(Minghui.org) My husband was a veteran practitioner of Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa), and I followed in his footsteps. I thought Dafa was very good, so I had my daughter study Dafa with us.
My daughter had just entered junior high school. With limited time, she could only study the Fa with me on Saturday and Sunday. She rarely practiced the exercises, but she had firm faith in Dafa. When she ran into a problem, she tried to behave according to Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
My Daughter Sided with Us When We Were Persecuted
My husband and I were arrested for rescuing fellow practitioners close to the time my daughter was due to take the college entrance exam. She was staying at school at that time and returned home once a week. We usually picked her up on Sundays. Her aunt picked her up on that Sunday, so my daughter sensed something was wrong.
Her aunt was afraid that my daughter would be upset, so she didn’t want to tell her what had happened. But my daughter kept asking and said, “No problem. Tell me, I can take it.” Her aunt told us later, “That child is really strong. When she heard that you had been arrested, she comforted me. I was going to cook something for her. But she was afraid I wasn’t in the right mood, so she went out and bought food for me.”
My daughter later sent messages to our other relatives, telling them not to blame us for our arrests. She also said that we were all good people and that they should reach out to help us when we were in trouble. Her younger aunt kept that message and showed it to me later. She said, “Your daughter is amazing. Such a terrible thing did not make her fall apart. Instead, she wanted to help you.”
More than a month after my husband was illegally arrested, I returned home and didn't do well. My daughter bought me food and gave me a cake with “To the greatest mother in the world” written on it to comfort and encourage me.
The police continued to harass my daughter and me to find evidence against my husband. They went to her school three times and asked to take my daughter away for questioning. The first two times, the school leaders did not let them on the grounds that she was about to take the college entrance exam. The last time, the officers forcibly took my daughter to the police department.
They tried to scare her in the interrogation room, attempting to get their so-called evidence. My daughter insisted that her parents were right and had done nothing wrong.
Because of unreasonable harassment by the police, I was forced to turn off my cell phone. I lived with a fellow practitioner so I could study the Fa calmly. My daughter had to get her picture taken, pay, and fill out the forms for the upcoming college entrance exam. Other children were accompanied by their parents, so the parents did those things and delivered meals. My daughter had to do it all by herself and also had to face the incomprehension of relatives and friends.
My brother and his wife took my daughter home to avoid another incident. In the evening, they took turns trying to turn her against Dafa and slandered us until late at night. My daughter silently endured. She told me that if it were not for Dafa and Master Li Hongzhi [Falun Gong’s founder] giving her support, she might have collapsed. Master took care of her.
I broke through the resistance and returned home before my daughter took the exam. Instead of blaming me, she continued to encourage me, gave me confidence, and told me to be strong so that I could help bring her dad home earlier. While she took the exam, she lived at the school so as not to distract me, as she knew that I had to hire a lawyer and visit law enforcement officials to rescue her dad. I also had to work, so my time was limited.
After the exam she came home and said, “Mom, I have been taking the ‘Falun Dafa is good’ keepsake with me lately. I have been reciting in my mind ‘Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.’ I asked Master to strengthen me to do well, not for myself, but to show that Dafa is good and that children from Falun Gong practitioners’ families are blessed. Dafa will bring people goodness, so I don't want to disgrace Dafa. I want to show that Dafa is good.”
She scored 60 points higher than usual and was admitted to a good university in the south. All our relatives and friends and her teachers were astonished. It was Master who helped her.
My Daughter Suffers from Depression
My daughter strayed Dafa after she went to college. Her father was sentenced to prison at that time, which also hit her very hard, even though she was very independent and shouldered everything by herself. But she was, after all, still a child. I guess she might have wanted to escape the pressure, so she began to pay attention to her appearance. In addition to all the bad influences on the university campus, she began to lose weight and went to the extreme. In one semester, she lost about 35 pounds.
I couldn't imagine what she'd done to lose weight so quickly. I advised her not to go to extremes, but she turned a deaf ear. It was only later that I learned she would eat a lot and then vomit. Adding that to the psychological stress she was already under, she began to suffer from depression.
At the beginning of her second year in college, she went to see a doctor and started taking medication to treat her mental state. In the second semester of her third year, I was sentenced to prison for clarifying the facts about Dafa. My daughter was hit harder this time. She often curled up in bed and cried at night. She had no friends she could talk to, so her depression recurred. The doctor prescribed more medicine for her. She did not come home that summer.
After graduating from college, she chose to work in a different city, away from home. Her boyfriend of four years broke up with her.
After my company fired me without good reason when I returned home, my daughter called me and said that I didn’t need to work, since she could support me.
She said, “Do your thing.” My eyes were wet. Even though her dad and I had been illegally arrested and sentenced to prison twice within a few years, she still supported us and believed in Dafa. Every time I worried about her, she said, “Don’t worry, I have the amulet!” She hung it next to her bed. She told me, “Sometimes I feel scared, but seeing the amulet reassures me.”
The year before last year, my daughter came home for the Chinese New Year. She told me that another boy was chasing her, but she didn't think they were right for each other and wanted to break up. Her depression flared up for the third time, and this episode was very serious.
My daughter’s company paid for physical exams at that time, and many of her indexes were outside the norm. The doctor called her for more tests. She was in a bad mood, which aggravated her condition. She told me that she couldn’t sleep until very late at night but woke up early in the morning. She was almost unable to get up, had no energy, and couldn’t eat. It seemed that she couldn't control her own body. When it got really serious, she cried non-stop and felt that she couldn’t survive.
She mailed me and her dad a letter, describing the pain she had suffered over the past few years, and the physical and psychological problems caused by "dieting." She said that she didn’t know whether or not she could live through the current year, because every day was a struggle to find the courage to live. She said she did want to be healthy and happy but that her condition made her feel helpless. She made another appointment to see the doctor. She also sent us many articles about depression and examples of people who'd committed suicide due to depression.
Returning to Dafa: Becoming Happy and Healthy
Her dad and I realized the seriousness of the problem. Having practiced Falun Dafa for so many years, we knew that only Dafa could really cure her and give her the courage and strength to live. We also knew that she had always firmly believed in Dafa, whatever the hardships she'd suffered for so many years.
She supported us when we stood up for Dafa. When my husband and I were arrested, she bravely faced criticism and defended us to everyone. When the police threatened her, she showed no fear, which all stemmed from her strong faith in Dafa. Maybe, with Master’ s help, her tribulation would push her back to Dafa.
Just after we booked airline tickets the next day, my daughter called to say that she couldn’t eat anymore, she didn't even have the energy to chew. Sitting in her office, her head was empty and her tears kept falling, out of her control. I comforted her, telling her to hold on and sincerely recite “Falun Dafa is good.”
The next day was Saturday, the day she was to see the doctor. We were scheduled to meet in the hospital. When we got there, she was just walking out. The doctor she'd had an appointment with had gone abroad, so she had to find another one. She was wearing heavy makeup, but that didn’t hide her weight loss. We hugged tightly. I said, “We are here. It’s okay.”
She was very happy to see us and felt a lot better. We had grilled fish that night. She ate some and said she hadn’t eaten like that for a long time. We checked into a hotel.
There was so much to talk about. Her dad and I deliberately recounted all the ways we'd improved, physically and mentally, after we started to practice Dafa. We talked about how the spirit affects the body, how to view human sickness, and how harmful atheism is. We wanted to guide her to re-understand the wonderfulness of Dafa, to resolve some of her mistakes, and to help untie the knots in her heart.
She changed her unhealthy ideas and concepts as we communicated. She told us about the problems she had suffered from over the years, and how her heart hurt. She decided not to think about weight loss anymore. She meditated with us and sent righteous thoughts that night. We all slept very well.
The next day, she was in good spirits, so she went to a local classmates’ party. She returned in the afternoon and took us to see a movie. She seemed in a healthy frame of mind.
On Monday, she went to work as usual and felt a little tired and irritable when she came back in the evening. She made a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday.
When she went to see the doctor, she asked us to wait outside. The doctor called us in after about half an hour and told us about her situation: “She has severe depression along with bulimia nervosa. She relapsed for a third time, which is serious.” The doctor prescribed some medicine and told her to exercise more and make more friends. Upset, my daughter went directly back to work.
When she came back in the evening, she said only that she was tired and skipped dinner.
Her father went home, and my daughter and I moved to her rented house. The house was small, dark, and messy. I tidied up her room. She went to work during the day, and I picked her up at the bus station at night. She got off the bus, saw me, and hugged me like a child. We then went to the supermarket to eat some local food. She said that she hadn’t enjoyed life like this for a long time.
I recalled with her how she had studied the Fa with me when she was child and how she applied Dafa’s standards of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance when she had conflicts at school. Together we recited the poems in Hong Yin and read Zhuan Falun.
Later, she vomited several times and had diarrhea once. Her stomach hurt a lot and she had to run to the toilet many times. She said to me, “It is amazing. I know it’s a good thing for Master to cleanse my body for me. Now that I think about it, my stomach has stopped hurting and I don't feel bad.”
My daughter was improving day by day, so I was relieved--I was going home in three weeks. I left copies of Master’s scriptures with her and told her to be sure to study the Fa every day, to be a good person according to Dafa, to be more considerate of others, and to take care of herself. She agreed and seemed very optimistic.
She did, indeed, read Dafa scriptures every day after I left. We often contacted each other, and she told me some of the ways she'd improved: “I'm not angry and don't make excuses to defend myself when my supervisor criticizes me for no reason. I have no interest in watching the movies I loved to watch before.”
One day, she was very excited to tell us, “I have a menstrual period again!” She had been to many hospitals over the past two years and taken a lot of Chinese and Western medicines, but nothing had helped. She was just now beginning to read Dafa books and her period returned. She sent us a message: “Dafa is amazing! My depression is gone, I've recovered from the bulimia nervosa, and I have my period again. I can’t express my happiness!”
My daughter rarely calls us now. In her words, she has no time.
She says, “Time flies. I am in a hurry every day. In addition to work, I want to read Dafa books, as I have to seize the time!”
