7 In a dark room in Queens, New York, 31-year-old fashion designer Tracy Cyr believed she was dying. A few months before, she had stopped taking the powerful immune-suppressing drugs that kept her arthritis in check. She never anticipated what would happen: a withdrawal reactions that eventually left her in total body agony and neurological meltdown. The slightest movement-trying to swallow, fqr example-was excruciating. Even the pressure of her cheek on the pillow was almost unbearable. 7在纽约市皇后区一间漆黑的房间里，31岁的时装设计师特蕾西?塞尔感到自己奄奄一息。就在几个月前，她已经停止服用控制她关节炎的强效免疫抑制药。她从没预见到接下来将要发生的事:停药之后的反应最终使她全身剧烈疼痛，神经系统出现严重问题。最轻微的动作—比如说试着吞咽—对她来说也痛苦不堪。甚至将脸压在枕头上也几乎难以忍受。
8 Cyr is no wimp-diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at the age of two, she had endured the symptoms and the treatments (drugs, surgery) her whole life. But this time, she was way6 past her limits, and nothing her doctors did seemed to help. Either the disease was going to kill her or, pretty soon, she felt she might have to kill herself.
8塞尔并不是懦弱的人。她在两岁时就被诊断得了幼年型类风湿性关节炎，一生都在忍受着病症和治疗(药物、手术)的折磨。但是这一
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次，她实在不堪忍受了，她的医生所做的一切似乎都不起作用。要么让疾病结束她的生命，要么她就得很快了结自己的生命了。
9 As her sleepless nights wore on, though, her suicidal thoughts began to be interrupted by new feelings of gratitude. She was still in agony, but a new consciousness grew stronger each night: an awesome sense of liberation, combined with an all-encompassing feeling of sympathy and compassion. \she said six months later. \was useless-time, money, self-image, perception. Recognizing that was so freeing.\
9然而，在经历了若干个不眠之夜后，她想自杀的念头开始被新的感激之情所打断。虽然她仍然感到痛苦，但一种新的意识每一夜都变得更加强烈:一种令人惊叹的解脱感，结合着一种包容一切的同情和怜悯的情感。“我感到一切我曾经用来认同自己身份的东西都被剥夺了，”六个月后她这样说道，“一切我认为我知道或相信的事物—时间、金钱、自我形象、对事物的看法—都毫无价值了。意识到这一点真是让我感到解脱。”
10 Within a few months, she began to be able to move more freely, thanks to a cocktail of steroids and other drugs. She says now there's no question that her life is better. \
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and why we're here: to be happy and to nurture other life. It's that simple.\
10在几个月内，得益于类固醇加其他药物的鸡尾酒疗法，她开始能够更加自如地活动了。她说，毫无疑问她现在的生活状况有了好转。“我感觉我窥探到了生命的秘密以及我们生存的意义，那就是快乐地生活，同时扶持他人。就这么简单!”
11 Her mind-blowing experience came as a total surprise. But that feeling of transformation is in some ways typical, says Rich Tedeschi, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte who coined the term \have endured extreme events, like combat, violent crime or sudden serious illness show that most feel dazed and anxious in the immediate aftermath; they are preoccupied with the idea that their lives have been shattered. A few are haunted long afterward by memory problems, sleep trouble and similar symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder . But Tedeschi and others have found that for many people-perhaps even the majority-life ultimately becomes richer and more gratifying.
11她这种不可思议的经历完全是个惊喜。但是北卡罗来纳大学夏洛特分校心理学教授里奇.特德斯基认为，这种转变的感觉从某些方面看却是很典型的。里奇.特德斯基教授首创了“创伤后成长”一词。他对那些经历了诸如搏斗、暴力犯罪、突患重病等极端事件的人群进行
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了研究，这些研究表明，在刚经历不幸后大多数人随即都会感到茫然和焦虑。他们一心想的就是，自己的生活完全被毁了。有少部分人事后很久了还不断被记忆问题、失眠以及类似的创伤后应激障碍所折磨。但特德斯基和其他学者发现，对很多人(可能甚至是绝大多数人)来说，生活最终会变得更加丰富和更加令人满足。
12 Something similar happens to many people who experience a terrifying physical threat. In that moment, our sense of invulnerability is pierced, and the self-protective mental armor that normally stands between us and our perceptions of the world is torn away. Our everyday life scripts-our habits, self-perceptions and assumptions-go out the window, and we are left with a raw experience of the world.
12许多经历过恐怖的人身威胁的人会遇到类似的情况。在事情发生的那一瞬间，我们的安全感被冲破了，平时处于我们与我们对世界的种种看法之间的自我保护的精神盔甲被剥离了。我们的日常生活轨迹(我们的习惯、自我认识和主观意念)全部被抛到九霄云外，只剩下对世界的原始体验。
13 Still, actually implementing these changes, as well as fully coming to terms with a new reality, usually takes conscious effort. Being willing and able to take on this process is one of the major differences between those who grow through adversity and those who are destroyed by it. The
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