The last time I heard my son's voice was when he walked out the front door on his way to school. He called out one word in the darkness: "Bye."
我最后一次听到儿子的声音是他在上学的路上走出前门的时候。他在黑暗中喊出一个字：“再见。”
It was April 20, 1999. Later that morning, at Columbine High School, my son Dylan and his friend Eric killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded more than 20 others before taking their own lives. Thirteen innocent people were killed, leaving their loved ones in a state of grief and trauma. Others sustained injuries, some resulting in disfigurement and permanent disability. But the enormity of the tragedy can't be measured only by the number of deaths and injuries that took place. There's no way to quantify the psychological damage of those who were in the school, or who took part in rescue or cleanup efforts. There's no way to assess the magnitude of a tragedy like Columbine, especially when it can be a blueprint for other shooters who go on to commit atrocities of their own. Columbine was a tidal wave, and when the crash ended, it would take years for the community and for society to comprehend its impact.
那是1999年4月20日。那天上午晚些时候，在科伦拜恩高中，我的儿子迪伦和他的朋友埃里克杀死了12名学生和一名教师，并在自杀前打伤了20多人。13名无辜的人被杀害，留下他们的亲人在悲痛和创伤的状态。另一些人受伤，一些人造成毁容和永久残疾。但是，这场悲剧的严重性不能仅由发生的伤亡人数来衡量。没有办法量化那些在学校里的人的心理伤害，或者参与救援或清理工作的人。没有办法评估像科伦拜恩这样的悲剧的严重程度，特别是当它可以成为其他射手的蓝图时，他们会犯下自己的暴行。科伦拜恩是一个浪潮，当崩溃结束时，社区和社会需要数年时间才能理解它的影响。
It has taken me years to try to accept my son's legacy. The cruel behavior that defined the end of his life showed me that he was a completely different person from the one I knew. Afterwards people asked, "How could you not know? What kind of a mother were you?" I still ask myself those same questions.
我花了好几年的时间才接受我儿子的遗产。定义生命终结的残酷行为让我明白，他是一个完全不同于我认识的人。后来人们问：“你怎么会不知道呢？你是什么样的母亲？”我仍然问自己同样的问题。
Before the shootings, I thought of myself as a good mom. Helping my children become caring, healthy, responsible adults was the most important role of my life. But the tragedy convinced me that I failed as a parent, and it's partially this sense of failure that brings me here today. Aside from his father, I was the one person who knew and loved Dylan the most. If anyone could have known what was happening, it should have been me, right? But I didn't know.
在枪击事件发生之前，我认为自己是一个好妈妈。帮助我的孩子成为关心、健康、负责任的成年人是我生命中最重要的角色。但这场悲剧让我确信，我作为一个家长失败了，这部分的失败感让我今天来到这里。除了他的父亲，我是一个知道和最爱dylan的人。如果有人知道发生了什么，那应该是我，对吗？但我不知道。
Today, I'm here to share the experience of what it's like to be the mother of someone who kills and hurts. For years after the tragedy, I combed through memories, trying to figure out exactly where I failed as a parent. But there are no simple answers. I can't give you any solutions. All I can do is share what I have learned.
今天，我在这里分享的经验，这是什么样的人的母亲，谁杀死和伤害。在悲剧发生后的几年里，我仔细梳理记忆，试图找出我作为父母失败的确切位置。但没有简单的答案。我不能给你任何解决方案。我所能做的就是分享我所学到的东西。
When I talk to people who didn't know me before the shootings, I have three challenges to meet. First, when I walk into a room like this, I never know if someone there has experienced loss because of what my son did. I feel a need to acknowledge the suffering caused by a member of my family who isn't here to do it for himself. So first, with all of my heart, I'm sorry if my son has caused you pain.
当我和那些在枪击事件发生前不认识我的人交谈时，我有三个挑战要面对。首先，当我走进一个这样的房间时，我不知道是否有人因为我儿子的所作所为而经历了损失。我觉得有必要承认我的家庭成员所造成的痛苦，他们不是来为自己做这件事的。所以，首先，我的心，我很抱歉，如果我的儿子让你痛苦。
The second challenge I have is that I must ask for understanding and even compassion when I talk about my son's death as a suicide. Two years before he died, he wrote on a piece of paper in a notebook that he was cutting himself. He said that he was in agony and wanted to get a gun so he could end his life. I didn't know about any of this until months after his death. When I talk about his death as a suicide, I'm not trying to downplay the viciousness he showed at the end of his life. I'm trying to understand how his suicidal thinking led to murder. After a lot of reading and talking with experts, I have come to believe that his involvement in the shootings was rooted not in his desire to kill but in his desire to die.
我所面临的第二个挑战是，当我谈论我儿子的死亡时，我必须寻求理解，甚至是同情。在他死前两年，他在一个笔记本上写下了自己正在割伤自己的一张纸。他说他非常痛苦，想要一把枪，这样他就可以结束自己的生命。直到他死后几个月我才知道这件事。当我谈到他的死亡是一种自杀时，我并不是想淡化他在生命结束时所表现出来的邪恶。我试图了解他的自杀想法是如何导致谋杀的。在与专家们进行了大量的阅读和交谈之后，我开始相信，他参与枪击事件的根源不是他想杀人的欲望，而是他想死的欲望。
The third challenge I have when I talk about my son's murder-suicide is that I'm talking about mental health — excuse me — is that I'm talking about mental health, or brain health, as I prefer to call it, because it's more concrete. And in the same breath, I'm talking about violence. The last thing I want to do is to contribute to the misunderstanding that already exists around mental illness. Only a very small percent of those who have a mental illness are violent toward other people, but of those who die by suicide, it's estimated that about 75 to maybe more than 90 percent have a diagnosable mental health condition of some kind. As you all know very well, our mental health care system is not equipped to help everyone, and not everyone with destructive thoughts fits the criteria for a specific diagnosis. Many who have ongoing feelings of fear or anger or hopelessness are never assessed or treated. Too often, they get our attention only if they reach a behavioral crisis. If estimates are correct that about one to two percent of all suicides involves the murder of another person, when suicide rates rise, as they are rising for some populations, the murder-suicide rates will rise as well.
第三个挑战是，当我谈到我儿子的谋杀自杀时，我说的是心理健康-对不起，我说的是心理健康，或者大脑健康，我更喜欢这样称呼它，因为它更具体。同样的，我说的是暴力。我想做的最后一件事是对已经存在的精神疾病的误解作出贡献。只有很小一部分患有精神病的人对其他人是暴力的，但那些死于自杀的人，据估计，大约有75到90%的人有某种可诊断的心理健康状况。大家都很清楚，我们的精神卫生保健系统没有能力帮助每个人，而不是每个具有破坏性想法的人都符合特定诊断的标准。许多有恐惧、愤怒或绝望情绪的人从未被评估或治疗过。太多的时候，他们只有在行为危机时才引起我们的注意。如果估计正确的是，大约一到百分之二的自杀涉及谋杀另一个人，当自杀率上升，因为他们正在上升的一些人口，谋杀自杀率也将上升。
I wanted to understand what was going on in Dylan's mind prior to his death, so I looked for answers from other survivors of suicide loss. I did research and volunteered to help with fund-raising events, and whenever I could, I talked with those who had survived their own suicidal crisis or attempt.
我想了解迪伦死前的想法，所以我寻找其他自杀者的答案。我做了研究，并自愿帮助筹款活动，无论何时，我都会和那些经历过自杀危机或试图自杀的人交谈。
One of the most helpful conversations I had was with a coworker who overheard me talking to someone else in my office cubicle. She heard me say that Dylan could not have loved me if he could do something as horrible as he did. Later, when she found me alone, she apologized for overhearing that conversation, but told me that I was wrong. She said that when she was a young, single mother with three small children, she became severely depressed and was hospitalized to keep her safe. At the time, she was certain that her children would be better off if she died, so she had made a plan to end her life. She assured me that a mother's love was the strongest bond on Earth, and that she loved her children more than anything in the world, but because of her illness, she was sure that they would be better off without her.
我最乐于助人的一次谈话是和一位同事，他无意中听到我在办公室的小隔间里和别人谈话。她听我说，如果迪伦能做像他那样可怕的事情，他是不会爱我的。后来，当她发现我独自一人时，她为偷听到谈话而道歉，但告诉我说我错了。她说，当她是一个年轻的单身母亲，有三个孩子时，她变得非常沮丧，并住院以保证她的安全。当时，她确信如果她死了，她的孩子会更好，所以她制定了一个计划来结束她的生命。她向我保证，母亲的爱是地球上最强大的纽带，她爱她的孩子胜过世界上任何东西，但因为她的病，她确信没有她他们会过得更好。
What she said and what I've learned from others is that we do not make the so-called decision or choice to die by suicide in the same way that we choose what car to drive or where to go on a Saturday night. When someone is in an extremely suicidal state, they are in a stage four medical health emergency. Their thinking is impaired and they've lost access to tools of self-governance. Even though they can make a plan and act with logic, their sense of truth is distorted by a filter of pain through which they interpret their reality. Some people can be very good at hiding this state, and they often have good reasons for doing that. Many of us have suicidal thoughts at some point, but persistent, ongoing thoughts of suicide and devising a means to die are symptoms of pathology, and like many illnesses, the condition has to be recognized and treated before a life is lost.
她所说的和我从别人身上学到的是，我们不做所谓的决定或选择死于自杀，就像我们选择开车或去哪里一样。星期六晚上。当有人处于极度自杀状态时，他们处于四级医疗紧急状态。他们的思维受到损害，他们无法获得自我管理的工具。尽管他们可以用逻辑来制定计划和行动，但他们的真实感被一种痛苦的过滤器所扭曲，他们通过这种痛苦的过滤来解释他们的现实。有些人可以很好地隐藏这个国家，他们经常有很好的理由这样做。我们中的许多人在某个时候有过自杀的念头，但持续不断的自杀意念和设计死亡的手段都是病理学的症状，就像许多疾病一样，在失去生命之前，这种状况必须得到承认和处理。
But my son's death was not purely a suicide. It involved mass murder. I wanted to know how his suicidal thinking became homicidal. But research is sparse and there are no simple answers. Yes, he probably had ongoing depression. He had a personality that was perfectionistic and self-reliant, and that made him less likely to seek help from others. He had experienced triggering events at the school that left him feeling debased and humiliated and mad. And he had a complicated friendship with a boy who shared his feelings of rage and alienation, and who was seriously disturbed, controlling and homicidal. And on top of this period in his life of extreme vulnerability and fragility, Dylan found access to guns even though we'd never owned any in our home. It was appallingly easy for a 17-year-old boy to buy guns, both legally and illegally, without my permission or knowledge. And somehow, 17 years and many school shootings later, it's still appallingly easy.
但我儿子的死并不是纯粹的自杀。这涉及大规模谋杀。我想知道他的自杀想法是如何变成杀人的。但是研究很少，也没有简单的答案。是的，他可能有持续的抑郁症。他有一个完美主义和自力更生的个性，这使他不太可能寻求别人的帮助。他曾经历过在学校引发的事件，让他感觉到堕落、羞辱和疯狂。他和一个男孩有着复杂的友谊，他和一个男孩分享他的愤怒和疏远的感情，他被严重地扰乱、控制和杀人。在他生命中极度脆弱和脆弱的时期，迪伦发现了枪支，尽管我们在家里从未拥有过枪支。对于一个17岁的男孩来说，没有我的许可和知识，合法和非法地购买枪支是非常容易的。不知何故，17年后，许多学校枪击事件后，它仍然令人吃惊地容易。
What Dylan did that day broke my heart, and as trauma so often does, it took a toll on my body and on my mind. Two years after the shootings, I got breast cancer, and two years after that, I began to have mental health problems. On top of the constant, perpetual grief I was terrified that I would run into a family member of someone Dylan had killed, or be accosted by the press or by an angry citizen. I was afraid to turn on the news, afraid to hear myself being called a terrible parent or a disgusting person.
那天迪伦的所作所为伤透了我的心，而作为创伤，我的身体和思想都受到了伤害。枪击发生两年后，我得了乳腺癌，两年后，我开始出现精神健康问题。在持续不断的悲伤中，我害怕自己会遇到一个被迪伦杀死的家庭成员，或者被媒体或愤怒的公民所伤害。我害怕打开新闻，害怕听到自己被称为可怕的父母或令人厌恶的人。
I started having panic attacks. The first bout started four years after the shootings, when I was getting ready for the depositions and would have to meet the victims' families face to face. The second round started six years after the shootings, when I was preparing to speak publicly about murder-suicide for the first time at a conference. Both episodes lasted several weeks. The attacks happened everywhere: in the hardware store, in my office, or even while reading a book in bed. My mind would suddenly lock into this spinning cycle of terror and no matter how I hard I tried to calm myself down or reason my way out of it, I couldn't do it. It felt as if my brain was trying to kill me, and then, being afraid of being afraid consumed all of my thoughts. That's when I learned firsthand what it feels like to have a malfunctioning mind, and that's when I truly became a brain health advocate. With therapy and medication and self-care, life eventually returned to whatever could be thought of as normal under the circumstances.
我开始恐慌了。第一回合是在枪击事件发生四年之后，当时我正准备宣誓作证，并将不得不面对面地面对遇难者家属。第二轮是在枪击事件发生六年后，当时我正准备在一次会议上首次公开谈论谋杀自杀事件。两次发作持续数周。攻击发生在任何地方：在五金店，在我的办公室，甚至在床上看书。我的头脑会突然陷入这种恐怖的循环中，不管我如何努力使自己平静下来，或是从中解脱出来，我都做不到。这感觉好像我的大脑在试图杀死我，然后，害怕被恐惧耗尽了我所有的想法。那是当我第一次了解到有一种不正常的想法时，那是我真正成为一个大脑健康倡导者的时候。随着治疗和药物治疗和自我照顾，生活最终回到了可以被认为是在这种情况下是正常的。
When I looked back on all that had happened, I could see that my son's spiral into dysfunction probably occurred over a period of about two years, plenty of time to get him help, if only someone had known that he needed help and known what to do.
当我回顾过去发生的一切时，我可以看到我儿子的神经功能紊乱可能发生在两年多的时间里，有足够的时间来帮助他，要是有人知道他需要帮助，知道该怎么办就好了。
Every time someone asks me, "How could you not have known?", it feels like a punch in the gut. It carries accusation and taps into my feelings of guilt that no matter how much therapy I've had I will never fully eradicate. But here's something I've learned: if love were enough to stop someone who is suicidal from hurting themselves, suicides would hardly ever happen. But love is not enough, and suicide is prevalent. It's the second leading cause of death for people age 10 to 34, and 15 percent of American youth report having made a suicide plan in the last year. I've learned that no matter how much we want to believe we can, we cannot know or control everything our loved ones think and feel, and the stubborn belief that we are somehow different, that someone we love would never think of hurting themselves or someone else, can cause us to miss what's hidden in plain sight. And if worst case scenarios do come to pass, we'll have to learn to forgive ourselves for not knowing or for not asking the right questions or not finding the right treatment. We should always assume that someone we love may be suffering, regardless of what they say or how they act. We should listen with our whole being, without judgments, and without offering solutions.
每次有人问我，“你怎么会不知道？”，感觉就像是肚子里的一拳。它携带着指控，并利用我的内疚感，不管我有多少治疗，我都不会彻底根除。但这是我所学到的：如果爱足以阻止一个自杀的人伤害自己，自杀几乎不会发生。但爱是不够的，自杀是普遍的。这是10岁至34岁的人的第二大死因，而在去年，有15%的美国青年报曾提出过自杀计划。我明白了，无论我们多么想相信自己，我们都不可能知道或控制我们所爱的人的想法和感受，以及固执的信念，我们是不同的，我们所爱的人永远不会想到伤害自己或别人，会让我们错过隐藏在眼前的东西。如果最坏的情况发生了，我们将不得不学会原谅自己，因为我们不知道，也不知道正确的问题或找不到正确的治疗。我们应该总是假设我们所爱的人可能正在受苦，不管他们说什么或他们是如何行动的。我们应该倾听我们的整个存在，没有判断，没有提供解决方案。
I know that I will live with this tragedy, with these multiple tragedies, for the rest of my life. I know that in the minds of many, what I lost can't compare to what the other families lost. I know my struggle doesn't make theirs any easier. I know there are even some who think I don't have the right to any pain, but only to a life of permanent penance.
我知道，在我的余生中，我将与这场悲剧一起生活，伴随着这些多重悲剧。我知道，在许多人的心目中，我所失去的不能与其他家庭失去的相比。我知道我的斗争不会使他们更容易。我知道，甚至有些人认为我没有任何痛苦的权利，但只有终身苦修的生活。
In the end what I know comes down to this: the tragic fact is that even the most vigilant and responsible of us may not be able to help, but for love's sake, we must never stop trying to know the unknowable.
最后，我所知道的是：可悲的事实是，即使是最警惕和最负责任的人也未必能够帮助我们，但为了爱，我们必须永远努力去了解不可知的事物。
Thank you.
谢谢。
