一个妄想型精神分裂症患者的职场生存记

I’ve been fired more times than I care to admit. I have even more resignation letters to my name.

我被解雇的次数多到我不想承认。我辞职的次数更多。

Work and paranoid schizophrenia aren’t exactly a recipe for success.

工作和妄想型精神分裂的搭配不是成功的秘方。

At one job I had, on the ground floor of a city office, there were bars on the windows. The bars were no doubt put in for security reasons, like all the other shops and offices on the street. But I grew increasingly convinced that they were placed there just for me as part of a grand conspiracy. I have always felt that people are setting me up for heinous crimes or that I’ve committed one that I can’t remember and that the police are spying on me to gather evidence. With the windows I felt they’d been fitted by a stranger who knew of me, sometime before I started work, to send me the message that I would soon “be behind bars.”

我曾做过的一份工作是在一座城市办公楼的一层，窗户上装有铁栏。装那些栏杆显然是为了安全，那条街上的其他店铺和办公室都是这样。但我越来越确信，它们是专门为我安装的，是一个巨大阴谋的一部分。我总觉得人们在陷害我，想让我犯下十恶不赦的罪行，或者我犯过大罪，只是自己不记得了，警察正在监视我，收集证据。我觉得窗户上的那些栏杆是我去那里工作前了解我的一个陌生人安装的，是想暗示我，我很快“会被关到铁窗后面”。

Seeing a policeman on the street outside the office or hearing a helicopter fly by would set my heart racing. I was convinced they’d finally come for me. I didn’t last long in that office.

看到办公室外面的街上有警察，或者听见直升机飞过，我就会心跳加速。我确信，那是他们终于来抓我了。我在那个办公室没干多久。

The sedative effects of my medications also mean I often oversleep and get into the office late. Really late. Sometimes 90 minutes late.

我服用的药物的镇定作用也弄得我经常睡过头，上班迟到。迟到很长时间。有时甚至迟到90分钟。

The head of my department at another job I had didn’t seem to mind, as I always made the time up in the evening. But colleagues did mind, others in the office told me, including the girl who sat next to me. Back then, I wasn’t open about having schizophrenia. I didn’t want to stigmatize myself by giving reasons for my tardiness. So I assume people just thought I was lazy.

我在另一份工作中的部门经理似乎并不介意，因为我总是在晚上把时间补回来。但同事们介意——这是我听办公室的其他人说的，包括坐在我旁边的那个女孩。当时，我没有公开承认自己患有精神分裂症。我不想背上为自己的拖沓找理由的恶名。所以我觉得人们只会认为我是太懒惰。

Far too often, I would regard an off-the-cuff remark by a work colleague, a roll of the eyes when I offered an idea at a meeting, or a sigh when I arrived late, as aggressive and threatening, an insult directed toward me.

我经常把同事们随口说的一句话、我在会上发表意见时别人的一个白眼，或者我迟到时同事的一声叹息，视为对我的攻击或威胁，认为那些都是针对我的侮辱。

At another office where I was working as a commercial copywriter it still pains me to recall the time someone asked what I was listening to on my headphones. When I replied “Coldplay” and my colleagues all laughed, I wasn’t sure why. Maybe they found me as depressing as the artists I listened to? Once again it felt like I was being bullied. I quit that job shortly afterward.

我在另一个公司做商业文案时发生的一件事至今回想起来依然让我心痛。当时有个同事问我耳机里在听谁的歌。我回答说酷玩乐队(Coldplay)，同事们大笑起来，我不知道他们笑什么。也许是因为他们觉得我和那些音乐人一样阴郁?我再次觉得自己被凌辱了。不久后，我辞掉了那份工作。

To this day I am unsure if I was a victim of bullying in the office or just overly sensitive to others.

直到今天，我依然不确定，自己到底是办公室欺凌的受害者，还是对他人过于敏感。

And a 9-to-5 office role is relentless. It doesn’t allow me the flexibility to see a therapist on a regular schedule. I also often forgot general medical checkups, and many times forgot to re-order my medication at the pharmacy, which would send me into a panic attack.

朝九晚五的职场生活是没完没了的。它缺乏灵活性，我无法定期去进行心理治疗。我也常常忘记进行普通体检，多次忘记在药房重新订购自己的药物，而这让我陷入急性焦虑症。

Luckily, every office has its own underdog or “pecked hen.” They usually gravitated to me as a kindred spirit, taking me aside to calm me down or nip out for a cigarette.

幸运的是，每个办公室都有弱者或“受到欺压的人”。他们常常与我惺惺相惜，把我叫到一边安慰我，或者邀我一起出去抽根烟。

I remember on one occasion catching the girl who sat next to me glancing at my computer screen to see what I was working on. But she held the glance for about 10 seconds, which seemed like a really long time, more like an intrusive stare. I got very upset and sent a strongly worded email to the company manager, with a few line managers cc’d for good measure. The email was so strongly worded that my colleague had tears in her eyes when she was called in about it and was granted permission to leave work for the day. She even brought some chocolate to say sorry to me and mentioned more than once that she was Christian.

我还记得有一次，我看见坐在我旁边的女孩盯着我的电脑屏幕看我在干什么。她大概看了十秒钟，但真的感觉看了很长时间，更像是那种侵犯性的注视。我非常生气，给公司经理发了一封措辞犀利的电子邮件。那封邮件写得太刻薄了，我的同事被叫去询问时，眼里噙着泪水，被准许当天可以早退。她后来甚至送了我一些巧克力致歉，还不止一次对我说她是基督徒。

Once I left that job she unfriended me on Facebook, on my birthday. Even though by that point she knew I had mental health problems.

我一辞掉那份工作，她马上在Facebook上取消了对我的关注，那天是我的生日。尽管她当时已经知道我有精神问题。

When I got my dream job as a fashion writer in London, at a very decent salary, the “flights of ideas” that are part of my illness, compounded by the restlessness brought on by my medications, sabotaged my success. I’d been there for two weeks when I asked if it was possible I could take a six-month leave to work as a trainee reporter at a local newspaper in Hawaii. That wasn’t allowed, but two weeks later I took three days of holiday and a weekend away to travel to Paris to write a deodorant review for a small, independent magazine. I took another week off soon after to host writing workshops for people with disabilities.

后来我在伦敦获得了自己梦想的工作——做时尚撰稿人，这份工作薪水颇丰，但我的疾病产生的“突发奇想”以及药物导致的焦躁不安毁掉了我的成功。我刚到那里工作两个星期，就要求请假六个月，去夏威夷的一个地方报纸做实习记者。我没有获得批准，但两周后，我请了三天假，再加上一个周末，我去巴黎为一个小型独立杂志写了一篇关于除臭剂的测评。不久后，我又请了一周假，为残疾人举办了几期写作讲习班。

My boss was very understanding, and I did last in that job for 18 months but ended up resigning to be closer to my mother, who was having health problems. My office goodbye card was memorable: Even though I hadn’t told many people about my condition, all the notes went along the lines of “I’ll miss the madness.”

我的上司非常善解人意，我也在那里干了整整18个月，但我最终辞职了，我想住得离母亲近一点，当时她的健康出了问题。我的办公室告别卡令人难忘。尽管我没跟很多人说起我的精神问题，但所有的留言都表达了这层意思：“我会想念你的疯狂。”

An important lesson I have learned by overcoming adversity in the workplace and learning to live with mental illness is that we can build castles with the stones that life throws at us. I now work from home as a freelance writer, at hours to suit, which allows me the flexibility to get the regular therapy sessions and medical checkups that I need.

我在克服工作逆境、学着接受自己的精神疾病的过程中获得了一个重要经验，那就是，我们可以用生活砸向我们的石头建造城堡。我现在在家工作，做自由撰稿人，工作时间灵活，我可以定期进行必要的心理治疗和体检。

I mostly write about mental illness. I am also writing my first book, “A Beginner’s Guide to Sanity,” with a highly regarded professor of psychiatry.

我主要是写精神疾病方面的文章。我还在和一名很有声望的精神病学教授合著我的第一本书——《精神正常入门指南》(A Beginner’s Guide to Sanity)。

I made just $6,260 last year as a freelance writer. But I’ve seen very real and positive results.

去年，我做自由撰稿人只赚了6260美元。但我看到了非常切实而正面的结果。

My psychiatric diagnosis has changed from paranoid schizophrenia to schizoaffective disorder. People with schizoaffective disorder are considered more social than those with a schizophrenia diagnosis but have occasional “mood swings.”

我的精神诊断已经从妄想型精神分裂症改为分裂情感性障碍。与前者相比，后者被认为更善于社交，但偶尔会有“情绪波动”。

My new work life, along with therapy, has also taught me that qualities such as confidence as well as work-based skills can be learned and built on.

我的新工作方式，再加上心理治疗，还让我明白，信心和工作技能等品质可以慢慢学习和培养。

Perhaps most important, I’ve come to accept that I am a work in progress.

也许最重要的是，我已经开始接受自己是一个正在塑造中的作品。