What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen

by Kate Fagan

Second semester will get better, had to get better, Madison thought. If nothing else, through sheer force of will, perhaps she could make it better.

But many of their daughter’s friends were having trouble with the transition to college, exacerbated because most were playing sports and overwhelmed with the time commitment. The truth was, none of the parents had any idea what to say or do—for their own kids, let alone for someone else’s.

to being only one among a collection of equally talented athletes. The dramatic shift in status was triggering a crisis of self, since much of a young athlete’s ego is fueled by on-field success. Dropped into a situation where positive feedback, that fuel for the ego, was much more difficult to earn, meant that they had to fall back on their still developing sense of self.

Jim and Stacy, Susie and Kobus, and millions of other parents hadn’t yet considered how the Internet might be affecting their kids, how it was fostering an increased dependence on outside validation, and consequently a decreased ability to soothe themselves.

But nobody could have predicted how quickly Maddy would improve in track, and by the end of junior year she was posting some of the fastest women’s times in New Jersey in the 800 meters. Harvard and Penn were back in the picture. Suddenly, the scholarship offer from Lehigh morphed into a safety net. Maddy needed to see if she could really get into the Ivy League, which was a dream of hers. Or rather, a dream she felt she was supposed to have.

If I get this opportunity with an Ivy, I think I have to take it, was how Maddy conveyed her thinking to Eric. “But if you don’t really want to do it, how can you be successful?” he responded.

It was, like most Division I sports, a job—with time commitments, with demands, with expectations of performance. And nothing turns enjoyment into dread faster than obligation.

To stay confident, Madison would need a shift in perspective. The same time that had won a race in high school would put her in the middle of the pack in college. But that needed to be okay; she needed to give herself time. Although Dolan thought she was doing well, Maddy couldn’t accept the abstract idea that she was doing “well”—not when she had a visceral reminder that she definitely was not. Weren’t runners streaming past her on the course?

A few minutes after the race, mother and daughter took a picture together. The moment the iPhone camera turned on, Maddy transformed: she pulled back her slumping shoulders, wrapped Stacy in a hug, and smiled for the camera. But the reprieve was momentary. And throughout that fall, Stacy remembers looking at her daughter’s Instagram feed and seeing happiness and excitement. “Maddy, you look so happy at this party,” she recalls once saying. “Mom,” Madison responded, “it’s just a picture.”

“It started to feel like she didn’t see herself as a champion anymore,” Stacy said. “And she wasn’t okay with being good—ever. Good was not good enough.”

She had created these little tests for herself, ones that she was fairly certain she could pass. That felt good, reassuring: no, nothing was out of her control.

Maddy was addicted to progress, to the idea that her life would move in one vector—always forward, always improving—as opposed to the hills and valleys, the sideways and backward and upside down, that adults eventually learn to accept as more closely resembling reality. Maddy was not unique in feeling this way.

Maddy often expected the worst. To her, the prospect of failing out of Penn did not feel like hyperbole; it felt like the probable outcome. How could she believe otherwise, when she had no concrete evidence to the contrary? Everything had been flipped on its head, had become abstract. She was finishing behind a hundred other runners and was told that was good. She knew only half the answers on an art history test and was told not to panic.

Then this thought would send me spiraling: Who was I if not an athlete? I didn’t know. My identity was as a basketball player.

Loss of identity

The relatively early age—sometimes as early as elementary school—at which parents define children as athletes makes it more difficult to cultivate other parts of their identity. Very little else in our society is rewarded as athletics are. And when you’re young, the distinction between an activity that truly satisfies your soul and one that merely brings accolades is difficult to parse. For many, those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. For others, sports are actually not their passion, a realization that doesn’t come until they’re put into the fire of college sports. But admitting ambivalence of this kind can feel like considering filing for divorce the day after a wedding: everyone involved has already invested so much time and money. And hadn’t you convinced yourself you were truly in love?

Recognize that empathy might be in short supply. Educate yourself about mental health. And consider the idea that not every struggling teammate is weak.

Pushing through pain, clearing hurdles others have crashed into, is how an athlete improves. Knowing the difference between a hurdle and a brick wall is also crucial—yet recognizing that difference is almost impossible when you’re eighteen years old. That’s the coach’s job.

Living with a ghost is frightening enough, but if you change houses to escape it and the ghost is present in the new space, then you’ve confirmed that it’s not the house the ghost is haunting. It’s you.

At first she convinced herself the problem was time management—specifically, her own sloppy time management. Madison believed she just had to plan better. If she wanted to be happy, she would need to be more diligent about her pursuit of it. So she started blocking off time on her schedule for each endeavor. Of course, happiness is often most elusive to those actively chasing it, but that didn’t stop Maddy from trying.

sounds familiar

EVERYTHING we do is seen as instrumental towards marketing ourselves for the college admission boards, or for the job market, or to help us rush a fraternity or sorority, or to help us win friends, or to help us be a more attractive potential partner. You see the capitalist worldview has infiltrated our psychology, and our sense of self-worth. And it is toxic. It results in fear of being ourselves and following what we really want to do. It results in micro-managing every aspect of our lives to best effect so that it looks good for Facebook or LinkedIn or Tinder. It results in constant comparisons with our peers (which causes depression) and catastrophizing of any potential dent to our marketability (which results in anxiety). Essentially, it results in a dehumanized mindset.

On one hand, the job of parents is to make their child feel special and unique, as if they can do anything they put their mind to. After all, if our parents don’t believe in us, who will? But instilling those beliefs in a child is healthy only if balanced with a reality check about what the world is like, about how hard and difficult it can be, and about how few people will likely ascribe those same qualities of uniqueness and wonder to you. Somewhere along the way, we’ve started to believe that delivering this second message is cruel. But it’s not. Cruelty is offering either message—without the other.)

unconditional love

Exactly when do our young people have time to develop their own sense of self? When are they able to be alone, to understand how they think, what they really want—without the pretense of how it might look on a college application?

Developing competence at an activity that one enjoys, making friends, finding meaning in life, and pursuing a heartfelt religious path are examples of intrinsic goals. Getting high grades in school, making lots of money, achieving high status, and looking good to others are examples of extrinsic goals. Twenge argues convincingly that there has been a continual shift away from intrinsic toward extrinsic values in the culture at large and among young people in particular, promoted in part by the mass marketing of consumer goods through television and other media. She refers also to evidence that the pursuit of extrinsic goals at the expense of intrinsic goals correlates with anxiety and depression. It seems reasonable that this would be true.

the pursuit of extrinsic goals at the expense of intrinsic ones leads to anxiety and depression

Instead of having one or two true friends that we can sit and talk to for three hours at a time, we have 968 “friends” that we never actually talk to; instead we just bounce one-line messages off them a hundred times a day. This is not friendship, this is distraction.

Suicide. That word felt heavy and sharp, impossible for Madison to even think about, let alone say out loud. Everything else in her mind felt abstract, so abstract that Maddy felt immobilized by the lack of clarity. Where had all this darkness come from? Her mind had always been a wilderness, but a mostly well-lit one, so she could see her footing. But now shadows had settled over parts, blackness rolling into all the crevices. Peeking around corners felt dangerous. The scariest part was that out of this foggy world would occasionally come one slice of frightening clarity. Thoughts, so purposeful and disciplined, would burst through like a train cutting through a snowstorm, an iron fist on a collision course with its destination. Maddy had, in fact, thought of the power of such a train—a real one. And thought also of how defenseless she would be standing in its path. What would that feel like? Would it be exhilarating? In a single moment, a cold, inhuman force could turn fear into fearlessness. At least, maybe that’s how others would see it, would see her, instead of the soul-crushing panic she actually felt.

Comparing your everyday existence to someone else’s highlight reel is dangerous for both of you.

I’m not saying you can have it all: In fact, that’s one of my biggest messages in the book. You have to choose. Parents already tell their kids to ‘do what you love’ and ‘follow your dreams.’ But kids know that they don’t really mean it, that what they really want is status and success. Well, we have to really mean it.”

Boyd allows this imagery to sink in, allows the listener to picture the beautiful crystal being smashed against a hard object, the pieces swept away, punishment for a defect nearly invisible to the human eye. Then Boyd urges us to consider the slight space between these two wildly different outcomes. He says, “Notice how close perfection is to despair.”

Notice how close perfection is to despair.

“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”

If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. —Montesquieu

The best part of life is often the way we anticipate what is to come. For a trip, for the weekend, for a party, for so many moments that are happening after and apart from the ones we are currently living. Sometimes we also believe that another place will change us, or at least how we feel, and that it will be a change for the better. And even if we recognize, when we get to this time or place, that it has not changed us, that we are still just ourselves, we cannot help but fall for this trick the next time, and again and again afterward. We fall for it because it soothes us during all the moments we aren’t doing exactly the thing we wish we could be doing, and because it allows us the transcendent emotion of anticipation. Anticipation allows us to be in two different moments at once. But it is often a zero-sum game: we steal from one to fuel the other.

prodigal son

I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out, and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in. For you mom… the necklaces… for you, Nana & Papa… Gingersnaps (always reminds me of you)… For you Ingrid… The Happiness Project. And Dad… the Godiva chocolate truffles. I love you all… I’m sorry. I love you.

the note

There are rivers that merge and create a powerful current. And we can’t fully know why they all merged, right then, right there, around Maddy. Still, we can try to analyze each one, the way it bends and curves, what it turns into when it blends with another. We can do this, learn everything we can, how to talk to others about their pain or our own, in the hope that fewer people get caught in this same, fierce swirl.