To the sufferer of OCD, there is something that requires constant rumination and investigation.

對強迫症患者來說，他們需要不斷地反芻和探查一些東西。

A poisonous gas is seeping into the house, a sharp knife may have been left out in the kitchen and could be seized on by an intruder.

滲入屋裡的毒氣、廚房裡的尖刀可能會落入不速之客的手中。

There’s something inappropriate they might have looked at online a while back and the police might be on their way.

在網上可能搜尋到一些危險資訊會讓警察找上門。

Their skin maybe aging prematurely and they need to look in the mirror constantly to learn more.

肌膚衰老地太早，時時刻刻都要在鏡子裡檢查自己。

There is no use, in such cases, offering simple reassurance.

在這種情況下，簡單的安撫是沒有用的。

No matter how often one shows the sufferer that no gas is flowing, that the knives are locked away, that they haven’t done anything bad online and that they aren’t disintegrating physically, it doesn’t work.

無論人們多常向患者說明沒有毒氣滲入、刀子都鎖得好好的、他們沒有在網上做任何壞事、肌膚也還很年輕，那些都沒有用。

This is because the true object of terror lies somewhere else.

因為真正令他們害怕的不是這些。

OCD is a trauma from the past that has been projected into the future and metastasized into a paranoia.

強迫症是把過去的創傷投射到未來，並變成一種偏執。

It can therefore only be solved by persistent detective work.

它只能通過堅持不懈的探查追溯才能解決。

We might, through patient investigation, discover that the terror of gas poisoning had its origins in a depressed mother who appeared to want to asphyxiate us in childhood.

而通過仔細的調查我們發現，對煤氣中毒的恐懼起源於一位憂鬱的母親想將她的孩子窒息而死。

The dread of a sharp knife might reflect an unacknowledged fury at a caregiver who let us down appallingly.

而對鋒利刀子的畏懼可能源於照顧自己的人讓自己大失所望而產生的難以言喻的憤怒。

A fear of arrest might be connected to a sense of never being legitimate in one’s family of birth.

害怕被逮捕或許和從未被家人認可的陰影有關。

Dread of aging might be a consequence of a parent’s rivalrous jealousy.

對衰老的恐懼則可能是父母猜忌疏離的後果。

Fear has jumped its cause in random, almost poetic ways; one has been left with its shell, while its innards remain protected.

恐懼以預料之外的形式隨機降臨；即使結痂掉落，曾受過的傷還是需要被保護。

Our minds are likely to insist that their terror has nothing at all to do with the past and simply everything to do with the gas tap or the dimpled brow.

我們心中可能認定這些恐懼和過去無關，我們只是害怕煤氣沒關好或是臉上的坑坑疤疤。

We should stay skeptical before such protests if only because were we to solve one surface worry without drilling into its ultimate cause, we’d simply facilitate its movement elsewhere.

我們應該要在這樣的情況下保持懷疑，如果我們只是為了讓表面看起來風平浪靜而不去深究根本原因，這樣的情況還是會在其他方面復發。

We need to travel back to the source of dread and drain it properly.

我們需要回到恐懼的根源並適當地排出它。

The world will only feel like a safe place once the unfortunate sufferer remembers their original injury, localizes it and separates it off from modern-day anxieties.

只有回想起傷害真正的肇因、找出它的出處並且將它和所產生的焦慮分割後，患者才能感受得到這個世界是安全的。

As must seem entirely unbelievable to anyone in the grip of OCD, a day might come when one has relearnt what dreadful event shook one’s foundations and bred ensuing obsessions,

對於受制於強迫症的患者來說，一定很難相信會有那麼一天自己能夠重新了解自己到底是被什麼糟糕的事件而影響了本質並隨之而來的產生了執著。

and the present can start to feel as calm and as bearable as it should always have been.

而能夠重新感受到本該要有的平靜與安心。

The School of Life offers an online physical therapy to people all around the world, our therapists are highly trained and credited, and our vital source of kindness, solace, and wisdom for life's most difficult moment.

The School of Life為全世界的人們提供線上心裡診療，我們的治療師都訓練有素並且備受青睞，並為人生最艱難的時刻提供慰藉與開導的必要資源。

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