致自殺者遺屬：不要活在愧疚感中

When I was growing up, my father thought about ways to kill himself as regularly as I outgrew my shoes. There were pills to my penny loafers, carbon monoxide to my jelly sandals, razors to my Doc Martens. I was 4, 10 and 28 when he made his most damaging attempts.

在我小時候，我的父親想出新辦法自殺，就像我的鞋碼要加大一樣頻繁。我的便士樂福鞋，他的藥片;我的塑料涼鞋，他的一氧化碳;我的馬丁靴，他的剃刀。在我4歲、10歲和28歲的自殺企圖，是其中最危險的三次。

We found him: on the side of the road, on the side of the bed, in my grandmother’s garage where he’d tried to make a tomb of the giant powder-blue Oldsmobile we called Orca.

我們在路旁找到了他，在床邊找到了他，在祖母的車庫里，看到他試圖把我們稱為“奧卡巨鯨”(Orca)的那輛巨大的灰藍色奧斯莫比爾汽車變成他的墳墓。

When he was not trying to kill himself, I thought of myself as a superhero. I remember thinking as a child: He is alive today, and today, and today. I have loved him enough to keep him alive.

在他不去嘗試自殺的時候，我會把自己想象成一個英雄。我記得我小時候的想法：他今天活著，一天，又一天。我對他的愛足以讓他繼續(xù)活下去了。

It was a terrible burden to feel that I was responsible for keeping him alive. I tried to make myself quiet. If my sister and I laughed, it could make him angry, which would then make him sad. Did I want to laugh more than I wanted my father to stay alive? I learned not to ask for things, either, like money to get pizza with friends after school. If he didn’t have the extra money, he’d feel guilty, which would make him depressed. Did I want a slice of pizza more than I wanted my father to stay alive?

讓他活下去是我的責任——這種感覺是個非常糟糕的負擔。我努力讓自己安靜一點。如果我的姊妹和我笑出了聲音，他便會生氣，接著他就會感到難過。難道我想笑的欲望勝過于我希望父親活下來嗎?我努力讓自己不去要求什么，不論什么，比如放學后和朋友一起吃披薩的錢。如果他手上沒有多余的錢，他便會愧疚，這會讓他沮喪。難道我想要一塊披薩勝過于想讓父親活下來嗎?

The reasoning was as reductive as it was delusional.

這是一種簡單化的推理，同時也是自欺欺人。

I now understand that what kept him from succeeding in those attempts was equal parts happenstance and regret, and what kept him alive afterward was therapy and medication, as well as hospitalization when he needed more intense care.

現在我明白了，他的自殺企圖未能成功一半在于偶然，一半在于后悔，而隨后讓他活下來的則是藥物和治療，以及需要更密切的看護時的住院治療。

As it happened, after all of his efforts to end his life, my father died last July when he was hit by two cars as he walked with a friend on the side of a road in a thick, early morning fog. The police investigation confirmed it was an accident.

在經歷過所有這些自殺的嘗試后，我的父親在去年七月去世。在清晨厚重的霧氣中，他與一位朋友走在路旁，被兩輛汽車撞死。警方的調查證實了這是一場意外事故。

When I woke up Friday to the news that Anthony Bourdain had ended his life on the heels of the news that Kate Spade had ended hers, I felt a tremendous sense of sadness, both because they were gone and because they had been in so much pain.

當我周五醒來，聽到安瑟尼·波登(Anthony Bourdain)緊接著凱特·斯佩德(Kate Spade)自殺的新聞后，我感到了一種巨大的悲哀。既因為他們都已離開人世，又因為他們曾經歷太多痛苦。

But I cried for their loved ones and friends, who I imagined might be replaying their last interactions, trying to find the sign they had missed, the opportunity they should have taken, the point in the timeline at which they could have saved him. Could have rescued her.

但我為他們的親人和朋友而哭泣，我想，他們可能正在回憶自己和逝者的最后一次來往，試圖找到未曾發(fā)現的跡象，找到他們本應抓住的機會，找到時間線上他們本可以挽救他的那一刻，本可以救回她的那一刻。

Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were exploding with grief and compassion. It is a beautiful thing to see how much love people are capable of. It is tremendously encouraging to hear the battle cries to destigmatize mental illness. To see strangers sharing their own phone numbers: Call me! Call me! If you are ever at that point, call me!

在Twitter、Facebook和Instagram上，悲哀和同情已經滿溢。能看到人們可以付出多少愛是一件美麗的事情。聽見人們吹響了主張不應讓精神疾病污名化的號角，也令人十分鼓舞。看見陌生人在網上分享著自己的電話號碼：打給我!打給我!你要是到了這個地步，打給我!

But the messages urging people to reach out to help loved ones and strangers carry an unspoken and unintended flip side: That if a person succeeds in ending his life, the people around him might not have been paying enough attention, or trying hard enough.

但這些督促人們伸出援手去幫助親人和陌生人的信息卻帶著一個隱秘而無意的陰暗面：如果一個人成功地結束了自己的生命，那就是周圍的人對他的關注不夠，或者所做的努力不夠。

I worry about the effect these messages have on those who have lost someone to suicide, deepening their grief with an extra layer of guilt.

我擔心的是這些信息對那些因為自殺而失去了某人的人們所造成影響——再添一層負罪感，加重他們的悲哀。

“Rather than thinking, ‘I wish I could’ve fixed this,’ if we can use these moments as a wake up call to think, ‘I want to be more present and aware and connected and empathetic in general,’ — that would be so much more productive,” said Dr. Gregory Dillon, assistant professor of medicine and psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. “And perhaps if all of us did that — and if communication, understanding and empathy were generally better — maybe fewer of these situations would come to a head.”

“與其去想，‘我希望我能解決這個問題’，我們不如用這樣的時刻來敲響警鐘，想想‘我希望能更多地在身邊，更有意識，更多溝通，更有同理心’，——這會更有成效，”威爾·康奈爾醫(yī)學院(Weill Cornell Medical College)藥物和精神病學副教授格雷戈里·狄龍博士(Dr. Gregory Dillon)說。“而如果我們所有人都這么做——并且溝通、理解和同理心在總體上都有所提高——這種境況就不那么容易發(fā)展成危機。”

The news of the deaths of both Ms. Spade and Mr. Bourdain came in the same week that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a 25 percent increase in suicide rates from 1999 to 2016, a year in which nearly 45,000 Americans ended their own lives. That suggests a lot of Americans may be devastated by the thought that they didn’t do enough.

斯佩德和波登去世消息傳出的同一周，美國疾病防控中心(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)發(fā)布報告稱，從1999年到2016年自殺率增長了25%，在2016年有將近4.5萬名美國人結束了自己的生命。這就意味著，還有許多美國人可能正在被“自己做得不夠”的念頭摧殘。

But I could no more have saved my dad from the tons of metal that hurtled toward him when he was hit by those cars than I could save him from the pills he swallowed, the razor he wielded or the carbon monoxide he inhaled.

但就算我把他從吞下的藥片、揮舞的剃刀和他吸入的一氧化碳中救了回來，當那幾噸重的金屬轟鳴著撞向他時，我無能為力。

That’s not to say we shouldn’t be present, be loving, be involved. That’s not to say we shouldn’t share advice, resources, empathy. We should try. With all our might.

但這并不是說我們不該在身邊，去愛，去參與。這并不是說我們不該分享意見、資源和同理心。我們要嘗試，要傾盡一切可能地嘗試。

“It’s cruel to blame ourselves and others for something that was ultimately out of our hands,” said Lakeasha Sullivan, a psychologist in New York. “But we can carry some of this burden collectively. We can start by engaging in real conversations — national conversations — about the quiet voice in all of us that sometimes questions the meaning of life and allows hopelessness and despair to set in.”

“要把一些終究不在我們掌控之內的事情怪罪于我們自身或他人是殘忍的，”紐約的一名心理學家拉加沙·沙利文(Lakeasha Sullivan)說。“但我們可以共同承擔部分的重負。我們可以從參與真實的談話開始——全國性談話——說說我們所有人心里那個悄悄響起的聲音，那聲音有時在質疑生命的意義，讓絕望和無助開始抬頭。”

It is imperative that we try to help people find a way out of their pain that doesn’t end in death, but we need to recognize that if their attempt is a success, it is not because our love was a failure.

我們亟須要做的是幫助人們找到一種不需以死亡來結束痛苦的方式，但我們需要認識到，如果他們的企圖得以成功，那并不是我們的愛的失敗。