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

by Kate Fagan

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

We’re all doing exactly this, all the time now. Even before I began learning about Madison, I had started the process of erasing myself from the present world in favor of social media—carving out chunks of myself, stretching them into an online skeleton: two people from one, like some kind of medical miracle. I had been doing this for a long time, of my own volition. In the past few years, I’ve spent almost as much time constructing and maintaining my online self as I have my real, human self. I’ve certainly spent more time on Instagram exercising my image than I have in the gym exercising my body.