成人分离焦虑症:说声再见不容易

Last week, when his wife left home for a two-week cruise with her best friend, Robert Sollars stocked up on hamburger meat and peanut butter, then settled into a weekend of football on cable TV. And he cried.

上个月，罗伯特•索拉斯（Robert Sollars）的妻子和她最好的朋友出去参加为期两周的游艇游。索拉斯于是买了一堆汉堡肉和花生酱，整个周末都泡在电视前面看橄榄球赛。而且他还哭了。

Mr. Sollars, 51 years old, who owns a workplace-security consulting firm in Mesa, Ariz., hates being away from his wife even when she is just going to work, as an intensive-care nurse on the night shift at a local hospital. When she is away for a longer stretch, Mr. Sollars feels nauseated and finds it hard to concentrate.

51岁的索拉斯在亚利桑那州梅萨（Mesa）拥有一家工作场所安全咨询公司，他妻子是当地一家医院的重症监护护士。索拉斯痛恨离开妻子──即使她只是去医院上夜班。当她长时间离开时，索拉斯会感觉恶心，而且很难集中注意力。

As his wife packed for vacation, he hovered anxiously. She eventually snapped, and they argued for hours, he says. That night, after she'd gone to the airport, Mr. Sollars couldn't sleep. Among his thoughts: She will have a car accident. She will get sick or hurt. She will find someone else. 'I firmly believe that my worry is based in fantasy land,' Mr. Sollars says. 'But I am still deathly afraid of losing the woman I love.'

当他妻子打包准备去度假时，他坐立不安。他说，她最终生气了，两人吵了几小时。那晚，当她去机场后，索拉斯无法入睡。他心里想着：她会遇到车祸。她会生病或受伤。她会有外遇。索拉斯说，“我坚信，我的担心完全是无中生有。但我仍然非常担心失去我爱的女人。”

To most people, 'separation anxiety' is what young children feel while crying on the first day of preschool. But adults also can experience it when they are separated from the people who matter most to them. They may be unable to contain their worry and end up pushing away the very person they need so desperately.

对多数人来说，“分离焦虑”是小孩子在第一天上幼儿园哭哭啼啼时的感受。但成年人与他们最在乎的人分离时，也可能体会到这种焦虑。他们可能无法抑制自己的担忧，最终导致他们如此亟需的那个人远离他们。

You'd think pining for someone would be rare at a time when everyone is hyperconnected. But all this effortless connectivity has spoiled us. We expect to be able to reach everyone immediately, and when we can't, we're losing the ability to cope.

阿尔瓦雷斯（右）与她的两个女儿在得克萨斯州奥斯汀的寄宿学校。你会认为，在如今这个每个人都彼此“超连通”的时代，应该没什么人会如此黏着某个人了。但这种毫不费力的连通性已经把我们惯坏了。我们希望能立即联系上每个人，当我们不能做到这一点时，就会不知所措。

Researchers at Haverford College, in Pennsylvania, found people who missed their partners when apart from them were more committed to the relationship, worked harder to take care of it and avoided damaging behavior such as cheating. 'Missing prompts you to maintain your social connection,' says Benjamin Le, associate professor of psychology at Haverford and lead author of the study, published last year in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

宾夕法尼亚州哈弗福德学院（Haverford College）的研究人员发现，与伴侣分离时想念伴侣的人对双方的关系更投入，更努力地呵护这种关系并避免出现欺骗等破坏行为。该研究的论文去年发表于《社会与个人关系》（Journal of Social and Personal Relationships）杂志。论文主要作者、哈弗福德学院的心理学副教授本杰明•勒（Benjamin Le）说，“想念促使你去努力维护你的社会关系。”

The way we cope with separation is determined by something psychologists call our attachment system. Scientists believe the attachment system is an evolutionary process that humans developed to survive. Early hunter-gatherers learned to work together, and children perished without the care and protection of an adult. Although it's partly genetic, much of our lifelong 'attachment style' is determined by how as young children we learned to relate to our parents.

我们应对分离的方式是由心理学家所称的“依恋系统”决定的。科学家们认为，依恋系统是人类为了生存而进化出来的。早期的采猎者学会合作，而儿童在没有成年人的照顾和保护时会死去。尽管这部分是遗传，但我们的终身“依恋模式”大多是由我们小时与父母的关系决定的。

There are three attachment-style types: secure, anxious or avoidant, according to Hal Shorey, a psychologist and assistant professor for the Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology at Widener University, in Chester, Pa. Secure people, roughly 55% of the population, typically are warm, loving and comfortable with intimacy. They were raised, most likely, by a consistently caring and responsive mother or parental figure. The other 45% has a sometimes problematic attachment style, meaning they are anxious, avoidant or a combination, Dr. Shorey says.

宾夕法尼亚州切斯特（Chester）威得恩大学（Widener University）临床心理研究生院（Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology）的心理学家、助理教授哈尔•肖里（Hal Shorey）称，有三种依恋模式：安全型、焦虑型和逃避型。约55%的人属于安全型，他们通常待人亲切，有爱心，适应亲密接触。他们很可能是由对他们始终关爱备至的母亲或类似于父母的角色抚养长大的。肖里博士说，其他45%的人的依恋模式有时会有问题，这意味着他们属于焦虑型、逃避型或两种类型的结合。

Anxious people who worry about whether their partner loves them often had parents who were inconsistently nurturing. Avoidant people, whom psychologists also call 'dismissive,' try to minimize closeness and often had parents who didn't tolerate neediness or insecurities.

焦虑型的人担心他们的伴侣是否爱他们，这种人的父母通常对他们疏于照顾。逃避型的人──心理学家也称他们为“拒绝型”──则尽量减少跟他人的亲密接触，他们的父母通常无法忍受需要感和不安全感。

When we are scanning for signs of danger in a relationship such as abandonment our brain often can't distinguish between a real or imagined risk, Dr. Shorey says. The brain structure that picks up on threats, the amygdala, triggers the release of adrenaline faster than the thinking part of the brain, the cortex, can analyze the threat.

肖里博士说，当我们搜寻一段关系中的危险信号──例如遗弃──时，我们的大脑经常无法区分真正的风险和想象的风险。杏仁核（捕捉威胁的大脑结构）能比大脑皮层（大脑中分析威胁的思考部分）更快地触发肾上腺素的释放。

The way we learn to respond to the threat of abandonment as young children actually changes the wiring of our brains, Dr. Shorey says. 'This is an automatic response that will trigger even if you know you should not feel this way.'

肖里博士说，我们小时学会应对遗弃威胁的方式切实地改变了我们的大脑回路。“这是一种下意识的自发反应，即使在你知道不该如此感觉时仍会触发这种反应。”

When he was a child, Mr. Sollars says, his mother left him to be raised by his grandmother, who died when he was 16. 'I started being a worrier then,' Mr. Sollars says. His separation anxiety worsened a few years ago. He has diabetes and lost his eyesight; his wife had knee surgery and a procedure to correct a throat stricture. Now, Mr. Sollars is troubled by thoughts of becoming a burden to her. To distract himself while she is away, he plans to work on a book he is writing about preventing workplace violence.

索拉斯说，当他还是个孩子时，他母亲就把他交给祖母抚养，而祖母在他16岁时去世了。索拉斯说，“然后我开始成为一个爱焦虑的人。”他的分离焦虑症在几年前进一步恶化。他有糖尿病，视力减退；他妻子做过膝盖手术，还动过纠正喉部狭窄的手术。现在，索拉斯正被自己成为妻子负担这个想法所困扰。为了在她出门时分散自己的注意力，他计划写一本书，内容是关于防止工作场所暴力的。

Rosita Alvarez, a 45-year-old artist in Spicewood, Texas, grew up as a so-called Air Force brat, moving with her family every two years. She has vivid childhood memories of writing letters to old friends and never hearing back. 'I learned at 9 that you can lose people you love,' she says. She was 36 and married for 10 years with four children younger than 10, when her husband died of a heart attack.

罗西塔•阿尔瓦雷斯（Rosita Alvarez）今年45岁，是一名艺术家，家住得克萨斯州斯派斯伍德（Spicewood）。她小时候是个所谓的“空军小孩”，每两年跟着家人搬家一次。她清晰地记得小时写信给老朋友，但从来没有回音。她说，“我在九岁时知道，你会失去你所爱的人。”当她36岁，结婚满10年时，她丈夫死于心脏病，当时她的四个孩子都还不满10岁。

She keeps voice messages from each of her children on her cellphone. 'I want to have their voice with me as long as I can, in case they die,' she says. She keeps her phone with her, day and night. When it rings, she often imagines the worst.

她的手机上存着每个孩子的语音留言。她说，“我想尽可能长地把他们的声音带在身边，万一他们死了呢。”她日夜随身带着手机。当它响起时，她总会想到最坏的情况。

A few weeks ago, her 14-year-old daughter went to boarding school. Ms. Alvarez says the anxiety she feels now is like 'a hand on the back of my body, gripping my spine.' She often worries that her daughter will simply grow distant. 'I am afraid that because she is removed from me physically, she will remove herself emotionally,' Ms. Alvarez says.

几周前，她14岁的女儿去上寄宿学校。阿尔瓦雷斯说，她现在感到的焦虑就像“一只从我背后紧紧扼住我的脊柱的手”。她经常担心女儿变得与她疏远。她说，“我担心这个，是因为她离开了我身边，我怕她在感情上也会离我而去。”

When she gets stuck in a worry loop, Ms. Alvarez makes herself stop and notice her surroundings the couch, the carpet, the breakfast dishes in the sink and tells herself that all is well. 'I remind myself that my daughter and I have a loving connection, she is in a safe environment and I can control my thoughts and choose to imagine her happy,' she says. 'This breaks the spell.'

在家里，阿尔瓦雷斯靠画画来减轻自己的焦虑。当阿尔瓦雷斯陷入焦虑循环时，她会让自己停下来，注意自己的周围──沙发、地毯、水池里的早餐碟──并告诉自己一切都好。她说，“我提醒自己，我和我的女儿感情很深，她在一个安全的环境里，我能控制自己的思绪并让自己想象她很快乐。这打破了魔咒。”

Ms. Alvarez also has anxiety when parting from her boyfriend, who lives an hour away. The two have developed a 'separation ritual' for Sunday evenings, after a weekend spent together. First, they agree in advance on the time he will leave. For their last hour or so together, they talk and relax. When it's time, they go outside together. Ms. Alvarez gives him a hug but doesn't watch him get in the car. Instead, she goes immediately back in the house with her paintings. 'I choose where I place my attention,' she says.

阿尔瓦雷斯的男友住在离她家一小时路程的地方，她与他分开时也会焦虑。经过摸索，他们两人共度周末后，会在周日晚上举行一个“分离仪式”。首先，他们提前商量好他离开的时间。在俩人待在一起的最后一小时里，他们会聊天并放松身心。到时间时，他们会一起出去。阿尔瓦雷斯给他一个拥抱，但不会看着他上车。相反，她会立即回到屋里去，屋里有很多她的画作。她说，“我会选好一个集中注意力的地方。”