精英人员更应警惕患上抑郁症

Every suicide is intensely sad — a despairing act of self-harm that leaves a legacy of guilt and sorrow for the victim’s family, friends and colleagues. That of Martin Senn, chief executive of Zurich Insurance until last December, is doubly resonant because it follows the suicide of Pierre Wauthier, Zurich’s chief financial officer, three years ago.

每起自杀事件都令人感到极度悲痛，这种绝望的自裁给逝者的家人、朋友及同事留下无尽的内疚和伤痛。沈文天(Martin Senn)——去年12月之前一直担任苏黎世保险(Zurich Insurance)首席执行官——的自杀带来的伤痛更令人刻骨铭心，因为三年前，该公司首席财务官皮埃尔•沃蒂耶(Pierre Wauthier)也用自杀的方式结束了自己的生命。

Senn, who killed himself at his Klosters holiday home last Friday, is said to have struggled to adjust to being no longer the boss of a Swiss multinational. He agreed to step down after Zurich failed to acquire the UK insurer RSA last year, and faced problems in the US and China. The company is now restructuring and cutting costs.

5月末，沈文天在自己位于瑞士克洛斯特斯(Klosters)的度假屋自杀，据称他一直难以适应卸任这家瑞士跨国公司掌门人后的生活。去年，在苏黎世保险收购英国保险公司RSA未果、并在美国和中国遇到问题之后，沈文天同意辞去首席执行官之职。目前，该公司正在进行重组及削减成本。

My reaction to his death is influenced by having suffered an episode of depression a decade ago. “Suffered” is the correct word, as anyone who has been through the experience can testify. “Episode” is the term employed by psychiatrists, as if it forms part of a rather painful soap opera. Luckily, my pilot episode did not turn into a series.

十年前，我曾忍受过一段抑郁症的折磨，这段经历影响了我对沈文天自杀的反应。用“忍受折磨”一词形容很恰当，任何有过此种经历的人都可以证实这一点。“一段”(episode，也指连续剧的“一集”——译者注)是精神科医生使用的术语，好像这是一部悲惨肥皂剧的组成部分。幸运的是，我的抑郁症没有复发。

It made me alert to the malaise, though. When I hear of senior executives resigning or taking a break from their work because they are experiencing “sleeplessness”, “burnout”, “exhaustion”, or some other corporate euphemism for anxiety and depression, I recall what it taught me. 

不过，那段经历让我对这种疾病有了警惕性。当听说有高管因“失眠”、“疲惫”、“精疲力竭”（或是企业对焦虑、抑郁的一些其他委婉说法）而辞职或者休假时，我总会回想起那段经历给我带来的教训。

One lesson is the common nature of mood disorder in the boardroom. It is tempting to view the Zurich Insurance suicides as a unique and alien tragedy, akin to the “virgin suicides” in the 1993 novel by Jeffrey Eugenides — the story of five sisters who kill themselves, narrated by a chorus of admirers.

教训之一是，情绪障碍(mood disorder)在董事会成员中非常普遍。人们很容易将苏黎世保险两名高管先后自杀视为一场罕见、陌生的悲剧，类似于杰佛瑞•尤金尼德斯(Jeffrey Eugenides)1993年小说中的“少女之死”（那部小说是由多名仰慕者讲述的五姐妹自杀的故事）。

But even the official estimates suggest that every board of directors is likely to contain at least one person with an experience of depression. In 2014, 7 per cent of US adults reported having a major episode in the past year; 16 per cent are diagnosed with depression at least once in their lifetimes.

但连官方估计都暗示，每个董事会都可能至少有一位有过抑郁经历的成员。2014年，7%的美国成年人称在过去一年经历过较严重的抑郁期；16%的美国成年人一生中至少有一次被诊断为患有抑郁症。

This may be an underestimate for directors and executives, if anecdote is reliable. I know several who went through depression without admitting it, including a partner in a City of London firm and one government minister. Then there was a FTSE 100 chief executive who was charismatic at work but lay in a darkened room at home.

如果传闻可信的话，对董事和高管而言，这一比例或许低估了。我就知道好几位患过抑郁症却不愿承认的高管，包括伦敦金融城(City of London)一家公司的合伙人以及一名内阁大臣。还有一名富时100(FTSE 100)成分股公司首席执行官——工作时神采飞扬，但回家就躺在黑暗的房间里。

Therein lies a second lesson: rising to great heights in your career, as did Senn and Wauthier, may mean you are more vulnerable. Depression is not an elite disorder — it is widespread and many aspects of the lives of the less privileged and lower paid can precipitate mental illness. But exceptional achievement carries its own peculiar risks.

从这之中可以得到第二个教训：像沈文天、沃蒂耶这样走上职业生涯巅峰可能意味着你会变得更脆弱。抑郁症并非精英特有的疾患——它分布广泛，弱势及低收入群体在生活中遇到的许多事情，都会让人突然患上这种心理疾病。但非凡的成就带有其特有的风险。

Workaholism is among them. Wauthier’s widow recalled that, “Usually he had seven hours’ sleep and the rest of the time it was BlackBerry in one hand, laptop in the other”, and that he was under heavy pressure. That is not unusual in a job like his, or at professional services firms that charge so much they are at clients’ beck and call.

“工作狂”就是其中之一。沃蒂耶的遗孀回忆道，“他通常只睡七个小时，其余时间都是一手拿着黑莓(BlackBerry)，一手拿着笔记本电脑”，他承受着巨大的压力。这种状况对他这样的职位而言并非罕见，对那些收费高昂、因此对客户有求必应的专业人士而言也很常见。

One recent study of Norwegian employees found that the “workaholics”of the sample had higher levels of anxiety and depression. Thirty-four per cent of them met the medical criteria for anxiety, compared with 12 per cent of those who did not overwork.

一项对挪威雇员的最新研究发现，样本人群中的“工作狂”员工比其他人更焦虑、更抑郁。在工作狂员工中，有34%达到了医学上的焦虑症标准，相比之下，这一比例在非工作狂员工中仅为12%。

Cause and effect are not clear — do you become anxious by overworking, or do anxious people overwork? Anxiety can be adaptive, as psychiatrists would phrase it, up to a point: it helps people to achieve professional success. But it also makes them subject to hazard.

是加班让你变得焦虑，还是焦虑的员工更喜欢加班——其中的因果关系并不明确。正如精神病学家所言，在一定程度之内，焦虑是自我调适的结果：它可以帮助人们取得事业上的成功，但也会让人们处于危险之中。

High-flyers risk the fate of Icarus, the original high-flyer of the Greek myth, whose wings came apart when he flew too close to the sun. Some attain middle age without facing serious setbacks in life — they studied at elite schools and universities and have flourished in professions. When they finally encounter failure, it is a terrible shock.

一路高飞的成功人士有重蹈伊卡洛斯(Icarus)覆辙的危险——这位希腊神话中的人物是最早的“高飞者”，他飞得太靠近太阳，身上的蜡翼融化，因而坠落。有些成功人士一路就读于精英中小学和大学，在职场上也成就斐然，因而没有遇到过严重挫折就进入了中年。当最终遭遇挫败时，对他们的打击是巨大的。

After such success, it is natural to believe your life is charmed, and to flounder when you abruptly discover that you are as fallible as everyone else. Enoch Powell, the British politician, observed that all political lives end in failure. That is equally true of business lives: most of those who reach the top of the professional pyramid as chief executive do not stay there long.

在人生取得此般成功之后，他们自然会相信自己的人生受到了上天的眷顾，但当突然发现自己与其他人一样可能犯错时，他们自然会手足无措。英国政治家伊诺克•鲍威尔(Enoch Powell)说，所有政治生涯的结局都是失败。商业生涯也同样如此：多数到达职业金字塔顶端的首席执行官都不会在这一位置呆很久。

Some accept this but it triggers in others a biological reaction that causes depression. The distress is often temporary, though. A setback does not end a career; an episode need not become a series. Depression can be chronic but midlife crises are often one-offs. 

有些人可以接受这一现实，其他人则会产生引发抑郁的生物反应。尽管如此，苦闷往往是短暂的。一次挫折不会终结一个人的职业生涯；一时的抑郁未必会演变成长期、反复发作的抑郁症。抑郁症可能难以根除，但中年危机往往只发作一次。

More companies now recognise these truths and are better prepared to support employees in difficulty. The stigma has lessened although the number of those who choose not to speak up shows that it lingers. That worsens the pain and risks catastrophe.

现在，越来越多的企业认识到了这些问题，而且在帮助陷入抑郁的员工方面做了更充足的准备。抑郁症不再是奇耻大辱，但依然有那么多人选择隐瞒自己患有抑郁症的事实，这表明耻辱感依然存在。对抑郁症感到羞耻加剧了患者的痛苦，而且可能引发灾难性后果。

“How is your mood?” psychiatrists tend to ask patients affected by depression. Bad then but good now, is my answer. This is why the Zurich Insurance suicides are so sad. What feels hopeless at one moment later fades into history. Life can recover and fulfilment return, if you stick around.

精神病学家经常会询问抑郁症患者：“你的心情怎么样？”我的回答是，过去不好，但现在不错。这就是为什么苏黎世保险高管自杀如此令人悲痛的原因。一时的绝望在过后看来都如同过往云烟。生活可以重头再来，成就可以重新创造——只要你好好活着。