家里有精神病患者是一种什么样的体验？你永远不知道下一秒他会有怎样的情绪，会做出什么事。你时时刻刻处在他会自杀的担心之中。你可能从最爱的人口中听到最伤人的话，却别无他选只能原谅他。你很想逃但是你不能。因为他是你的亲人。
爱的供养：精神病与希望的回忆录
译者：刘 蕊
校对：刘 璠
策划：戴秀平
‘She was radiant, way out of my league’: a story of love and mental illness
‘当时的她光芒四射，叫我高攀不起’：一个关于爱与精神病的故事
本文选自 The Guardian| 取经号原创翻译
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In , Mark Lukach came home from his teaching job in San Francisco to find his wife, Giulia, sitting on the carpet, their dog sprawled next to her. He could instantly sense that something was wrong. Then Giulia looked up at him and said: “I can’t figure out what I’m going to do with the Vespa key.”
，在旧金山教书的马克·卢卡奇回到家中，看见自己的妻子茱莉亚坐在地毯上，狗狗躺在她的身边。马克立即察觉到有些不对劲。茱莉亚抬头看着他，问道：“这Vespa车钥匙该怎么办？”
sprawle/ spr??l; spr?l/ v. sit, lie or fall with the arms and legs spread out loosely 四肢摊开着坐﹑ 卧或倒下
The couple had a Vespa scooter but Mark didn’t understand. “What do you mean? What would you have to do with the Vespa key?”
他们是有辆Vespa摩托车，但马克并没有明白茱莉亚的意思。“你说什么？车钥匙怎么了？”
“I mean, when I drive to the Golden Gate Bridge,” Giulia replied, “I’ll probably take the Vespa. When I park it, what should I do with the key? If I leave it in the scooter for you, someone will probably steal the scooter. But if I bring it with me, and they don’t find my body after I jump, you’ll lose the only key we have to the scooter.” She looked at Mark pleadingly. “What am I supposed to do with the Vespa key?”
“我是说，如果我要去金门大桥，”茱莉亚回答道，“我应该会骑这辆摩托车去。停好车后，车钥匙该怎么办呢？放在车上的话，车有可能会被人偷走。我自己兜着的话，跳河自尽后如果没有人发现我的尸体，你也就失去了唯一的车钥匙。”她用乞求的目光看着马克，“所以说这车钥匙该怎么办？”
词根：plead/ pli?d; plid/ vmake repeated urgent requests (to sb) (for sth) 再三恳求或请求（某人）（做某事）
Mark and Giulia met at Georgetown University, Washington DC, in August 2000 when they were just 18. In his book, My Lovely Wife: A Memoir of Madness and Hope, Mark describes the first moment he saw Giulia. It was a coup de foudre: “She was radiant, way out of my league, but I was fearless and almost immediately in love.”
2000年8月，在华盛顿乔治城大学，马克遇见了茱莉亚，当时他们年仅18岁。马克在《我可爱的妻子：精神崩溃与希望的回忆录》一书中提到了他初次见到茱莉亚时的情形。那是一见钟情：“当时的她光芒四射，叫我高攀不起，但我并不畏惧，几乎立刻陷入了爱河。”
coup de foudre：令人惊异的突发事件；一见钟情
Giulia was highly ambitious and knew exactly how her life was going to pan out: she was going to be a marketing director with three children by the time she was 35. Mark was more laid-back but also knew what he wanted to be: a husband, a surfer and the father of lots of children with Giulia.
茱莉亚雄心勃勃，她清楚地知道自己的生活要如何展开：35岁的时候，她将成为一名营销主管，并育有三个孩子。相较之下，马克则活得懒散些，但他也知道自己想要成为一个什么样的人：丈夫，冲浪爱好者，还要和茱莉亚一起生许多孩子。
pan out：成功；结果（是）
Those plans seem a long way away now. Giulia turned 35 earlier this year but her life is nothing like she had anticipated. Her ambitions have shrunk to accommodate her new identity: that of, in her own words, an “ongoing psychotic”.
如今，这些计划似乎已经遥不可及。茱莉亚今年35岁了，但生活与她所设想的模样却大相径庭。为了适应新身份，茱莉亚的抱负早已缩水。而这新身份，用她的话来说，叫做“持续性的精神病患者”。
accommodate
/ ??k?m?de?t; ?ˋkɑm??det/ v
1.[Tn] provide lodging or room for (sb)供给（某人）住宿或房间:
2. [Tn.pr] ~ sth to sth change or adjust sth so that it fits or harmonizes with sth else适应; 迁就; 迎合
3.[Tn, Tn.pr] ~ sb (with sth) grant or supply (sth) to sb准予或提供某人（某事物）
In , at 27, Giulia had a terrifying and unexpected psychotic break. Hospitalised in a psychiatric ward, she was tormented by delusions and paranoia. When she was released almost a month later, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and had sunk into an extended suicidal depression during which Mark, struggling to support Giulia, exhausted himself trying to keep his wife safe, follow doctor’s orders, while keeping the job on which the family’s health insurance now relied.
，27岁的茱莉亚突然经历了一次可怕的精神崩溃。在精神病医院住院期间，她饱受幻觉与妄想的折磨。大约一个月后，茱莉亚出院了，但随后又被诊断为患有精神分裂症，并陷入深度抑郁当中，伴随有自杀倾向。那段时间里，马克一边忙着照顾茱莉亚，尽力确保她的安全，遵照医嘱做好一切，本就累得筋疲力尽，一边还要继续工作，让医保有所保障。
torment / ?t??ment; ˋt?rm?nt/
n (a) [U, C usu pl 作不可数名词或可数名词, 後者通常作复数] severe physical or mental suffering （肉体或精神上的）折磨, 痛苦
Eventually, Giulia fully recovered and the couple had a son. But soon after he was born, Giulia had another breakdown and was diagnosed as bipolar. She had her third episode a few years later: in . Pushed to the edge of the abyss, the couple’s golden present and glittering future, which they had taken for granted, was transforming into a harrowing reality.
茱莉亚最终完全康复，这对夫妻也有了一个儿子。但孩子出生没多久，茱莉亚再次精神崩溃，并被诊断为抑郁狂躁型忧郁症。几年后的，茱莉亚第三次发病。他们一次又一次濒临深渊，曾经被他们视作理所当然的事物——美满的当下与光明的未来，通通摇身一变，成了可怕的现实。
It has been two and a half years since Giulia’s last episode but although she is on daily medication and has a team of psychiatrists and therapists fighting to preserve her delicate mental health, she and Mark know that it is improbable that she will fully recover. The family have to be on permanent alert in case she sinks into psychosis again.
自茱莉亚上一次发病已有两年半时间。尽管茱莉亚每天按时吃药，同时还有一队精神病医生和治疗专家尽心尽力呵护着她那脆弱的精神状况，但她和马克都知道要想完全康复是不可能的。全家人不得不时刻保持警惕，以防她再次出现精神问题。
“It’s just so crazy what happens to you in the psych ward that you just don’t want to live afterwards,” says Giulia. “Each time, I have had to start over with my job, and put on hold plans to get pregnant again. Hospitalisation disrupts everything and you have to start from scratch. If I’m being honest, I don’t know if I have the strength to do that one more time.”
“精神病医院里发生的事情实在是太疯狂了，简直令人生无可恋。”茱莉亚说道，“每一次，我都不得不重新开始我的工作，把再次怀孕的计划搁置一边。住院治疗会打乱所有安排，一切又得重头再来。说实话，我都不知道自己是否有勇气再经历一次。”
Mark is silent. I ask how hearing that makes him feel. “It’s terrifying to hear but I’m not surprised,” he eventually says quietly. “I have seen three times how hard it is for Giulia to process these breaks. I do worry that she’s been able to process three but how about the fourth, fifth, sixth and so on? If you keep breaking your arm in the same place, your arm gets weaker and weaker. The same applies to your mind. I have a lot of admiration for her strength but can’t help having that nagging worry that she will not be able to keep recovering.”
马克沉默不语。我问他听到这番话后有何感受。“确实可怕，但我一点也不意外。”他最终轻声开口。“我曾三次眼睁睁地看着她在精神崩溃中苦苦挣扎。我的确担心，她熬过了这三次，但第四次、第五次、第六次甚至更多又该怎么办呢？如果你手臂某处多次骨折，手臂就会变得越来越脆弱。精神也是如此。我钦佩她的勇气，但我总忍不住担心她不知何时又会发病。”
My Lovely Wife is not Giulia’s story but Mark’s. It is the compassionate and deeply honest account of how a husband copes when he is forced to become the carer for an ongoing psychotic wife, a young son (he will be five next week), while being his family’s main breadwinner.
《我可爱的妻子》这本书讲述的并不是茱莉亚的故事，而是马克的。这本书极其真实地记录了一位丈夫的艰难岁月，在不得不照顾随时可能精神崩溃的妻子以及年幼的儿子（他下周就满五岁了）的同时，又必须肩负起全家的经济重担，令人心生同情。
compassionate
/ k?m?p??n; k?mˋp???n/ n
[U] ~ (for sb) pity for the sufferings of others, making one want to help them 同情; 怜悯
“My greatest sadness is that at times, I wasn’t strong enough to be a father to my son and I had to let him down, or take him to stay with his grandparents,” Mark says. “I never thought that would be a consequence of being a carer. It still brings me to tears when I talk about it.”
“最让我伤心的是，有的时候我实在是无力尽到一位父亲的职责，不得不让我儿子失望，不得不将他交给爷爷奶奶照顾。”马克说道，“我从来没有想到尽心照顾妻子的结果会是这样。现在说起来我仍忍不住流泪。”
Mark wrote the book to fill the void he discovered when, battling to get through his trauma, isolation and despair, he searched for support. “I couldn’t find any voices out there speaking to my experience,” he says. “I learned a lot about her and her symptoms and diagnoses, but there was nothing for me. No resources at all.
在同病痛、孤独和绝望苦苦斗争的过程中，马克曾试图寻求帮助，却无疾而终。而他写这本书的目的便是填补这方面的空白。“我找不到任何和我有相同经历的人，”他说，“对于茱莉亚这个人，对于她的病症和诊断，我了解了很多，但从来没有人了解我、支持我。什么也没有。”
“An example of the lack of support is that the maximum my health insurance would offer me was one 30-minute session once a month. I was appalled. What was I supposed to do? Who was listening to me? It felt like I was the first one going through this, which is obviously not the case. The message was that the healthy one is not supposed to need help. I was supposed to be fine. I was on my own.”
“说到没有人支持我，有个很好的例子：医保能够提供给我的最大帮助也不过是每月一次三十分钟的治疗疗程罢了。这简直可怕。我该怎么办？谁能听听我的诉求？好像我是第一个有这种经历的人，但事实明显不是这样的。大家都认为健康的人不需要他人的帮助，我应该可以自己照顾好自己。”
Mark also had to readjust his idea of what a relationship was. “I have a really strong belief that relationships should be equal: that the effort one person puts in, needs to be balanced by an equal amount of effort being put in by the other partner. But I do so much caring for Giulia when she’s sick that that reciprocity becomes imbalanced.”
马克还要重新看待他和茱莉亚之间的关系。“我一直以来都坚决认为，夫妻之间应当公平：一方做出了努力，另一方也应当做出同等的努力，以达到平衡。但是茱莉亚生病的时候，我要花费大量精力照顾她。这种平衡已经出现了倾斜。”
reciprocity
/ ?res??pr?s?t?; ?r?s?ˋprɑs?t?/ n
[U] principleor practice of mutual exchange, esp of making concessions or granting privileges, etc in return for concessions or privileges received 相互交换的原则或实践; （尤指）互相让步或互惠: reciprocity in trade (between countries) （国与国之间的）贸易互惠.
Mark admits his expectations led to a lot of tension after Giulia’s first episode. “It was like he was seeking retribution from me for my having got sick,” she says.
马克承认，在茱莉亚第一次发病后，他的这些想法使得两人之间的关系一度十分紧张。“他似乎觉得生病这件事是我的错。”她说。
Mark admits this is true: “My expectations after the first episode were that she should ‘pay me back’ for the extra caring I put in when she was ill,” he says. “It created a lot of tension. Our marriage hit a very rocky patch partly because of that.”
马克承认自己确实是这么想的。“茱莉亚第一次发病后，我在想，她生病的时候我如此照顾她，她也应该‘报答我些什么’。”他说，“这使得我俩之间的关系紧张了起来，我们的婚姻也或多或少因此陷入了困境。”
It’s different now, Mark says. “It’s not that I do X for her, so she has to do X for me. Now it’s that we have to care for each other as much as we can at any given moment, and I’ve accepted that for periods of time, Giulia isn’t able to care for me or our son. That doesn’t put her in deficit.”
但现在不一样了，马克说道。“并不是说我为她做了什么，她就一定要给予我同等回报。现在的我们总是时时刻刻尽心尽力关心对方，我也接受了茱莉亚有些时候无法顾及到我和儿子的这个事实。但这并不意味着她付出的没有我们多。”
Nevertheless, Giulia admits she has learned a lot from reading Mark’s book. “For the first time, I was able to get into his shoes and see how awful it was: how scary it was for him, being a dad and being the best dad when his wife was in the psych ward. We’d talked about it already but reading it made me experience my illness from his perspective. The loneliness really came through,” she says.
不过，茱莉亚承认自己从马克的书中了解到了很多。“这是我第一次从他的角度看待事情：妻子住进了精神病医院，作为一名父亲，或者说作为一名好父亲，整件事该有多糟糕，他该有多害怕。这些我们之前都有聊过，但这本书让我站在他的立场上重新经历了一次我生病的整个过程，亲身体会到了那份孤独感。”她说。
But, ultimately, Giulia says, this book is about love. “This book is pretty much a love letter Mark has written to me,” she said, struggling to hold back the tears. “And it’s the gift that we can give to the world.”
但是，茱莉亚说道，从根本上上来说，这是一本关于爱的书。“这本书就像是马克写给我的情书，”她强忍着泪水说道，“这本书也是我们给世界的一个礼物。”
Mark’s ultimate message to anyone who finds themselves in a situation that resembles his own is clear. “Without a doubt, you have to take care of yourself as a carer,” he says. “My first impulse was to put absolutely everything into trying to help Giulia and not pay attention to my needs at all.”
对于那些和他陷入相同处境的人来说，马克最终想要传递的信息十分明确。“如果你家有人需要你照料，那么毫无疑问，你就不得不先照顾好你自己。”他说，“起初，我只是一股脑儿地想着把所有的精力都放在茱莉亚身上，至于我自己的需求则完全没有在意。”
impulse / ??mp?ls; ˋ?mp?ls/ n
1.(a) [C] ~ (to do sth) sudden urge to act without thinking about the results 凭冲动行事（未顾及後果）; 突如其来的念头
2.[C] push or thrust; stimulus; impetus 推动; 冲力; 刺激; 推动力
“I felt that doing anything for myself was selfish and not good for Giulia. But I’ve learned that that’s how carers burn out, and then they’re no good to anyone,” he says. “So now, I continue to prioritise being active and being the best teacher and writer I can be, despite Giulia’s mental health.
“那时，我感觉把任何精力放在自己身上都是种自私的行为，而且无利于茱莉亚。但后来我明白了，这种做法只会让人筋疲力尽，对谁都没有好处。”他说，“所以，现在的我会继续将积极生活，努力教书，认真写作放在首位，不为茱莉亚的精神状况所影响。”
“We’ve said we don’t want her to have another episode but have had to prepare ourselves for one, and this is part of that process,” he adds. “Keeping myself at the top of my game means that if – or, rather, when – Giulia has another episode, I will be able to be the best husband and best father I’m able to be for us all.”
“之前说过，我们不希望茱莉亚再次发病，但我们又不得不时刻为下一次发病做好准备，这是没办法的事。”他补充道，“我要随时保持最佳状态，只有这样，如果茱莉亚再次出现状况，或者更准确地说，当茱莉亚再次出现状况时，我才能够尽全力照顾好我的妻子和儿子。”
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