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我是Joshua Walters,我是一位表演家。
(口技表演)
(笑聲)
(掌聲)
但身為表演家的同時,我也被診斷出罹患躁鬱症。我換個想法,把它當成一件好事,因為我在舞台上越瘋狂,就越有娛樂性。16歲那年,在舊金山時,我的躁症發作了,以為自己是耶穌基督。也許你們覺得這挺可怕的,但老實說,想靠嗑藥High到自以為是耶穌基督還不容易咧!
(笑聲)
我被送到一個地方-一間精神病院。在那間精神病院裡,每個人唱著自己的獨角戲。(笑聲)那裡不像現場這樣-有觀眾讓他們的排演有意義,他們只是不斷地練習,彷彿有一天他們也會站上舞台。當我出院後,我接受了診斷,也拿了精神科醫師開的藥:「好吧,Josh,不如我給你開一些-不如我給你開一些金普薩(躁鬱症藥物)。好嗎?嗯哼?至少藥商送的筆上寫的是這個名字。」(笑聲)我看得出你們有人在這個領域工作,我聽見你們的笑聲了。我高中的前半段都在跟躁症苦苦奮戰,後半段則是因為服藥過量,讓我一路睡到畢業。後半段差不多等於在學校裡睡一場很長的午覺。畢業後,我有機會做抉擇,我可以抗拒患精神病的事實,或是擁抱精神病帶給我的「優勢」。
(口技表演喇叭聲)
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文
My name is Joshua Walters. I'm a performer.
(Beatboxing)
(Laughter)
(Applause)
But as far as being a performer, I'm also diagnosed bipolar. I reframe that as a positive because the crazier I get onstage, the more entertaining I become. When I was 16 in San Francisco, I had my breakthrough manic episode in which I thought I was Jesus Christ. Maybe you thought that was scary, but actually there's no amount of drugs you can take that can get you as high as if you think you're Jesus Christ.
(Laughter)
I was sent to a place, a psych ward, and in the psych ward, everyone is doing their own one-man show. (Laughter) There's no audience like this to justify their rehearsal time. They're just practicing. One day they'll get here. Now when I got out, I was diagnosed and I was given medications by a psychiatrist. "Okay, Josh, why don't we give you some -- why don't we give you some Zyprexa. Okay? Mmhmm? At least that's what it says on my pen." (Laughter) Some of you are in the field, I can see. I can feel your noise. The first half of high school was the struggle of the manic episode, and the second half was the overmedications of these drugs, where I was sleeping through high school. The second half was just one big nap, pretty much, in class. When I got out I had a choice. I could either deny my mental illness or embrace my mental skillness.
(Bugle sound)
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現在有一個趨勢-要人們正面看待精神疾病,至少正面看待輕躁症的優勢。如果你不知道輕躁症是什麼,它就像失控的引擎,或許是法拉利的引擎,但沒有剎車。許多在此演講的講者及台下的聽眾就有這樣的創意優勢,不知你們是否瞭解我的意思。你們被驅使著去做一些大家都說不可能的事。
有一本書-作者是約翰.嘉納,約翰.嘉納寫了一本叫《瀕臨輕躁》的書。在書中,哥倫布、泰德.透納(CNN創辦人)和賈伯斯這些頭腦精明的人都有這樣的競爭優勢。不久前,還有另一本寫於90年代中期的書-Kay Redfield Jamison所寫的《被火紋身》(Touched With Fire),以創意的角度來探討躁鬱症。書中提到莫札特、貝多芬及梵谷都深受躁鬱症所苦,他們當中有幾位自殺了,所以並非只探討這種病好的一面。
最近這個領域有新的發展,紐約時報刊登了一篇文章,2010年9月登的,標題是〈瘋得剛剛好〉,瘋得剛剛好就好。文章談到,有些投資人尋找有這種特質的企業家,你們知道我的意思-或許不是真的有躁鬱症,而是有一點躁鬱症特質-一方面也許你覺得自己是耶穌;另一方面也許這會替你賺一大筆錢。(笑聲)全看你怎麼想。每個人都介於正常和瘋狂之間,每個人都介於其中。
所以,也許,你們知道,根本就沒有所謂發瘋這回事,即使被診斷出精神疾病,也不代表你真的瘋了。或許這只是意味著你比較敏感,對於多數人看不到或感覺不到的事物敏感,或許-沒有人真的是瘋子,每個人都有多少有點瘋狂。有多瘋狂,就看你有多少躁鬱特質;有多瘋狂,就要看你有多幸運了。
謝謝。
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There's a movement going on right now to reframe mental illness as a positive -- at least the hypomanic edge part of it. Now if you don't know what hypomania is, it's like an engine that's out of control, maybe a Ferrari engine, with no breaks. Many of the speakers here, many of you in the audience, have that creative edge, if you know what I'm talking about. You're driven to do something that everyone has told you is impossible.
And there's a book -- John Gartner. John Gartner wrote this book called "The Hypomanic Edge" in which Christopher Columbus and Ted Turner and Steve Jobs and all these business minds have this edge to compete. A different book was written not too long ago in the mid-90s called "Touched With Fire" by Kay Redfield Jamison in which it was looked at in a creative sense in which Mozart and Beethoven and Van Gogh all have this manic depression that they were suffering with. Some of them committed suicide. So it wasn't all the good side of the illness.
Now recently, there's been development in this field. And there was an article written in the New York Times, September 2010, that stated: "Just Manic Enough." Just be manic enough in which investors who are looking for entrepreneurs that have this kind of spectrum -- you know what I'm talking about -- not maybe full bipolar, but they're in the bipolar spectrum -- where on one side, maybe you think you're Jesus, and on the other side maybe they just make you a lot of money. (Laughter) Your call. Your call. And everyone's somewhere in the middle. Everyone's somewhere in the middle.
So maybe, you know, there's no such thing as crazy, and being diagnosed with a mental illness doesn't mean you're crazy. But maybe it just means you're more sensitive to what most people can't see or feel. Maybe no one's really crazy. Everyone is just a little bit mad. How much depends on where you fall in the spectrum. How much depends on how lucky you are.
Thank you.