Welcome, Timothy!
185K+ words is impressive, especially for a story that started as a joke with your sisters. Congradulations for finishing your first draft!
Not ridiculous at all. It's only natural for parts of yourself to end up in the work (i know that's the case for me as well)
I think a lot of writers pull from their own experiences, even painful ones. That doesn’t mean the character is “you” or that readers have the right to judge you through...
I think it depends on the person. If they just want to understand the story, then a translated version is probably fine. But if they’re someone whose opinion really matters to you, rather translate it yourself. But that also depends how long the story is...
My issue with one-to-one translations is that, in many cases, so much gets lost. It may not necessarily be mistranslated, but it can be translated in a way that doesn’t fully carry the original meaning