Wang Zang is a poet and a staunch critic of Chinese politics. He was arrested in 2014 for supporting the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement.
His young family has been evicted several times and is now staying at Songzhuang artists village. His electricity and Internet connection was cut for nine days.
The family lives without heating and has to wear many layers of clothes to keep warm. Wang's wife is showing signs of insanity.
"We have been constantly evicted lately," Wang said. "Since March 19, my wife has been acting strangely, and she has become unwell, constantly muttering in her own dialect for four days straight."
"Today, she went out on the street and paid no heed to the traffic, just walking out into the middle of it. She was nearly hit," he added.
Wang had to run outside with the baby in his arms to get his wife, who has lost her grasp of reality.
The poet said, "My wife has now lost touch with reality, and she keeps muttering over and over 'mind nobody steals the baby' and 'they are coming to kill us!'"
He noticed that his wife is muttering incomprehensible language and is not able to function well. Wang thinks that the insanity was triggered by people outside shouting threats to kill the family.
Wang said, "I think the huge stress of all of our recent evictions left her psychologically traumatized; there were government officials in our house, yelling at us, and scaring the kids so they were crying."
Many Chinese dissidents are being abused by the government for their political convictions and for being vocal about their views on social media.