“When As are expected, there’s no way to exceed expectations,” Meghan, who grew up in the Portland suburbs, told me. “Physically, the pressure felt like a burning pain around my sternum. I once had a chest x-ray because of it. Now I know I have panic attacks, and I imagine that’s what it was . . . I threw up so much I inflamed the cartilage between my ribs.” It’s easy to see the message internalized during this process: The only route to success involves working to the point of—and then through—physical pain.
