Also, if I copy these posts to file, "Stuff of life", it will give me a handle on where I am right now when I come to write more for myself later.

That's a great idea, Dorothy!

Also, I would be careful sending a note of thanks to toxic brother. From my own experience, it was seen as a boundary being re-opened and they went right back to being intolerable. Positive feedback/re-enforcement doesn't always work.

I took a few days off from all electronic media. In the meantime, we kept up our usual weekly chores and I did a couple of rounds of qi gong as well as rested a lot. Still only back on a ltd. basis for a while longer.