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It may sound odd or impolite to suggest that most of us, when we are in the grip of mental illness, are no longer capable of thinking.
这可能听起来是很奇怪或不礼貌的，说我们大多数人，当我们受到精神疾病的控制时，不再能思考。
That’s not how it feels of course.
感觉自然不是这样的。
From the inside, our minds have probably never felt so busy and so focused.
从内心来看，我们的大脑可能从未感觉到如此忙碌和专注。
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From the moment we wake up in panic and self-disgust, we are ruminating, pondering, exploring catastrophic scenarios, scanning our past, attacking ourselves for things we have done and not done,
我们从恐慌和自我厌恶中醒来的那一刻起，我们就在反思、思考、探索灾难性的情景，审视我们的过去，为我们做过和没做过的事攻击自己，
questioning our legitimacy, talking to ourselves about how repulsive we are, paying attention to strange voices recommending that we are evil and sick and headed for the worst – and wondering how and whether we should kill ourselves.
质疑我们存在的合理性，对自己说我们是多么令人厌恶， 注意那些告诉我们我们是邪恶的，有病的，正向最坏的方向发展的奇怪的声音，并思考我们应该如何自杀，是否应该自杀。
Our minds don’t give us a moment of respite, we may rub our temples to cool them down and when eventually we fall asleep, we are exhausted by the marathons our thoughts have run inside us.
我们的思想不给我们片刻喘息的时间，我们可能会揉搓太阳穴使其降温，当我们最终入睡时，我们已经被我们的思想在我们体内跑的马拉松弄得筋疲力尽。
Nevertheless, we may still want to insist (for the kindest and most redemptive of reasons) that we have not been thinking at all, that none of this hive of activity deserves the title of thinking; it is just illness.
然而，我们可能仍然想坚持(出于最仁慈和最有救赎意义的理由)，我们根本没有思考过，这一系列忙碌的活动都不配被称为思考；它只是一种疾病。
To be mentally ill is to be swamped by secretions of fear, self-hatred and despair that – like surging seawater through a pumping station control desk – knock out all our higher faculties,
精神疾病就是被恐惧、自我憎恨和绝望的分泌物所淹没——就像汹涌的海水通过抽水站的控制台——摧毁我们所有的高级官能，
all our normal ability to sensibly distinguish one thing from another, to find perspective, to weigh arguments judiciously, to see the wood for the trees, to correctly assess danger,
摧毁我们理智区分事物，找到观点，明智地权衡论点，见贤思齐，正确评估危险，
to plan realistically for the future, to determine risks and opportunities and, most importantly, to be kind and generous to ourselves.
现实地规划未来，确定风险和机会，最重要的是，对自己友善和慷慨的正常能力。
None of these faculties function any longer, but – and this is the true nastiness of the illness – we are never and nowhere alerted to our loss.
这些官能都不再发挥作用了，但是——这就是疾病真正的可怕之处——我们从来没有、也没有任何地方意识到我们的失去。
We are both very ill and very unaware.
我们都病得很重，也都没有意识到。
It looks as though we are continuing to think as we have always done – with all the usual intelligence and reliability – but that we just have a lot more to worry about.
看起来，我们仍在继续像以往一样思考——以往常的智慧和可靠性——但我们有更多的事情要担心。
Nowhere along the way does our mind generously tell us that it has begun to look at reality through a distorted lens, that it has – at some point in the day – to all effects stopped working.
我们的头脑从来没有慷慨地告诉我们，它已经开始通过扭曲的镜头来看待现实，它已经——在一天中的某个时刻——所有的功能都停止了。
No bell goes off, no hazard lights start to flash.
没有铃声响起，没有危险信号灯开始闪烁。
The mind merely insists that it is giving us all the normal readings, and that we have objectively entered hell.
大脑只是坚持认为它给了我们所有正常的读数，而我们客观上已经进入了地狱。
Yet the truth is that we have lost command of about a third of our minds and are pulling together our ideas from the most degenerate, traumatised, unreliable and vicious aspects of ourselves.
然而，事实是，我们已经失去了对大约三分之一的大脑的控制，我们正在把自己最堕落、最受创伤、最不可靠和最邪恶的方面的思想集中起来。
It’s as if a group of terrorists had donned white coats and were impersonating prestigious scientists in order to lay out a set of vicious theories and prognoses.
这就好像一群恐怖分子穿上白大褂，冒充著名的科学家，为了摆出一套邪恶的理论和预言。
Once we have been through a few cycles of distorted thinking and recovered contact with reality, we should do ourselves the kindness of accepting that – on an intermittent basis
一旦我们经历了几个扭曲的思维周期，恢复了与现实的联系，我们应该善意地接受这一点-间歇性地接受这一点
– we will lose command of our higher faculties and that there is nothing embarrassing in recognising the possibility and accommodating ourselves to it very carefully.
-我们将失去对我们更高层次的能力的控制，认识到这种可能性并非常仔细地适应它并没有什么令人尴尬的。
This is the nature of an illness around which we will need to take the greatest care.
这是一种疾病的特点，我们需要对其给予最大的关注。
We should start to get better at detecting when illness might be drawing in on us, what the triggers for it might be.
我们应该开始更好地发现疾病何时会向我们袭来，它的触发因素是什么。
Then when it is upon us, we should do and decide nothing.
那么当它降临到我们头上时，我们就什么也不做，什么也不决定。
We shouldn’t start to send emails, deliver judgement on our lives or plan for the future.
我们不应该开始发电子邮件，对我们的生活做出判断或计划未来。
We should – as much as possible – stop all mental activity and rest.
我们应该-尽可能地-停止所有的精神活动去睡觉。
We might listen to music, have a long bath, watch something untaxing on television and perhaps take a calming pill.
我们可以听音乐，洗个长时间的澡，看一些轻松的电视节目，或者吃一片镇定药片。
We should also try to plug our brain into that of someone else, to benefit from their greater powers of reason.
我们还应该尝试将自己的大脑连接到别人的大脑中，以便从他们更强大的理性能力中受益。
We should have a trusted friend or therapist whom we can call on at such moments and ask them if they might recalibrate and regulate our thoughts with an injection of their wisdom and insight.
我们应该有一个值得信赖的朋友或治疗师，在这样的时刻，我们可以拜访他们，问问他们是否可以通过注入他们的智慧和洞察力来重新校准和调节我们的思想。
We should willingly put them in charge of determining how things are for us:
我们应该心甘情愿地让他们负责决定我们的处境：
they should be allowed to tell us what we are worth, what we have done, what there is to worry about – and we should do our best to discount the contrary, doom-laden signals that come from inside us.
应该让他们告诉我们我们的价值，我们做了什么，有什么需要担心的-我们应该尽最大努力忽视来自我们内心相反的、悲观的信号。
We may have grown up with the idea that so long as we are conscious, our minds will be working optimally.
我们可能从小就有这样一种想法，即只要我们有意识，我们的大脑就会以最佳状态运转。
But mental illness teaches us a more complicated lesson:
但精神疾病给我们上了一节十分复杂的课程:
our higher faculties (those that give us access to reality) are extremely vulnerable and perilously prone to shut down under the sway of our emotional complexities – and to do so without telling us .
我们的高级官能(那些让我们接触现实的官能)极其脆弱，在我们复杂的情绪影响下很容易关闭-而且这样做时没有告诉我们。
We should strive to become thinkers who recognise when they are no longer able to think.
我们应该努力成为思想家，当自己不能再思考时，要意识到这一点。
