2019年的时候，从封神离职之后，我回家了。虽然我一直都躁郁，但当时的抑郁周期已经持续了快大半年，完全没有好转。
In 2019, after I quit Creation of the Gods, I went home. Although I had always struggled with bipolar symptoms, at the time I had been stuck in a depressive episode for almost half a year, with no sign of improvement.

我每天基本醒不来，起来头疼欲裂，醒来之后脑海里反复的负面情绪和语言的黑洞，它不是幻听，因为我清晰的知道，声音不是来自外面，是来自我脑海里。
I could barely wake up each day. When I did, I had splitting headaches, and my mind would spiral into a black hole of negative thoughts and voices. It wasn’t auditory hallucination—I knew clearly the voices weren’t from outside, but from inside my own head.

她说我一无是处、恶心、低贱、无能、甚至谄媚、虚伪、想要世界毁灭。
She told me I was worthless, disgusting, lowly, incapable—groveling, fake—and wanted the world to burn.

我觉得她说的基本对，除了最后一个。我并不想世界毁灭，只是想自我毁灭。
I thought she was mostly right—except for the last part. I didn’t want the world to end. I just wanted to destroy myself.

虽然并不想承认，但直到我离职、我已经有一段时间做出一些很奇怪的选择了。
Though I didn’t want to admit it, even before I quit, I had already been making a series of bizarre decisions for some time.

可能脑pu当时已经烧坏了，好像每个决定都把我拉的离目的地越来越远。
My brain was probably fried—every choice I made seemed to pull me further away from wherever I was trying to go.

我意识到这可能不是正常的状况，所以我离职了，打算回家休息休息再看。但我并没有好转，反而变得更加恶劣。
I realized something wasn’t right, so I quit and went home, hoping a break would help. But instead of getting better, I got worse.

在家，我妈觉得我在无病呻吟，每天早上大声在家说话、吸尘、叫我赶紧起床。
At home, my mom thought I was just being dramatic. She would talk loudly every morning, vacuum the house, and shout at me to get up.

很奇怪，我爸去上班了，她在放暑假。我不跟她说话，她还需要跟谁打电话？
It was odd—my dad had gone to work, she was on summer break. If I wasn’t speaking to her, who else was she calling?

家里的保洁之前她也从来不做，房间经常各种书、衣服、大包小包摊满桌面、床头柜、床。
She never used to clean the house herself either. Her room was always full of books, clothes, bags—strewn across desks, nightstands, and the bed.

我爸经常嘲笑她房间乱，虽然我觉得可能只是她内心杂乱无序的外放。
My dad often mocked how messy her room was. I always felt it was just her inner chaos spilling outward.

我想自己做菜。我妈从未学会过做饭，声称是因为她喜欢原汁原味。
I wanted to cook for myself. My mom never learned to cook, claiming it was because she preferred “original flavors.”

清蒸、水煮、少盐少油、无糖无其他调味。
Steamed, boiled, low-salt, low-oil, no sugar, no seasoning.

我的胃口从小到大都一直不太好，尤其是当时。我需要些什么味觉刺激才能让我勉强想吃一些。
I’d always had a poor appetite growing up, and especially during that time. I needed some kind of flavor stimulus to even want to eat.

我不知道是因为我真的太难相处了，还是她太容易放弃。
I didn’t know if I was truly difficult to deal with, or if she just gave up too easily.

我很清楚她早就不愿意为我做任何事，她说，她总是在为我好，但我总是在抗拒她。
I knew clearly that she had long stopped wanting to do anything for me. She said she always acted “for my own good,” and I was always resisting her.

我不理解，什么叫为我好。我只知道我讨厌、我愤怒、我窒息、我讨厌她的虚伪、虚荣、和根本藏不住的恶意。
I didn’t understand what “for my own good” meant. All I knew was that I hated her—I was angry, suffocating, sickened by her hypocrisy, her vanity, and her poorly hidden malice.

我只能自己做饭。自从我回家，我爸每天监管着我的一天三餐。
So I cooked for myself. Since I returned home, my dad supervised all three of my daily meals.

偶尔出去一次，回来也会被他批评很长一段时间，他会贬低所有我的选择：餐厅、食物、价格、品味。
If I went out even once, he would scold me for ages afterward, belittling every one of my choices—restaurants, food, price, taste.

我没精力跟他理论，虽然后来我发现他不在乎我的理论，他在乎我的服从。我应该服从，他的决定。
I didn’t have the energy to argue, though I later realized he didn’t care about logic—he cared about obedience. I was supposed to obey his decisions.

等我发现的时候，锅里不记得在煮的什么的液体已经被烧干。锅底黑了，只剩下一些不知道什么的固体。我立刻非常焦虑。
By the time I noticed, whatever I was boiling had completely evaporated. The bottom of the pot was black, with only some unidentifiable solids left. I panicked.

I was immediately nervous. I tried my best to clean so she wouldn’t have to find out. I couldn’t get all of it. I hid the pot in the back of the cupboard, hoping she wouldn’t find out.
我立刻很紧张。我拼命清理，希望她不会发现。但怎么都清不干净。我把锅藏到了橱柜最里面，希望她不会发现。

But of course she finds out as soon as she gets home, turns out, it’s a very important item of hers, and she’d apparently reminded me to not burn it. I said I’m really sorry, I was having a headache, and still am.
但她一回家就发现了。原来那口锅对她来说非常重要，而且她还说她事先提醒过我不要烧焦。我说我真的很抱歉，我当时头很痛，现在也还痛。

She said that’s no excuse, do you have any idea how protective I was with this pot? I was like, really a pot?
她说这不是借口，你知道我平时有多保护这口锅吗？我心想：真的？一口锅？

Then comes a two-hour long verbal abuse session. I went back to my room and she kept shouting from the living room.
接着就是两个小时的语言辱骂。我回了自己房间，她还在客厅一直骂。

In retrospect, I wonder if this was just my mom taking out her anger toward me, because he did the same to her, except in that case, I was the pot.
现在回头看，我在想她是不是只是在把别人对她的愤怒发泄在我身上。因为我爸也是这么对她的，只不过那时候，我是那口锅。

It was not a very mental-illness-friendly environment. I heard that with every negative comment people make on you, you need ten positive ones to counter. I wonder if it’s true.
那个环境对精神病患者真的很不友好。我听说一句负面的话，需要十句正面的来中和。我不知道这是不是事实。

That’s just how she is, my dad says. She grew up tougher than you did, he says.
“她就这样。”我爸说。“她比你成长环境还艰难。”他这样说。

Tougher than me? It’s hard for me to imagine that she did, despite two decades of me being manic depressive, she seemed to always have been emotionally stable in front of my dad.
比我还艰难？这很难让我相信。我躁郁二十年了，她在我爸面前却总是一副情绪稳定的样子。

Yet, the way she treated me stayed the same. My dad would say, we are just verbally fighting, even if we break things, at least it’s not physical.
可她对待我的方式一直没变。我爸会说，我们只是吵吵架，最多砸点东西，至少没动手。

Have you heard of so-and-so’s parents? They are worse. I don’t understand: why do so-and-so’s parents do that, and why does that have anything to do with me? And no, it did not make me feel better.
你听说某某的爸妈了吗？他们更糟。我不懂：某某的爸妈做那些事，和我有什么关系？不，这一点都不能让我好受。

Is this just how it is? Because we are Chinese? Because this is our ‘culture’?
这就是现实？因为我们是中国人？因为这是我们的“文化”？

They told me, over and over, it’s not because of them, it’s because how everyone, literally how everyone looks like me and sounds like me do this, agree with this, think this, is all, completely normal.
他们一遍又一遍地告诉我：这不是他们的问题，而是所有像我这样长相、这样口音的人，都是这样做的，这样认同的，这样思考的——这完全正常。

“But you can’t tell this to anyone else, you can’t or you will see.”
“但你不能跟别人说这些，你要是说了，你就知道后果。”

For a long time, I never talked to anyone about it. I hated being Chinese, I hated everyone in it, every adult, everyone they knew, or worked with, saw, and agreed with. I wanted nothing to do with it.
很长一段时间，我从不对任何人提起。我恨自己是中国人，我恨其中的每一个人、每一个大人、他们认识的、共事的、见过的、同意他们做法的人。我不想和这个体系有任何关系。

But that doesn’t mean I have to follow expectations, or so-called conventions which in reality are more like my dad’s authoritative ways of stripping me of my basic wants and needs, but instead showered me with things that didn’t interest me.
但这不代表我必须顺从那些期待、那些所谓的传统规范，那些其实只是我爸剥夺我基本欲望和需求的权力方式，然后用我根本不感兴趣的东西强行“宠爱”我。

He thought that was the right way to go, the right thing to do, not what I want, but what he decides to give me, and what his generous heart decides to bestow upon me.
他觉得这就是对的道路、正确的方式。不是我想要的，而是他决定给我的，是他自认为“慷慨的心”赐予我的东西。

I hated it so much that I tried to cut out as many people as I could after leaving home, and basically tried doing everything the exact opposite of how I used to do things.
我恨极了这一切。离家之后，我拼命把人都推远，然后几乎把自己过去的一切做法都反过来。

I decided to say no to things I’d say yes to, embraced things I’d normally reject.
我决定对那些我曾经答应的事情说“不”，去拥抱那些我本能会拒绝的东西。