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Encountering Falun Dafa Drives Depression Away

August 06, 2019 |   By a Falun Dafa practitioner in China

(Minghui.org) A few years ago, I was illegally sentenced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for practicing Falun Dafa and held in the hospital of a women's prison. One day, two more inmates came to the hospital: Xiaomin, who had depression and slept all day except when it was time to eat, and her assistant Xiaoli (a pseudonym).

According to Xiaoli, Xiaomin had been hospitalized before. After she was taken back to the prison, she became suspicious of the other inmates and feared that they would “report” on her and get her term extended. She avoided eye contact with the other inmates and begged the guards [to let her go back to the hospital]. Xiaomin needed to be hospitalized again.

Xiaomin looked pitiful: she lay in bed all day, refused to shower, and she smelled. After I got to know her, I learned that her family owned a business and that she’d gotten into trouble for issuing inflated invoices. To help her stay awake during the day, I took care of her and frequently talked to her to awaken her main consciousness.

She eventually started opening up to me. She told me that she was scared to death because the other prisoners were trying to harm her in order to get their sentences reduced. I helped her to look at the situation clearly and told her that the things she was worried about would not happen.

She would become clearheaded and appeared to be happy after our conversations but would go back to being fearful and suspicious again some time later. I had to talk to her again and again to calm her down. In the process, I had the opportunity to tell both Xiaomin and Xiaoli about Falun Dafa and helped them withdraw from the Communist Party and its youth organizations.

I also told them how wonderful Falun Dafa is, about my personal experience of practicing, about the persecution, and how the practice has spread around the world. I taught them to recite, “Falun Dafa is good. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” Xiaomin would then yell, “Falun Dafa is good!” in the hallway to the bathroom.

I was happy for Xiaoli and Xiaomin because they knew the facts about Dafa. I also taught Xiaomin to recite poems written by Master Li. She memorized and repeated them.

Xiaomin took medications every day for her depression. I asked Xiaoli what Xiaomin was taking and she told me. I knew that it was a drug for mental illness and that it had a lot of side effects.

I wanted Xiaomin to understand the side effects of the medication. I told her that psychiatric drugs like that were like a kind of anesthesia and that they made one feel weak, lethargic, and apathetic. People who took it lost their ability to think clearly and eventually would no longer know who they were.

Two days later, Xiaoli quietly told me that Xiaomin had not taken her medicine for two days. I asked her how Xiaomin was doing. “She is doing good!” said Xiaoli. “She has energy during the day and sleeps well at night.”

Every day, Xiaomin became more cheerful and smiled more. I then taught her how to wash her quilt and had her sweep the floor to help her overcome her bad habits.

She later told me that she wanted to be discharged from the hospital. I told her that whenever she got out of prison, she needed to find the main book of Falun Dafa, Zhuan Falun. She asked me where to find it. I replied, “If someone tells you the facts about Dafa, you should tell them what you learned here, and they will help you.”

The hospital dean was shocked to learn that Xiaomin wanted to be discharged.

It was unfortunate that Xiaomin was sentenced at such a young age and suffered from depression. But, she was fortunate in that she was able to learn about Dafa in prison and was blessed for believing in the goodness of Falun Dafa.