Spirituality came in as an escape for her. She became more religious and a fervent in her beliefs. She then pushed it onto us, me I think and left me confused. Many “friends” then attempted to speak to me about the bible and wanted me to attend their church. I eventually went to back to Catholicism and was baptized.
All these times, the information was provided by the medical personnel and often we had no one to ask or turn to. By the time the support group had formed, my mother had gone through rather depressive bouts, obsessive bouts and even manic phases. Her manic phases were really funny as she would buy loads of lovely clothes and wear them. Looking back, she must have felt her end time was soon. The support group was supposed to be another avenue resource for the patients. However, as my mother was going through her manic clothes buying phase and dressing up, she was lauded for her “positivity” and “acceptance”. She felt good that she was helping others but in my perception, it was not useful for her and they had missed her manic coping style.
Not too long after, she cycled into another depressive cycle and by that time I was in Junior College and she complained of feeling “electric currents” along her leg. Tests were ran and nothing was found. She claimed she could hear God speaking to her and I kept telling the doctors that I think it was something more but I had no idea what it was. The doctors would not listen as I was really too young. Going with my intuition, I did not refute when she told us but gave her a lot of concrete anchoring of touch, of words and visuals. We passed that stage and I was researching about Parkinson’s and the treatments. Lo and behold, there is no cure! The words were ringing yet again. One would have thought that after so many years that there was still no cure! There was stem cell research but it was far away from Singapore.
