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One of the most useful realizations we might come to about ourselves is that we are paranoid.
我们最需要获得的自我认知之一可能是：我们都是偏执狂。
The word is easy to laugh off as impossibly eccentric, evoking people who insist that they are being tailed by the Secret Service or watched over by an alien species.
大家很可能认为这个词十分古怪，是在说那些坚称自己被特勤局跟踪或被外星物种监视的人。
But the reality is a lot more normal looking and far less comedic feeling.
但实际上，偏执狂的表现比人们想象的要正常，也不太会有喜剧效果。
To be paranoid in the true sense is to suffer from a repeated feeling that most people hate us, that most situations are extremely dangerous, and that some kind of catastrophe is likely to befall us soon.
真正意义上的偏执狂会不断产生一种感觉，即大多数人都讨厌我们，大多数情况都极其危险，某种灾难可能很快就会降临到我们身上。
It may not be immediately obvious what connects up.
这样说可能不是很清楚。
For example, our impression that a colleague is taking us for a fool with our fear of being talked about unkindly by our friends, with our impression that the waiter has deliberately placed us at the worst table and our dread that we're about to be caught up in a scandal.
举个例子，我们害怕被同事欺骗，害怕朋友说我们不友善，也害怕服务员会故意让我们坐在餐厅最差的那一桌，害怕自己的丑事曝光。
But our sense that the world is permanently and imminently conspiring to belittle, attack and humiliate us is most likely the outcome of a very particular string of experiences of belittlement, attack and humiliation that will have occurred at the hands of just one or two people in our formative years and yet will have been carefully submerged and overlooked.
但我们觉得这个世界不停计划着轻视、攻击和羞辱我们，很可能是因为我们此前经历过很多非常特殊的轻视、攻击和羞辱，这些轻视、攻击和羞辱是在我们性格形成时期共同相处的一两个人造成的，但这些伤害会被认真地掩盖和忽视。
And this will have been done because we have implicitly preferred to fear the world rather than acknowledge the reality of the torment we underwent at the hands of characters who might also be our mother or father whom we would have liked so much to trust and to love.
之所以会出现这样的问题，是因为我们潜意识里更倾向于去害怕这个世界，而不是承认我们在一些人手中遭受折磨的现实，这些人可能是我们非常希望信任和爱戴的，也就是我们的父母。
It's unfortunate that our minds need to discharge their toxins somewhere, and that if they have been blocked from doing so in the appropriate location they will seek to do so anywhere that feels remotely relevant - the office, or the restaurant, the party, or the newspaper article.
不幸的是，我们的大脑需要在某个地方释放毒素，如果它们在应当释放的区域受到阻止，就会在其它与之无关的地方这么做，例如在办公室、餐厅、聚会或报纸文章。
The hatred, and viciousness we fear from colleagues, friends or social media is only a proxy for what we once received from sources close to home and which we have lacked the support required to return back to their senders.
我们对同事、朋友或社交媒体的仇恨和恶意，只是我们曾经对家人无处发泄的情绪的转移，因为我们无法很好地报复来自家人的恶意。
Understanding who has crushed and scarred us constitutes a critical part of adult self-knowledge.
了解是谁击垮了我们，是谁给我们留下了创伤，是成人自我认知的一个重要组成部分。
It is also - we should recognize - an insight we may be deeply reluctant to secure, opting to be forever terrified rather than raise arguments against our treatment by caregivers whom we have chosen to believe are innocent.
我们也应该认识到，这种自我认知是我们可能非常不愿意获得的能力，我们宁愿处于恐惧之中，也不愿反抗我们自认为无辜的亲人，对他们给予的“治疗”提出异议。
It may one day feel as though far fewer people are actually laughing at us, and that there is far less risk of a scandal soon once we understand that the mockery and shaming we anticipate for tomorrow already unfolded in our heart-rendingly anguished and unexplored yesterdays.
也许有一天，我们会发现，真正嘲笑我们的人其实比想象中少得多，丑事发生的风险也小得多，只要我们能明白一个道理：我们预期中可能出现的嘲笑和羞辱，其实只是一种映照，揭示了我们内心深处的痛苦和从未细究的过去。
