一个庞大家庭的隐痛，谁不是一身创伤前行呢。
看的是英文版，累计阅读22天，阅读时长21h+。也算是比较快看完了。
简单记录下：
一个庞大家庭的隐痛。离开的和留下的都感到被伤害。坚守的和逃离的都觉得委屈。父母和孩子都有巨大的创伤。nature和nurture各自发挥作用。多么矛盾复杂让人爱恨交加的家人啊。但所幸Lindsay愿意勇敢面对，去探索，去unveil，去试图理解。但就算想要逃离、想要忘记亦无可厚非。谁不是带着一身创伤继续向前走呢，或多或少。
对于Don和Mimi来说，选择生12个孩子怎么不会是一场“灾难”？
Things got out of control because, with such a large family, the miracle would have been that anything ever was under control to begin with.“I think there was a lack of consciousness in having twelve children in the first place,” Margaret said, “and then thinking that they could raise them to become all-American citizens.”
刚开始看很不理解他们，为什么接二连三地不断生孩子。从后面故事的不断揭晓，可以慢慢看出缘由。Mimi其实是没有安全感的，而且Don在婚姻前期是缺席的，Mimi只能通过不断生孩子来抓住些什么，她需要付出和被依赖才能继续生机勃勃地活着。
Having so many children, however, offered Mimi a brand-new narrative—or at least distracted her, changed the subject, shored up the losses, helped her dwell less on what was missing. For a woman who so often felt abandoned, here was a way to create all the company she would ever need.
对Don的缺位，我也很愤慨。Don追求自己的事业，缺席了孩子的养育。也是因为Don在参战的时候有过战争创伤，但从来不提，其实他也有depression，甚至晚年还接受了电击治疗。Don即使养育缺位，而且后来在孩子们爆发病症的大多数时候选择掩盖，但仍然被孩子们视为家庭的英雄，被男孩子认为是永远无法企及的高度。在这一点来说，父亲和母亲的角色从来都是不公平的。
而Mimi啊，Mimi，在那个时代，当精神病被认为是养育问题的时候，controlling mother被认为是罪魁祸首。也正是因为这样，导致很多家庭讳疾忌医，因为没人愿意承认自己作为父母的失职。
但父母必然是失职的，每个人都是第一次做父母，能做到完美几无可能。Don和Mimi显然不够，还差得远。
从一开始，决定不断生小孩开始，他们已经做了错误决定（当然，生命不是错误的）。
随后，在孩子们成长的过程中，他们又没有适当干预。12个小孩相当于一个小社会，而在兄弟们恶意的竞争打斗的背后，父母应该给予适当引导，而不是不管不问，让他们自行解决，于是孩子们之间也形成了等级。年龄最小的两个女孩终日惶惶不安。
接下来，他们没有意识到牧师对孩子的侵犯，成为了更失职的父母。不仅在于兄弟姐妹之间无法友好相处，连孩子们也受到了外来的伤害。谁又能说清楚，是不是这些成长中的创伤进一步加剧了或加速了他们一个接着一个精神疾病的爆发？或许，一切能重来，是否能够减少一点悲剧？又或许在那个年代，甚至直到现代，精神疾病作为尚未被攻克的难题，不管如何，最终仍然无法避免悲剧的发生？
但Mimi啊，Mimi，又是那样坚强和坚韧的。她不放弃每一个生病的孩子，甚至是侵犯了自己兄弟姐妹的Jim。她努力维持着这个家庭，虽然也仅仅是维持。她把精力更多地放在生病的孩子身上的同时，那些没有精神疾病的、想与母亲建立关系的孩子又被忽略了。她一直活到79岁，送走了Don，也送走了好几个孩子，她有足够长的时间去反思和咀嚼过去。但同时，她不愿意承认自己有错，不愿意正视女儿受到的伤害。
Shame and guilt are ways that children usually process those traumas when the grown-ups around them have failed them.
She attacked Lindsay’s emotions by undermining them, dismissing them, or invalidating them.
原来，其实Mimi自己在小时候也受到了继父的猥亵，同时她承受了多年来Don的出轨，她只能维持这个家，虽然这个家里每个人都感觉受到了伤害。
Something was bothering Mimi—and it had to do with her daughters. She knew that in their eyes, she was both the villain and hero of the family: a mother in denial, heartlessly neglecting her daughters because she was so attached to her sick sons, and a mother who kept her family together, left to care for so many sick sons by herself.Mimi sensed she was being judged. It frustrated Mimi that as much as she took on, the last people to appreciate her seemed to be some of her own children.She could only abide this for so long.
多么矛盾复杂让人爱恨交加的家人啊。
Margaret被送走，她感到被家人放弃，感觉到与家人的疏远，但同时她也感觉到幸运，感到终于可以逃离Jim的魔掌。可是，她又感受到与新环境的格格不入。也因此，等她长大后，她不愿意再与家庭连接，不愿意深挖过去，她要活出自己，为自己活。但她也是愧疚的，对Lindsay愧疚，对这个家庭愧疚。Lindsay没有被送走，她同样难过和无力。唯一的姐姐离开了，她又是恨，又是感觉到被抛弃。但幸而她勇于面对自己，去试图自我疗愈。她常年做心理咨询治疗，不断地剖析自己，剖析自己的家庭。慢慢地，当她有了足够的力量， 她愿意为这个家庭尽一份力。
Silvern told Lindsay that when somebody copes by being more armored, it can wind up hindering them later. They have a narrower road to travel going forward—a more fenced-in, claustrophobic life.
不同于Margaret，她选择回来，来探究为什么，发生了什么，是否有解决方法，以及如何和母亲相互理解。
Her hope for Lindsay was that she end up in a place where she would be willing to trust new people, to let down her armor under the right circumstances.
“They raped you,” Silvern said.
Lindsay was not scandalized. She was, if anything, relieved.Someone was giving what happened a name.
The defining of terms was like a glass of cold water splashed on her face. Sexual abuse was sexual abuse. Rape was rape. Being a victim was being a victim. She couldn’t escape the closet that night for the same reason that she couldn’t leave Jim’s cabin at the top of the Manitou Incline: Because someone more powerful was violating her trust, victimizing her, making it impossible for her to do anything other than what he wanted her to do.
读到后面部分有些伤感。那么多孩子，作为读者的我，也记不住每个人发生了什么，可能也亦如Mimi，对大儿子Donald有更多关注。读到Donald的段落，觉得他很可怜。他曾经是孩子中的暴君，发病后甚至试图掐死自己的妈妈。但老去之后，他又那么无力，读到他作为家庭的影子一样，藏在家里的角落，不怎么出现，就挺难过的。一个精神病患者，伤害了自己，也伤害了家人，当他逐渐老去，他会留下些什么？
But on most days, Donald would not leave his room. Even at Christmas, he would greet everybody with a hug and then retreat to a hiding place. One of Mimi’s granddaughters found him once, when she was about five: “Mimi”—many of the grandchildren, adorably, called her by her first name, following the lead of Margaret and Lindsay—“Donald is sitting in the closet.”
还有，药物啊药物。不是解药是毒药。你在短期内需要它，但它会在长期中杀死你。
One of the consequences of surviving schizophrenia for fifty years is that sooner or later, the cure becomes as damaging as the disease.
The less consistently you take the medication, the worse off you were—the more psychotic breaks you have, the more far gone you become.It was a painful catch-22 to witness a loved one experience: Not taking the drugs makes them more sick, and then taking them, in some cases, makes them sicker. A different kind of sick, she agreed, but sick nevertheless.
那精神病患者要怎么办呢？吃药也只是为了让他们不再给别人惹麻烦吧？也不能把他们直接关起来或者锁起来吧，但又要避免他们因为这种病而产生麻烦。于是，药物，用药物慢慢“毒”死他们。在我看来，就是这样。电击疗法让他们情绪稍许稳定，但也慢慢损伤了他们的记忆。当麻痹了一个人的大脑，那这个人又变成了谁？
我刻意忽略了本书的另外一半关于精神疾病发展及研究的部分，是我能力不够，没办法从书中快速总结出来。书中对精神疾病的诊断发展以及争论（nature与nurture之争），继而到现在越来越能够窥其奥秘的医学研究与突破进行了比较详细的论述。尤其是一代又一代坚守着的、不愿意放弃、不断探索的研究者们，他们的故事同样精彩。希望这个医学难题早日被攻克。
We are, in some way, a product of the people who surround us—the people we’re forced to grow up with, and the people we choose to be with later.
Our relationships can destroy us, but they can change us, too, and restore us, and without us ever seeing it happen, they define us.We are human because the people around us make us human.”