Akmal Shaikh is facing imminent execution in China for carrying drugs; Reprieve believes he suffers from bipolar disorder, and was likely delusional at the time.
We are trying to illustrate the debilitating effect of bipolar disorder for the Chinese authorities.
Please share with us your own experience, whether personal or otherwise. To kick off, here is the story offered by Reprieve’s director, Clive Stafford Smith.
CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH:
My dad suffered from bipolar disorder from the early Sixties until his death in 2008. It cannot detract from my love for him, but it was certainly confusing when I was a child. Typical was one day when he called me into the sitting room. When he was 16, he said, he had volunteered for the RAF during the Second World War. In his opinion, our modern society kept children mollycoddled for far too long. It was time, he said, for me to go out into the world and make my own way. So here was £200.
I was taken aback, and not sure what to think. I was only seven years old. I am not sure I had ever seen £5 before, and £200 seemed a lot of money, though I was not sure what to do with it. I was still staring at it when my mother came into the room and, somewhat to my disappointment, took the wad of notes away from me and sent me off to bed.It was a great relief later in life when I came to understand what bipolar disorder means.
MEG HEWITT, 34 years old, London:
My father was diagnosed 10 years ago with bipolar disorder after displaying extreme manic episodes. After threatening colleagues, past and present, he lost his job and was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
A well respected journalist with more than 30 years industry experience, he failed to cope with the death of both his parents in a six month period. He managed to work again for a couple of years but the threat of another episode was always in the back of our minds. He has been sectioned on numerous occasions, the worst being two years ago when he destroyed his flat, threatened local residents and disappeared for 10 days. During these times he has consistently had paranoid delusions where people he knows work for Al Qaeda and are trying to kill him or experiences god complex tendencies.
This has been an intensely difficult few years for myself and my younger brother and can only begin to understand how Akmal and his family are feeling. I would not wish bipolar on anyone.
My father has lost his career, health, home and almost his family.
Please send your own story to info@reprieve.org.uk. Please provide a brief introduction to yourself, as you feel appropriate.
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