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

by Kate Fagan

Just Sleep The night of

self. Online, I can create someone who is not impatient, does not misspeak, is not self-centered, is always standing in the best lighting, and on and on.

which your brain easily extrapolates to fantastic evenings filled with warmth and love, with good wine and delicious food. Comparing your everyday existence to someone else’s highlight reel is dangerous for both of you.

It’s easy to imagine your social persona as the most polished version of yourself. In the 1800s, this would be the “you” that showed up at the ball, or the dance, or Christmas Day service: best clothes, best face, ready to charm. And of course

there’s nothing radical about presenting edited versions of ourselves, which we’ve always done. We once sent letters by horseback that contained only the words and ideas we wanted relayed.

In Mind Change, clinical psychologist Larry Rosen points out that a “dangerous gap could grow between this idealized ‘front stage’ you and the real ‘backstage’ you, leading to a feeling of disconnection and isolation.”

Throughout human history, we have soothed ourselves by creating, by mining our brains and hearts, turning pain into thoughts, thoughts into art.

Now we are tethered to a steady hum of the superficial, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to disconnect, to turn inward, away from that buzz. Even our sense of time has shape-shifted, because everything can be accessed instantaneously.

that young people “prefer to deal with strong feelings from the safe haven of the Net. It gives them an alternative to processing emotions in real time.”

Young adults now predominantly communicate through text, or on Instagram and Snapchat. All of us, adults included, call people on the phone less frequently. Text is absolutely an efficient mode of staying in touch, because we can engage with

And again, this may be fine when you’re feeling healthy and happy. But when you’re not, studies show that relying on these modes of digital communication does litt...

Efficient communication does not mean effectiv...

We communicate for many different reasons: sometimes merely to make plans, sometimes out of boredom or duty, and other times because we are str...

Consider this passage from Mind Change:

None of my friends and roommates told me not to quit. After barely a pause, they all said something like “Whatever will make you happy,” then went

about their day. I didn’t quite understand at the time that very few people (save for a parent, maybe a best friend) spend much time thinking about someone else’s problems.

I was terrified of the word “quit.” Within sports, that word is dirty and barely distinguishable from “I can’t.” I had come to view quitting as synonymous with laziness, weakness, and selfishness.

out anyway, everyone watching me leave would also be judging me. Could I ever stop? Could something be too much without me being not enough? The either/or thinking that permeates sports makes stepping aside, during a drill or a season, a referendum on character, on its deficiencies. What was the difference between quitting and stopping, or quitting and retiring, or quitting and

me. Could I ever stop? Could something be too much without me being not enough? The either/or thinking that

permeates sports makes stepping aside, during a drill or a season, a referendum on chara...

What was the difference between quitting and stopping, or quitting and retiring, or quitting and making the conscious decision that contin...

through which someone else viewed my decision (which I could not control), I would become in their eyes eith...

How much of our happiness is fueled by society’s validation of our choices? It seems that the younger we ar...

value and praise—perhaps because we haven’t developed, or don’t yet fully trust, our ability to name or ...

crumbling beneath the weight—after only a few weeks of official basketball practice. I became desperate for everyday moments, which felt exotic.

A trip to the grocery store made me feel like an outsider. Walking the aisles, watching people fill their carts, I felt as if I was in the zoo, on the outside looking in. I yearned to go home after classes and cook, to see movies, to do all the things I saw those around me doing, but which I never had time for. I became resentful.

The coaching staff redshirted me, which meant I retained that year of eligibility.

Dopamine is the main neurotransmitter involved in time processing. Dopamine agonists—compounds that activate dopamine receptors—tend to speed up our perception of time, which passes more quickly.

In Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite, William Deresiewicz observes that our education system seems to be producing kids who have trouble thinking critically and finding their purpose. In an interview with Slate, he offered the following insight: “The point is not what you do but why you do it, how you choose

it… I understand that parents are worried about their children’s future. But we have to look at what we’re doing to our kids. We have to have the strength to raise them to care about something other than ‘success’ in the very narrow terms in which it’s come to be defined. 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 succes...

In fact, it was the opposite: Didn’t they agree that the stigma around quitting sometimes forces us to stay in toxic situations?

Boyd delivered this sermon, “The Fine Art of Being Imperfect,” in 1996.

He says, “Notice how close perfection is to despair.”

However, this asymmetry is not considered a mistake to be eradicated or smoothed out. In fact, it is the opposite: this imperfection becomes the rug’s beauty, its uniqueness. This rug is unlike any other, and that is what makes it a coveted work.

Boyd’s message asks a single question of his listeners: In which way do we view imperfection? And, again: Notice how close perfection is to despair.

The final quote on the page was from Anne Frank: “Think of all the beauty still left around

We believe we’re communicating with the humans we love and adore, and we are. But we aren’t absorbing their humanity.

Emoji is the world’s first digital universal language,

and it’s frighteningly superficial. Ironically, emojis are dev...

and specifically loved the Colosseum, so as not to rob others of even a moment of that vicarious, transferrable excitement—of their own joy of anticipation.

I tell this story to illustrate that all of us feel an obligation to optimism and happiness when we’re around others.

Instagram in a picture at the landmark with the hashtag “amazing.” The

I took one or two pictures on my camera, but I wasn’t considering the social capital

of an Instagram post from that geo-tagged location.

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

Of course, if that promise is repeatedly broken, if those next moments are never better, a kind of melancholy can set in: both our present and future seem tarnished.

Isn’t social media fueled by anticipation? A world exists in our phone, which we can retreat to—an escape that might offer us something more

pleasant, or at least a distraction from our momentary boredom at being a human who is alive in the world, and therefore dealing wit...

Social media reflects our actual existence, but feels freer: not mired in tangible weight and sweat and fear and sadness. Social media is a picture o...