're having for dinner tonight. She'd get a kick out of that. "Good stuff! Good stuff!" she'd say.

A few years back, I talked about a singer from outside the polka circuit with whom I was going to be doing an album. She was dealing with some psychological issues at the time and backed out of the project. We did not stay in contact with each other, however, she recently reached out to me out of the blue at 3:45 one morning with a bizarre phone call, followed by a series of vitriolic emails. A few days later, she emailed me explicit photos of herself, and her emails were laced with hatred, racial slurs, blasphemy against God, suicidal ideation, and a whole slew of nonsensical thoughts.

Why am I sharing this information with you? Because this is a person who was singing worship music in church just five years ago. The path that she ended up on is darker and more dangerous than I ever could have imagined. I feel her life may be on the line. Your prayers are needed.

I am not involved in this person's life, so I have no idea what her family may or may not be doing to get her the psychiatric help she needs. Regardless, she needs all the divine help she can get. Please put her in your prayers. Obviously I cannot reveal this person's name, but God will know who you're praying about. Thank you!

I've been taking care of so many other things that I never got around to announcing the release of this song, which has been out for almost three weeks already. This cover of Shania Twain's "From This Moment On" featuring the amazingly talented Laura Bretton and Matt Riese, is the second song that will be going on my upcoming EP of 1990s-era ballads.

I was hoping to have the EP out this past spring, but other priorities got in the way. As time permits, I will finish producing the third song for the EP and then decide if I am going to digitally distribute the EP with three songs, or keep the EP a work-in-progress and continue adding songs to it.

For more information, click on the link to the Music page.

Over the the past couple of years, I wrote a few articles about Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is characterized by the creation of a powerful, infallible ego which the narcissist brings into existence. They use this forced identity to act as a surrogate sense of security, allowing them to function in a world they're emotionally unequipped to handle.

In the same cluster of disorders as narcissism is borderline personality disorder. This disorder is behaviorally very similar to narcissism, but whereas narcissism is designed to mitigate shame and fear of judgment, BPD is built to mitigate fear of abandonment. Both disorders are distinct, yet both can very easily co-exist in the same person.

Dealing with someone afflicted by a comorbidity of these disorders is extremely challenging because their debilitating insecurity warps their perception of you, and there's nothing you can do about it. They live in a different reality where they have to keep protecting themselves from perceived threats. Their insecurity keeps getting triggered, resulting in emotional reactions that are unjustifiably dramatic and abnormal, yet seem perfectly logical in their own mind. Life for them is an uphill battle, and typically marked by loneliness and depression.

Insecurity does not require a personality disorder, but a Cluster B personality disorder does require insecurity. What exactly is insecurity? To define insecurity, it will help to first define security.

Security is a solid identity built on a foundation of self-validation. It is typically instilled in childhood through proper nurturing, forged over one's teenage and young adult years, and eventually solidified in adulthood. Once it's solidified, it is meant to be taken for granted, working in the background like a computer process. A self-validated person goes through life making friends, building a career, perhaps getting married and raising a family.

A person whose identity is underdeveloped and incomplete, most commonly as the result of childhood neglect, will grow up lacking the security needed to face adversity in the world. Instead of being able to take life's lumps the way a normal, emotionally healthy person would, their mind is preoccupied with protecting themselves from perceived harm, seeking self-worth through external validation, and trying to force a sense of a secure identity by publicly asserting a false strength of character.

Protecting Themselves from Perceived Harm:

Seeking External Validation:

Publicly Asserting a False Strength:

Even though Cluster B personality disorders are legitimate emotional disabilities, what can make people who possess them so intolerable (besides their lack of emotional regulation) is if they do not understand that their insecurity is causing them to mistrust and vilify harmless, innocent, benevolent people.

Some borderlines, especially those who have received a proper diagnosis and therapy, can be aware of how their disorder causes them to vilify and push away innocent people, but narcissists, most borderlines, and those with a comorbidity of both adopt the alternate reality where you are the bad person and they are an innocent victim of your malice. They believe they are defending themselves from your harm.

What's actually happening, however, is that the harm they're sensing and the pain they're feeling is not coming from you — it's coming entirely from within their own mind. They're dealing with insecurity caused by old emotional wounds, often from childhood. If you inadvertently trigger that insecurity, you open up those old wounds. They'll perceive the pain of those wounds as being a direct result of something you did or said, which is why their reaction is so sudden and surprisingly volatile. They'll instantly blame, hate, and split on you for hurting them.

When a person with a Cluster B personality disorder splits on you, it can leave your head spinning because their sudden flip-flop from friend to foe comes straight out of left field without provocation or warning. No matter how harmless and benevolent you are, when they split on you, they will suddenly hate you down to your very core and speak about you as if you were the worst person on earth. There is nothing you can do about it. There's no point in trying to defend yourself because there is no way you can unwarp their perception of you.

If you have any experience dealing with people afflicted with Cluster B personality disorders, you'll have a better chance of piecing together what happens during a split by understanding how their insecurity warps their perception. How you choose to handle a Cluster B splitting on you is up to you. If the person is debilitated by NPD, it is recommended that you permanently break off communication and get away because once a narcissist feels threatened by you and devalues you, they will forever hold you in contempt (and in their crosshairs.) There is nothing positive that can come from keeping yourself in the graces of a narcissist.

If the person is debilitated by BPD, at the very least you'll need to establish boundaries. If you don't have the time or patience to deal with a borderline's roller coaster rides of verbally abusive splits, you're not obligated to stick around. You're not less of a person for kicking a borderline out of your life. It is perfectly acceptable and healthy for you to set a permanent no-contact boundary with a borderline no differently than you would a narcissist. But ultimately you have to consider the kind of relationship you have with the borderline and their importance in your life, and set boundaries that are healthiest for your future peace of mind.

----- Addendum -----

My psychology-related articles tend to generate the most interest and feedback, so I'm going to follow up with some visuals to help explain the splitting process — why it happens, and why people who split don't know that they're splitting.

An emotionally secure person is built with the self-esteem to accept people as they are (imperfect, but generally good.) They're not afraid of other people negatively judging them or rejecting them, so they're not easily threatened. This allows them to go through life handling social interactions normally and getting along with most people, avoiding only the toxic ones. Their perception of the world is realistic and normal:

But an insecure person who lacks that self-esteem is going to be filled with self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy. These negative thoughts linger in their psyche, hidden like mines in a minefield. Picture each mine as an internally-generated, negative, emotionally painful feeling just waiting to be triggered. As long as you don't trigger any mines, which means as long as you walk on eggshells so that you don't inadvertently do or say anything that stirs up their negative thoughts, they'll perceive you as a good person.

But if you inadvertently trigger a mine, their other mines will start exploding in a massive chain reaction, flooding their mind with internally-generated negativity, causing intense, sudden emotional pain and distress.

Unfortunately, they won't understand the mechanics of what just happened. They'll only feel the emotionally painful effects of what happened, and they'll have only one explanation for it, which is that you hurt them. From their perspective, you did or said something so reprehensible to cause them to feel hurt, therefore you were never a true friend, but a horrible, self-absorbed, evil, malicious person in disguise all along! Their feelings for you instantly turn to hatred.

This is called splitting, where they're treating you as a friend one moment, then their minefield of negative emotions explodes, and suddenly they're assassinating your character as if you were the spawn of Satan.

Since an insecure person's minefield of negative emotions is so easily triggerable, it gets triggered often. And since they hold responsible the people who triggered their negative emotions, their perspective of the world becomes, "I keep getting mistreated by lots of people, but it's not my fault. It's their fault." This is how they perceive the world to be:

What's really happening, however, is that their insecurity is pumping self-deprecation into what they feel and self-generated hostility in to what they perceive. This perception of hostility causes them to distrust people and vet them by unrealistic standards, resulting in them feeling mistreated by so many people. They then hold those people in contempt, sabotaging and destroying what otherwise would have been normal friendships. This is what their insecurity actually does to their world:

A secure person doesn't have a minefield of triggers, so if a friend says something they misunderstand or don't agree with, that's as far as it goes — a benign misunderstanding or disagreement. It doesn't, however, affect the bond of the friendship. It doesn't change their overall perception of the friend. This is due to object constancy — the ability to take adversity in a relationship in stride and remain emotionally regulated — which is required for healthy friendships and relationships to endure.

But for an insecure person, their insecurity dictates their feelings and their feelings dictate their truth. If their truth says you did or said something to make them feel bad, then you're a bad person and that's all there is to it. You're either a friend or an enemy. Insecure people go through life thinking they're protecting themselves by eliminating toxic, malevolent enemies, but what they're actually doing is splitting on and pushing away ordinary, benevolent people.

A person who splits can revalue an enemy as a friend and a friend as an enemy, but due to lack of object constancy, there is no middle ground. Either you're a friend who doesn't trigger their minefield, or an enemy who does.

Insecure people, such as those with Cluster B personality disorders, have a history of splitting and ending friendships, and living in relative isolation. They tend to adopt a defensive and distrustful "either you're with me or against me" attitude toward society, also known as the concept of "ride or die."