Recently, I have been questioning myself a lot. I might be thinking too hard by myself, so please drop me thoughts and comments in the end if you want to.
最近，我一直在質問自己很多。我可能想太多也說不定，所以如果您想的話，請告訴我您的想法和意見。
I thought I was getting out of my transition period in the period between 7th to 10th this month (please refer to Depressed transition 抑鬱過渡期). This is because the week before these days, I had some suicidal thoughts and random moments of crying, and yet between those 4 days, I did not have any emotional breakdown. So it was on the 11th when things did not turn out as expected. I was happily on my way home from the cinema, but then I came to think about a weird and rather stupid belief I have been upholding, and of which was fully demonstrated during the worst time of my depression.
我在今個月的7日至10日之間還以為我走出我的過渡期了，（請參考 Depressed transition 抑鬱過渡期)。那是因為在這幾天前的一個禮拜裏，我有著自殺的想法和又在一些時候隨機般的哭起來，可是那四天裏我並沒有任何情緒失控的時候。就在11號，事情又與所想的脱軌了。我本來看完電影，正快樂地在回家的路上，但我突然發現我一直以來堅守著一個奇怪和愚蠢的信念，而我的抑鬱症最壞的時期就充分的表現了這信念。
This came back to the time when I was doing my master course in the U.K., when I could not get any good quality of sleep at all for months. So one asks why sleeping was so difficult for me. Well, the reason was pretty absurd, ‘though back then I thought it was rational. I was guilty about sleeping, and of course I could not accept myself having afternoon naps. This is because I associated sleeping as a lazy behaviour, and I instructed myself that I should be revising or writing job applications instead.
這就要說起我在英國念碩士，那完全不能有任何良好睡眠的時候。所以你會問我為什麼睡不好吧。其實，該原因真的非常荒謬，可是以前我認為是合理的。我對睡覺感到內疚，當然我也不能接受自己睡午覺。因為我將睡覺聯想為一個懶惰的行為，我教我自己，相反的，我應該在溫習或寫求職信。
Rather than simply laughing it off that I was being too harsh on myself, during that walk home on the 11th, I discovered how this guilt of sleeping came about. In fact, I had always been a workaholic in terms of my academics, and this was due to a very absurd belief. Besides the self-satisfaction I got from achieving good marks during exams, and the belief that being a degree holder can provide me the opportunity to have a potential professional career, the main force that kept me studying crazily was that I saw studying as a means of self-protection. (The fact that I am now typing about this made me laugh.)
雖然應該就我對自己之前過分嚴苛的行為一笑置之，在這回家的路上，我發現了這對睡覺的內疚感的由來。事實上，我於學業方面一直是個工作狂，就源於一個荒謬的信是。除了由考試拿到好分數而來的自我滿足感，和相信作為大學生可帶給我擁有做專業人士的潛在機會，那主要使我發瘋的念書的動力是因為我以為，念書就可以保護自己。(我現在在打字去說這事也惹我發笑。)
When I first started leaving home and studied abroad, I had in some past personal experiences got mocked by certain people about my English language ability and my academics ability. ( Today, I don’t know whether these people said certain things intentionally to hurt me or not, but of course, it dose not matter anymore. ) I could not help but to have embedded these unkind comments in my heart. I guess this is because these comments were said to me when I was feeling insecure being abroad alone, with no families around, and at a young age. So for about past 10 years, I believed that the more I study, the more secure I will be, meaning that others cannot harm me, either mentally or physically – ‘what an absurd belief!’, I proclaimed this in my mind so so loudly. How come I don’t know that this is such an absurd belief for the past 10 years till the 11th April 2016? How come I worked so hard as a student over the past 10 years for such an absurd belief?
當我剛開始離家到外國念書時，我有一些個人經歷，在其中，有些人對我的英語能力和學業水平作出嘲笑。(直到今天，我不知道當時那些人說那些話是不是有心傷我，但當然，這已經不再重要了。)我不能阻止自己去將這些不善的評語埋在心裏。我想是因為這些評語是在我一個人在外國，缺乏安全感的時候說的，而我當時年紀小，也沒有家人在身邊。大概前十年來，我相信著，我念越多書，我就會越有安全感，意思是其他人在心理上或生理上就不能傷害我了–「這可是多麼荒謬的信念！」我在腦裏非常非常大聲的宣告。我怎麼在前十年都不知道這信念是多麼的荒謬，直到2016年4月11日呢？我怎會在前十年因為這非常荒謬的原因去做一個這麼努力的學生呢？
That walk on the 11th became full of tears, full of suicidal thoughts, full of shame. How the hell did I manage to have such absurd belief for so many years? If I had known that I was believing in something so absurd, I would not have studied so hard, and let academic stress overwhelmed me that I could not even continue my master studies. The truth is, it was due to my young age that I could not protect myself properly; more accurately speaking, I could not choose to not live from people that I did not like and be independent at my young age, so I felt so ‘unprotected’, with language barrier as an additional condition that troubled me so badly that time.
那回家的路變得充滿著淚水，充滿著自殺的想法，充滿著慚愧。咩L事，我竟然可以有著這麼荒謬的信念這麼多年了？如果我要是知道自己的信念是這麼荒謬，我才不會這麼用功讀書，讓學業壓力把我淹沒到我不能繼續讀碩士。事實是，我年紀小才不能好好保護自己；更精確地說，我當時年紀小，所以不能選擇不和我不喜歡的人一起生活和獨立，所以我覺得好「不受保護」，而語言障礙這問題使我當時加倍的雪上加霜。
So whether I decided to quit school at the age of 16, or to get a PhD, it would not make a difference to this ‘unprotected’ mindset rooted in me. I lost self-control again. Once I arrived home, I was so ashamed of myself to have held tight to this absurd thought. I remember I did a series of irrational things, from locking myself in my bedroom and then putting myself in a dark confined space under the desk or inside the wardrobe, to getting a relief through hitting my head with an electrical fan, plotting in my own mind that I would let myself starve to death inside the wardrobe. Strangely enough, possibly due to a pill that my mum had forced me to take in the end, I was back to normal again when it was close to midnight.
所以就算我從16歲開始就不上學校讀書又好，我是博士又好，這個「不受保護」的心態都會種在我腦海裏。我又失去控制了。一回到家，我對自己一直以來堅守著這荒謬信念而自我慚愧。我記得自己做了一連串的不合理性的事，由反鎖自己在我的睡房裏，然後去像書桌底或衣櫥內的黑暗狹窄的空間裏，去由用電風扇打自己的頭去得到解脫，在腦海裏計劃著要在衣櫥裏將自己餓死。夠怪的，或者是最後因為媽媽迫我吃的藥丸，我在快到零時的時候又回復正常了。
I am still worried that maybe tomorrow, a week later, a month later, or a year later, I will find out that I still have other absurd and shameful believes rooted in my head. But before more absurd believes come to be revealed, I want to know the answers to these 2 questions first:
1. During an emotional breakdown, I was so afraid of light and felt safe to hide in dark, confined space, and I resorted to hitting myself in order to reduce the great level of shame that I felt about myself. My psychiatrist said if I were alone at home that time, I would not have done these things. But when I asked was it because subconsciously I was being attention-seeking, he turned down this idea. So why did I do these things then?
2. I can’t distinguish between my own assumption and the reality. E.g. I have for some time kept telling my psychiatrist that I could sense so strongly about this one ‘unfortunate thing’ that would happen, I got extremely upset because I really didn’t want to anticipate this thing. In the end, my psychiatrist said it was actually my own assumption that this ‘unfortunate thing’ would eventually take place; I was simply being excessively anxious. So when I have the intention to prevent something bad from happening in the future, how do I know if it is only me having an anxiety crisis, or that it is something that I really ought to do something in action about it?
我還是擔心可能明天，一個禮拜，一個月，一年後，我會發現我還有其他的荒謬和慚愧的信念種了在腦裏。但在我更多荒謬信念暴露出來之前，我想知道這兩個問題的答案：
1.在我情緒失控時，我好怕光，在黑暗狹小 的空間裏卻感到安全，而我要靠打自己去減少自我愧疚感。我的精神科醫生說如果當時的我一個人在家，我就不會這樣做了。但當我問是我潛意識裏想要引人注目嗎，他又說不是。那我是為什麼做這些事情呢？
2.我分不清自我假設和現實。例如說，我有一段時間一直跟我精神科醫生說我感覺到一件「不幸事件」會發生，我好傷心，因為我可要預料這事。最後，我精神科醫生說是我自我假設這「不幸事件」會變真；我就是過度憂慮了。所以說，在將來當我有意願去預防不好的事情發生時，我要怎樣知道是我自己又發生焦慮危機，或是我真的應該採取行動去預防呢？
I reckon I will be better off by posing these 2 questions to my psychiatrist in my next appointment. At the very least, I have my psychiatrist’s words that I will be ok to go out just by myself.
我想我還是在下次覆診時去問我精神科醫生這兩個問題吧。起碼，他給我發了話，說我可以自己一個人外出了。