When Rikki Jo Neyer's mother began wearing sunglasses inside the house, it was not a fashion statement. Light had become unbearable, a symptom of an illness that would take eight and a half years to name. Neyer's debut book, Do You Believe In Miracles? Our Journey Out of Darkness and Into the Light, tells the story of those years, the desperate search for answers, and the recovery that followed her mother's treatment for catatonia.
Neyer's family watched as her mother slipped into what she describes as unrecognized catatonia. Doctors could not name the illness, and her mother could not always advocate for herself. Neyer became her voice, stepping into a role familiar to countless caregivers: fighting relentlessly while navigating medical uncertainty, exhaustion, and fear. "I did not set out to become an author," Neyer says. "I set out to survive a season that felt impossible."
The book does not rush toward a triumphant ending. Neyer deliberately invites readers into the darkness before revealing what happened when her mother received Ativan and woke from the catatonic state. Her mother later said, "I did die. And God brought me back." For Neyer, that recovery did not erase the years of suffering but gave them purpose. "This book required me to go back into rooms I had worked very hard to leave," she explains.
What sets Do You Believe In Miracles? apart from a traditional inspirational memoir is its integration of faith, caregiving, medical questions, and firsthand testimony. It includes four interviews with key witnesses, a scientific summary of catatonia, Scripture, and appendices for caregivers and those struggling to keep going. Neyer's experience as her mother's primary advocate gives these resources particular weight. She hopes the book will help other families asking similar questions. "I hope caregivers feel seen in a way that nothing else has made them feel seen," she says. "I hope anyone who has ever loved someone through a darkness that has no name finds language for what they have been carrying."
Neyer also hopes the book encourages readers facing unexplained symptoms or misdiagnoses to keep asking questions. "I hope anyone sitting with a misdiagnosis or fighting to be believed by a medical system that keeps looking away finds courage in these pages to keep asking questions," she says. The book is published by Lucid Books, an independent, hybrid publisher in the Houston area.
At its core, the book asks whether miracles still happen. Neyer believes they do. "And I hope every reader who has ever wondered whether God still finds people in the darkest places finds their answer here," she says. "He does. I am living proof. My mother is living proof." The years of caregiving transformed Neyer's understanding of beauty, suffering, and faith. She came to see them not as opposites but as companions. She describes the writing journey in three words: "Witness. Endure. Return."
Perhaps most importantly, the book is being published while Neyer and her mother can share the story together. Her mother is alive, participated in the book, and after eight and a half years that once seemed to have stolen so much, mother and daughter are making up for lost time. The book's release matters because it offers a rare, unflinching look at the toll of caring for someone with an unrecognized illness and the power of persistence, faith, and family advocacy. It provides a roadmap for others facing similar battles and affirms that even in the darkest places, hope can survive.
