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

by Kate Fagan

how it was fostering an increased dependence on outside validation, and consequently a decreased ability to soothe themselves.

Nothing Is Worth More Than This Day

nothing turns enjoyment into dread faster than obligation.

But then you get to college, and suddenly you’re out of rungs and that ladder has turned into a massive tree with hundreds of sprawling limbs, and progress is no longer a thing you can easily measure, because there are now thousands of paths to millions of destinations. And none are linear.

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.

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.

Of course, happiness is often most elusive to those actively chasing it, but that didn’t stop Maddy from trying.

This is also true for Instagram: the more polished and put-together someone seems—everything lovely and beautiful and just as it should be—perhaps the more likely something vital is falling apart just offscreen.

One study found that an average high school student today likely deals with as much anxiety as did a psychiatric patient in the 1950s.

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 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.

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.

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.

Social media has psychological side effects. Paradoxically, hyperconnectivity may create feelings of disconnection—not

Efficient communication does not mean effective communication.

This question, to nearly everyone who considers it, feels loaded. They feel they may be introducing an option rather than reflecting one that’s already been considered.

Above all, the brain’s perception of time involves processes linked to memory and attention: witness the impression that time is passing more quickly when we are busy, or doing something amusing or exciting. Time flies even when we are in love. In contrast, a watched pot never boils. Minutes drag by when we are bored… Dopamine

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.

Emoji is the world’s first digital universal language, and it’s frighteningly superficial. Ironically, emojis are devoid of real emotion.

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.