We're experts at surrendering to the demands of the external world,

我們致力回應外在世界的需求，

living up to what is expected of us and getting on with the priorities as others around us define them.

努力實現達他人對我們的期待，並完成由他人定義的優先事項。

We keep showing up and being an excellent boy or girl, and we can pull this magical feat off for up to decades at a time,

我們努力成為好男孩、好女孩，十年如一日地致力於偉大的目標，

without so much as an outward twitch or crack.

不容許一絲懈怠。

Until, suddenly, one day, much to everyone's surprise, including our own, we break.

直到某一天，我們突然出乎眾人意料地崩潰了。

The rupture can take many forms. We can no longer get out of bed. We fall into a catatonic depression.

崩潰有很多表現方式：我們下不了床、罹患思覺失調症。

We develop all-consuming social anxiety. We refuse to eat. We babble incoherently. We lose command over part of our body.

我們對社交活動充滿焦慮、拒絕進食、胡言亂語。我們失去對部分身體部位的控制能力。

We're compelled to do something extremely scandalous and entirely contrary to our normal selves.

我們迫使自己做出許多脫序和反常的事情。

We become wholly paranoid in a given area.

我們在特定的情況下會妄想症。

We refuse to play by the usual rules in our relationship, we have an affair, ramp up the fighting

我們打破感情的常規，開始偷吃、擴大衝突

or otherwise poke a very large stick into the wheels of day-to-day life.

或者硬生生地讓日常生活停擺。

Breakdowns are hugely inconvenient for everyone, and so, unsurprisingly, there is an immediate rush to medicalize the problem

「崩潰」會對每個人造成不便，因此，大家自然急於用醫學手段解決問題

an attempt to excise it from the scene, so that business as usual can restart.

將其排除於生活之外，以恢復以往的作息。

But this is to misunderstand what's going on when we break down.

不過這是對「崩潰」的本質有所誤解。

A breakdown is not merely a random piece of madness or malfunction,

其實崩潰並不是突然發瘋或是腦袋故障，

it's a very real, or be it very inarticulate, bid for health.

而是非常實際且隱晦的「自我療癒方法」。

It is an attempt by one part of our minds to force the other into a process of growth,

這是大腦某一部分迫使另一部份進入自我成長

self-understanding and self-development, which it has hitherto refused to undertake.

自我理解與自我修復的過程，而我們迄今為止都拒絕接受。

If we can put it paradoxically, it's an attempt to jumpstart a process of getting well, properly well,

一個自相矛盾的說法是，這是啟動徹底康復機制的過程，

through a stage of falling very ill.

但得生一場大病。

The danger, therefore, if we merely medicalize a breakdown and attempt to shift it away at once,

因此，危險的地方是，若只用醫學手段立刻解決「崩潰」的狀況，

is that we're going to miss the lesson embedded within our sickness. A breakdown isn't just a pain, though it is that too of course.

我們將無法學習到疾病帶來的教訓。崩潰是一種疾病，但它引發問題不只是苦痛。

It's an extraordinary opportunity to learn.

這是難得的「學習」機會。

The reason we break down is that we have not, over many years, flexed very much.

我們崩潰的真正原因是：有太多年沒有讓自己好好放鬆了。

There were things we needed to hear inside our minds that we deftly put to one side.

我們需要去傾聽內心的聲音，那些我們過去習慣性忽略的聲音。

There were messages we needed to heed, bits of emotional learning and communicating we didn't do, and now, after being patient for so long, far too long,

我們需傾聽內在的聲音，而過去忽略的情緒學習和溝通，在壓抑這麼久之後，

the emotional self is attempting to make itself heard in the only way it now knows how.

感性的自我只好用最熟悉的方式讓聲音被聽見。

It has become entirely desperate, and we should understand

這是非常絕望的狀態，而我們應該充分理解

and even sympathize with its mute rage. What the breakdown is telling us above anything else is that

甚至理解這種沉默的嘶吼。精神崩潰是在告訴我們

it must no longer be business as usual, that things have to change or (and this can be properly frightening to witness)

不然繼續維持現狀，必須有所改變或 (最不樂見的情況)，

that death might be preferable.

認定「死亡」才能帶來解脫。

Why can't we simply listen to the emotional need calmly and in good time, and avoid the melodrama of a breakdown?

為什麼我們不能令靜地聆聽自己的情緒，避免這種崩潰情節上演呢？

Because the conscious mind is inherently lazy and squeamish

因為大腦意識的本質懶惰且神經質，

and so reluctant to engage with what the breakdown eventually has to tell us with brutality.

不願意去處理那些受壓抑的情緒，以至於須採用如此極端的作法。

For years, it refuses to listen to a particular sadness, or there is a dysfunction in a relationship we're in flight from,

多年來，它拒處理悲傷的情緒、逃避情感問題

or there are desires it sweeps very far under the proverbial carpet.

或繼續壓抑某些慾望。

We can compare the process to a revolution. For years, the people press the government to listen to their demands and adjust.

我們可以將崩潰比喻為一場「革命」。多年以來，人們呼籲政府傾聽他們的要求並做出調整。

For years, the government makes token gestures but shuts its ears,

但多年以來，政府只是裝模作樣、裝聾作啞，

until one day, it is simply too much for the people,

直到某一天，人們受夠了，

who storm the palace gates, destroy the fine furnishings and shoot randomly at the innocent and the guilty.

群眾衝破皇宮大門，破壞華麗的裝潢，隨意射殺無辜和有罪的人。

Mostly, in revolutions, there is no good outcome. The legitimate grievances and needs of the people are not addressed or even discovered.

革命通常不會有好結果。人民正當的不滿和訴求未被解決，甚至沒有被發現。

There is an ugly civil war, sometimes, literally, suicide. The same is true of breakdowns.

內戰是十分醜陋的，自殺成為壓迫下唯一的出口，與崩潰的道理相同。

Yet, a good mental physician tries hard to listen to rather than censor the illness.

然而，一個好的心理醫生會努力嘗試「聆聽」而非「診斷」疾病。

They detect within its oddities a plea for more time for ourselves,

他們會發現反常行為反映了想爭取更多時間，

for a closer relationship, for a more honest, fulfilled way of being, for acceptance of who we really are sexually.

渴望更親密的關係，追求更真誠、充實的生活方式，以及對自我性別的認同。

That's why we started to drink or to become reclusive,

於是我們開始酗酒、封閉自我、

or to grow entirely paranoid or manically seductive.

或變得多疑、情慾躁動。

A crisis represents an appetite for growth that hasn't found another way of expressing itself.

這個危機代表了渴望自我成長卻不知如何著手。

Many people, after a horrific few months or years of breakdown, will say:

許多人在崩潰了數月或數年之後會說：

"You know, I don't know how I'd ever have gotten well, if I hadn't fallen ill."

「你知道嗎，如果我沒有病得那麼重，就不會康復得那麼好。」

In the midst of a breakdown, we often wonder whether we have gone mad. We have not. We're behaving oddly no doubt,

在崩潰期間，我們時常在想自己是不是瘋了。其實沒有，雖然我們行為失常，

but beneath the surface agitation, we are on a hidden yet logical search for health.

但其實躁動不安的背後是對健康的追求。

We haven't become ill, we were ill already. Our crisis, if we can get through it, is an attempt to dislodge us from a toxic status quo

我們不是現在突然發病，而是已經生病很久了。如果我們能夠度過這個危機，就能脫離毒害心靈的現狀，

and it represents an insistent call to rebuild our lives on a more authentic and sincere basis.

它呼籲我們在更真實、更真誠的基礎上，重建生活方式。