TED演讲:一个抑郁喜剧演员的自白

 　　For a long time in my life, I felt like I'd been living two different lives. 在我生命中非常长的一段时间内，我感觉我在过着两种不同的人生。

　　There's the life that everyone sees, and then there's the life that only I see. 一个是每个人都看见的人生，另一个是只有我能看见的人生。

　　And in the life that everyone sees,  在每个人都能看见的人生里，

　　who I am is a friend, a son, a brother, a stand-up comedian¹ and a teenager. 我的角色是一个朋友、儿子、兄弟、喜剧演员和一名青少年。

　　That's the life everyone sees.  这是每个人都看到的人生。

　　If you were to ask my friends and family to describe me, that's what they would tell you. 如果你要问我的朋友和家人来形容我，这是他们会告诉你的。

　　And that's a huge part of me. That is who I am.  这是很大一部分的我，这是我在这社会上的角色

　　And if you were to ask me to describe myself,  如果你要我自己来形容我，

　　I'd probably say some of those same things.  我可能会说一些与上相同的东西。

　　And I wouldn't be lying, but I wouldn't totally be telling you the truth, either, 我不会说谎，但也不会完全会告诉你真相，

　　because the truth is, that's just the life everyone else sees. 因为事实是，这就是其他人看到的人生。

　　In the life that only I see, who I am,  另外一个人生只有我自己能看到，我是谁

　　who I really am, is someone who struggles intensely² with depression. 我其实是一个与抑郁症激烈斗争的人。

　　I have for the last six years of my life, and I continue to every day. 在生命中的近六年来，我与抑郁症斗争也会在接下来的每一天内继续斗争。

　　Now, for someone who has never experienced³ depression or doesn't really know what that means, 对于从未经历过抑郁的人，或不太知道这是什么意思的人，

　　that might surprise them to hear,  他们听到这些也许会感到诧异，

　　because there's this pretty popular misconception  因为在社会上有普遍的误解认为说

　　that depression is just being sad when something in your life goes wrong, 抑郁症只是在当你生命中出了什么差错的时候会难过，

　　when you break up with your girlfriend, when you lose a loved one, 当你和你的女朋友分手，当你失去心爱的人，

　　when you don't get the job you wanted.  当你找不到理想的工作的时候。

　　But that's sadness. That's a natural thing.  但这只是悲伤。这是一件很自然的事情。

　　That's a natural human emotion.  这是自然的人类情感。

　　Real depression isn't being sad when something in your life goes wrong. 真正的抑郁不是当你生命中出了差错的时候悲伤。

　　Real depression is being sad when everything in your life is going right. 真正的抑郁是当你生活中的一切都好的时候悲伤。

　　That's real depression, and that's what I suffer from.  那才是真正的抑郁，而那才是我所遭受的。

　　And to be totally honest, that's hard for me to stand up here and say. 坦诚说，出现在这里并且把它公之于众是一件很难的事。

　　It's hard for me to talk about, and it seems to be hard for everyone to talk about, 我很难去把它诉说，这似乎也很难让每个人去谈这一点，

　　so much so that no one's talking about it.  以至于没有人去谈它。

　　And no one's talking about depression, but we need to be, because right now it's a massive⁴ problem. 没有人会去谈抑郁，但我们需要去谈论它，因为现在它一个很大的问题。

　　It's a massive problem.  这是一个巨大的问题。

　　But we don't see it on social media, right?  但我们并没有看到它出现在媒体上，对吗？

　　We don't see it on Facebook. We don't see it on Twitter.  我们没有在Facebook上看到它，我们也没有在Twitter上看到它。

　　We don't see it on the news, because it's not happy, it's not fun, it's not light. 我们也没有在新闻上看到它，因为它不是快乐的，是不有趣的，也不是光明的。

　　And so because we don't see it, we don't see the severity of it.  于是，正因为我们看不到它，所以我们没有意识到它的严重性。

　　But the severity of it and the seriousness of it is this:  然而它的确很严重：

　　every 30 seconds, every 30 seconds, somewhere, 每隔30秒钟，每隔30秒，在某个地方，

　　someone in the world takes their own life because of depression, 在这个世界上的某个人就在因为抑郁而自杀，

　　and it might be two blocks away, it might be two countries away,  它有可能是在两个街区之外，它也可能在两个国家之外，

　　it might be two continents away, but it's happening, and it's happening every single day. 它可能是两个大洲之外，但它正在发生，而且每一天都在发生着。

　　And we have a tendency, as a society, to look at that and go, "So what?" 作为一个社会，我们有一种趋势，看着这种情况会说，"那又怎样?"

　　So what? We look at that, and we go, "That's your problem. That's their problem." 那又怎样？我们知道这个情况然后说， "这是你的问题。这是他们的问题。”

　　We say we're sad and we say we're sorry, but we also say, "So what?" 我们说我们很难过，我们说我们感到很抱歉，但我们还说，"那又怎样?"

　　Well, two years ago it was my problem,  好吧，两年前，它是我的问题，

　　because I sat on the edge of my bed where I'd sat a million times before and I was suicidal. 因为我坐在我的床边，曾坐过千百万次的床边想着要自杀。

　　I was suicidal, and if you were to look at my life on the surface,  我有自杀倾向，但如果你从表面上看我的生活，

　　you wouldn't see a kid who was suicidal.  你不会看到一个自杀倾向的孩子。

　　You'd see a kid who was the captain of his basketball team,  你会看到一个篮球队队长、

　　the drama and theater student of the year,  今年戏剧班的学生、

　　the English student of the year,  今年学习英语的学生、

　　someone who was consistently⁵ on the honor⁶ roll and consistently at every party. 一个经常出现在荣誉榜上的和一个经常出现在任何派对上的人。

　　So you would say I wasn't depressed⁷, you would say I wasn't suicidal, but you would be wrong. 所以你会说我不是抑郁，你会说我不是自杀，但你就错了。

　　You would be wrong. So I sat there that night beside a bottle of pills with a pen and paper in my hand 你就错了。所以我那天晚上坐在床上旁边是一瓶药，我手上拿着纸笔

　　and I thought about taking my own life and I came this close to doing it. 我想着要终结自己的生命，我差一点点就做了

　　I came this close to doing it.  我差点就这样做了。

　　And I didn't, so that makes me one of the lucky ones,  然而我没有，所以我成为了幸运的一份子，

　　one of the people who gets to step out on the ledge⁸ and look down but not jump, 一个人从边缘中走下来的人，我从我的人生大楼向下看但并没有跳下去，

　　one of the lucky ones who survives.  我是幸运活下来的人之一。

1 comedian   

n.喜剧演员；滑稽演员

参考例句：

• The comedian tickled the crowd with his jokes.喜剧演员的笑话把人们逗乐了。
• The comedian enjoyed great popularity during the 30's.那位喜剧演员在三十年代非常走红。

2 intensely   

adv.强烈地

参考例句：

• I was intensely curious to know more about him. 我迫不及待地想更多地了解他的情况。
• Her parents were intensely ambitious for her and her younger sister. 她的父母对她和她妹妹有着很高的期望。

3 experienced   

adj.有经验的；经验丰富的，熟练的

参考例句：

• Experienced seamen will advise you about sailing in this weather.有经验的海员会告诉你在这种天气下的航行情况。
• Perhaps you and I had better change over;you are more experienced.也许我们的工作还是对换一下好，你比我更有经验。

4 massive   

adj.巨大的，大规模的，大量的，大范围的

参考例句：

• A massive sea search has failed to find any survivors.经过大规模的海上搜救仍未找到幸存者。
• He drank a massive amount of alcohol.他喝了大量的烈酒。

5 consistently   

ad.一贯地，一直

参考例句：

• The Ministry of Finance consistently overestimated its budget deficits. 财政部一贯高估预算赤字。
• The minister has consistently opposed any relaxation in the law. 部长一向反对法律上的任何放宽。

6 honor   

n.光荣；敬意；荣幸；vt.给…以荣誉；尊敬

参考例句：

• I take your visit as a great honor.您的来访是我莫大的光荣。
• It is a great honor to receive that prize.能拿到那个奖是无上的光荣。

7 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

8 ledge   

n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁

参考例句：

• They paid out the line to lower him to the ledge.他们放出绳子使他降到那块岩石的突出部分。
• Suddenly he struck his toe on a rocky ledge and fell.突然他的脚趾绊在一块突出的岩石上，摔倒了。