TED | 我的儿子是校园枪手

演讲简介：她是一名校园枪手的母亲，她的儿子在校园开枪射杀了十二名学生和一名老师，然后饮弹自尽。她从此饱受争议与指责，深受身心煎熬。她是一位怎样的母亲？究竟经历了些什么？ 这次，她鼓足了勇气来到TED讲台，倾诉她的故事。

 

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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，我在这里分享身为凶手的母亲是什么样的感觉。惨案过后的这些年，我细细整理记忆，试着搞清楚我哪里做错了，导致我成为失败的母亲。但是这个问题却没有一个简单的答案。我不能给你任何解答。我能做的就是分享我所学到的事情。

 

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.

当我对枪案发生前不认识我的人演讲时，我面对三个挑战。第一，当我走进像这样的演讲厅，我不知道在座是否有人因为我儿的所作所为，而经历丧亲之痛。我觉得我有必要接受这种因为我的家人而造成的痛苦，即使他现在不能亲自做这件事。所以首先，若是我的儿子造成你的痛苦，我全心全意的在此致歉。

 

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.

我的第二项挑战，是当我要说我儿子是自杀死的，我必须请求大家的谅解甚至同情。他过世前两年，他在笔记本的纸上写着他在割自己。他说他很苦恼而且想要找把枪了结自己。我一直到他死后几个月才知道这件事情。

 

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.

当我说他的死因是自杀时，我不是在试着淡化他在自我了结时显示的残酷。我是在尝试了解他的自杀念头怎么变成谋杀。在读了很多文章并跟专家交谈后，我开始相信他参与这场枪击案的原因不是因为他想杀人，而是他渴望着死去。

 

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.

我谈到儿子的「杀人后自尽」所面临的第三个挑战，是我在谈心理健康──抱歉──是我在谈心理健康，我比较喜欢称它为脑部健康，因为这样说起来更具体。然而紧接着，我又在谈暴力。我最不想做的，就是对精神疾病已有的成见再添上一笔成见。只有极少比例的精神疾病患者对别人有暴力倾向，但是那些自杀的人，估计有 75%，甚至超过 90% 患有可被诊断出的精神问题。

 

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.

你们都很清楚，我们的精神健康照护系统无法帮助每一个人，而且不是每一个具破坏性思想的人都符合特定诊疗标淮。很多持续感觉恐惧或生气或无望的人，从未经历评估或治疗。

 

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.

常见的状况是，我们在他们出现行为危机时才会注意到他们。如果估计是正确的，约有百分之一或二的自杀事件中会涉及谋杀另外一个人。现在某些族群中，当自杀率升高时，杀人后自尽的比率也跟着升高。