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One of the cruellest aspects of mental illness is that it strips us of any ability to believe that other people might be suffering in the way we are.
精神疾病最残酷的方面之一是，它剥夺了我们相信别人可能和我们一样遭受痛苦的能力。
We aren’t being wilfully egocentric or arrogant; we are condemned by our illness to a feeling that we are uniquely pitiful, uniquely unacceptable, uniquely awful.
我们不是故意以自我为中心或傲慢; 疾病让我们觉得自己是唯一可怜，不受欢迎，糟糕的人。
The central legacy of mental illness, and a major contributor to our suicidal impulses, is a feeling of exceptionalism.
精神疾病的核心遗留问题，也是我们自杀冲动的主要原因，是一种例外的感觉。
We start to run away from other people.
我们开始逃离其他人。
Gatherings become impossible - for we grow preemptively terrified of the presumed invulnerability and judgmentalness of those we might meet.
聚会变得不可能——因为我们对可能遇到的人以及他们的无懈可击和评头论足感到恐惧。
We can’t possibly make small talk or concentrate on what someone else is saying when our heads are filled with catastrophic scenarios and an intrusive voice is telling us that we should die.
当我们的脑袋里充满了灾难性的场景，一个侵扰我们的声音告诉我们，我们应该死的时候，我们不可能闲聊或把注意力集中在别人说的话上。
There seems no compact or acceptable way to share with old friends what we have been going through: they knew us as chatty and optimistic.
似乎没有一种约定或可接受的方式来与老朋友分享我们的经历:他们知道我们健谈、乐观。
What would they make of the tortured characters we have become?
他们会怎样看待我们这些备受折磨的角色呢?
We start to assume that no one on earth could possibly know - let alone accept - what it is like to be us.
我们开始假设地球上没有人可能知道——更别说接受——我们是什么样的人。
This is especially tragic because the central cure for mental illness is company.
尤其可悲的是，精神疾病的主要治疗方法就是陪伴。
Our disease denies us access to precisely what we most need in order to get better.
我们的疾病使我们无法获得我们最需要的东西，从而变得更好。
In 1891, the Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler exhibited The Disappointed Souls.
1891年，瑞士艺术家费迪南德·霍德勒展出了《失望的灵魂》。
Five figures are pictured in varied states of dejection.
这幅画描绘了五个人在不同的沮丧状态。
We don’t know quite what has gone wrong in their lives, but Hodler’s talent invites us to imagine possibilities: a marriage here, a social disgrace there, a depression, a feeling of overwhelming anxiety…
我们不知道他们的生活中到底出了什么问题，但霍德勒的才华让我们想到了各种各样的可能性:这里的婚姻，那里的社会耻辱，抑郁，极度焦虑……
However awful the individual stories might be, the true horror of the painting emerges from the way each crisis is unfolding in complete isolation from its neighbours.
无论个别故事多么可怕，这幅画真正的恐怖之处在于，每次危机都是在与旁边的人完全隔绝的情况下展开的。
The disconsolate figures are only millimetres away from one another, but they might as well be in other countries.
这些郁郁不乐的人物彼此之间只有几毫米的距离，但它们可能彼此就像在其他国家一样。
It should be so easy to reach out, to share the burden, to lend a comforting hand, to swap stories - and it would be so life-giving.
伸出援助之手，分担负担，伸出安慰之手，交换故事，应该是如此容易——生命将会充满活力。
But no fellowship seems possible in this insular hell.
但在这个与世隔绝的地狱里似乎不可能有友谊。
Sadness has wrapped each sufferer up in a pitiless sense of their own singularity.
悲伤把每个受难者包裹在他们自己的单一的无情感觉中。
Ferdinand Hodler, The Disappointed Souls, 1891Hodler wasn’t painting any one scene, he intended his work as an allegory of modern society as a whole, with its absence of community, its lonely cities and its alienating technologies.
费迪南德·霍德勒，《失望的灵魂》，1891霍德勒并不是在描绘任何场景，他希望他的作品是对整个现代社会的讽喻，现代社会缺乏社区、是孤独的城市、充满疏远。
But in this very depiction lies the possibility of redemption.
但在这个描绘中，存在着救赎的可能性。
We will start to heal when we realise that we are in fact always extremely close to someone who is as wretched as we are.
当我们意识到，事实上，我们总是和和我们一样不幸的人非常亲近时，我们就会开始痊愈。
We should hence be able to reach out to a similarly broken neighbour and lament in unison.
因此，我们应该能够向一个同样陷入困境的邻近的人伸出援手，齐声哀悼。
We should learn to come together for a very particular kind of social occasion whose whole focus would be an exchange of notes on the misery and lacerations of existence.
我们应该学会为一种特殊的社交场合走到一起，这种场合的全部焦点将是交换关于生存的痛苦和伤痛的意见。
In an ideal gathering of the unwell, in a comfortable safe room, we would take it in turns to reveal to one another the torments in our minds.
在一个理想的病人聚会中，在一个舒适的安全房间里，我们会轮流向彼此吐露我们心中的痛苦。
Each of us would detail the latest challenges.
我们每个人都将详述最近的挑战。
We’d hear of how others were going through sleepless nights, were unable to eat, were too terrified to go outside, were hearing voices and had to fight against constant impulses to kill themselves.
我们会听到其他人如何熬过不眠之夜，吃不下饭，因太害怕而不敢出门，听到各种声音，不得不与不断产生的自杀冲动作斗争。
The material would be dark no doubt, but to hear it would be a balm for our stricken lonely souls.
毫无疑问，物质是黑暗的，但听到它将是一种安慰，为我们受打击的孤独的灵魂。
Ideally, we would keep meeting the same people, week after week - so that our lives would grow entwined with theirs and we could exchange mutual support as we travelled through the valleys of sickness.
理想情况下，我们会每周都和同样的人见面，这样我们的生活就会和他们的生活交织在一起，在我们经历疾病的低谷时相互支持。
We would know who was in particular difficulty, who needed tenderness and who might benefit from an ordinary-sounding chat about the garden or the weather.
我们会知道谁特别困难，谁需要温柔，谁可能会从关于花园或天气的普通交谈中受益。
It isn’t possible that we are as alone as we currently feel.
我们不可能像现在这样感到孤独。
Biology doesn’t produce complete one-offs.
生物学不会产生完全的一次性产物。
There are fellow creatures among the seven billion of our species.
在我们70亿的物种中也有其他的生物。
They are there - but we have lost all confidence in our right to find them.
它们就在那里，但我们对找到它们的权利失去了一切信心。
We feel isolated not because we are so but because we are unwell.
我们感到孤立，不是因为我们是孤立的，而是因为我们身体不适。
We should dare to believe that a fellow disappointed soul is right now sitting next to us on the bench, waiting for us to make a sign.
我们应该敢于相信，一个失望的灵魂正坐在我们旁边的长椅上，等着我们发出信号。
