Why Adults Often Behave Like Children

Sometimes at moments of particular stress, one adult will turn to another and say: 'Stop behaving like a child.' Or even, 'Act your age.' This isn't merely rude – though might be that too. It seems that in contact with given challenges, we can revert back quite quickly to an earlier stage in our development. We leave behind our adult faculties, the ones associated with reason, logic, calm, strength, and perspective, and slip very quickly into a child-like spectrum marked by panic, rage, despair, terror and appeasement.
在特别紧张的时刻，成年人有时会对另一个成年人说：“别表现得像个孩子。”或者甚至，“成熟一点。”这不仅仅是粗鲁——虽然可能也有点粗鲁。似乎在遇到特定的挑战时，我们会很快回到发展的早期阶段。我们抛弃了与理性、逻辑、冷静、力量和远见相关的成人机能，迅速陷入一个以恐慌、愤怒、绝望、恐惧和安抚为标志的儿童状态。

The specific occasions that shift us from adult to child are an individual guide to our own traumas. The reason why we behave like a child is that traumas selectively arrest emotional development. A part of us is going to remain fixed at whatever age we become traumatised at; so though we may be 28 or 72, we will to all intents – in contact with a certain inflammatory situation – resemble the frightened, bewildered and ashamed 3- or 5-year-olds we once were – though of course we'll be unlikely to notice this. No bell goes off in the mind to signal, 'You're now shifting from being 32 to being 2.' The transition happens in a flash, and it's the work of years of therapy and self-exploration to be able to notice the shift and take measures to soften the damage.
那些让我们从成年人变回孩子的时刻，实际上是我们个人创伤的向导。我们之所以表现得像孩子，是因为创伤会选择性地抑制情感发展。我们的一部分会停留在我们遭受创伤时的年龄；所以尽管我们可能已经28岁或72岁，在碰上某些刺激性情境时，我们实际上会表现得像曾经那个受惊、困惑和羞愧的3岁或5岁的孩子——尽管我们不太可能注意到这一点。脑海中没有铃声响起来提示，“你现在正从32岁变回2岁。”这种转变发生在一瞬间，而要察觉这种转变并采取措施减轻其伤害，需要多年的治疗和自我探索。

To guess at our original traumas, we need only to study triggering situations and then generalize outwards from them. Let's imagine that we get very worked up about a difficulty at passport control with a stern officer or about a dispute with a neighbour who is threatening legal action because a tree we planted is blocking their view. When we erase away the local details, we may be able to see an elemental structure and can then ask ourselves questions accordingly: a powerful man is adopting a bullying manner towards us. Does this remind us of anything in the past? Or: we're suddenly being accused of having done something 'bad' that we had no idea about and the repercussions feel severe. Does this sound in any way familiar?
要推测我们最初的创伤，我们只需要研究触发这些创伤的情境，然后从这些情境向外归纳。让我们想象一下，我们对一位严厉的官员在护照检查遇到困难，或者与一位邻居的纠纷会感到非常激动，因为我们种的一棵树挡住了他们的视线，邻居威胁要采取法律行动。当我们抹去当地的细节时，我们可能会看到一个基本的结构，然后可以相应地问自己问题：一个有权势的人对我们采取了欺凌的态度。这是否让我们想起了过去的什么事情？或者：我们突然被指责做了一些我们根本不知道是“坏事”，而后果感觉很严重。这听起来是否有些熟悉？

Memories tend to emerge. That stern passport officer might map with eerie precision onto an extremely frightening father. Or a legal dispute might in its psychological fundamentals hint at some awful bullying one suffered at school.
记忆往往会浮现出来。那个严厉的护照官员可能与一个极其可怕的父亲以惊异的准确度相吻合。或者，一场法律纠纷在心理上可能暗示了某人在学校遭受的可怕欺凌。

When there is a certain kind of crisis, we should notice how fast we can fall through the floors of adulthood, ten or twenty or forty years/storeys below the present to the child-like basement of the mind. A part of us needs to hold the other steady, see the hole blown in our minds by a triggering event and then ensure that we can step carefully around the gap and take a seat somewhere very safe on the edge of the room, while we wait for reason to repair the damage.
当某种危机来临时，我们应该注意自己能多快地跌穿成年的层层地板，无论是十年、二十年还是四十年，直到跌到心灵深处那个孩童般的地下室。我们内心的一部分需要稳住另一部分，注意到触发事件在我们心灵上炸开的洞，然确保我们能小心翼翼地绕过这个缺口，在房间边缘的某个非常安全的地方坐下，同时等待理智来修复损伤。

We're so afraid of patronising ourselves, we can find it very hard to accept the bewildering way in which, in certain areas, at times, we truly can be slammed back into being a frightened, panicky, perspective-less younger version of ourselves. The floors in our minds may be prone to collapse at moments of stress; but knowing the danger is more than half-way to a solution – and greater and deserved calm.
我们如此害怕以高人一等的态度对待自己，我们会发现很难接受这种令人困惑的方式，在某些领域，有时，我们真的会被猛地撞回到一个恐惧，恐慌，缺乏远见的年轻版的自己。我们头脑中的地板可能在压力时刻容易坍塌；但知道这种危险不仅仅是解决方案的一半——也是更大的和值得的平静。


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