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

tiring, but it is not confusing. You are never left wondering if you’ve made the wrong choice, or expended energy in the wrong direction, because there is only the one rung above you. Get good grades. Get better at your sport. Take the SAT. Do volunteer work. Apply to colleges. Choose a college. 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.

One of the trickiest parts of social media is recognizing that everyone is doing the same thing you’re doing: presenting their best self. Everyone is now a brand, and all of digital life is a fashion magazine.

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.

Introspection means talking to yourself, and one of the best ways of talking to yourself is by talking to another person. One other person you can trust, one other person to whom you can unfold your soul. One other person you feel safe enough with to allow you to acknowledge things—to acknowledge things to yourself—that you otherwise can’t. Doubts you aren’t supposed to have, questions you aren’t supposed to ask. Feelings or opinions that would get you laughed at by the group or reprimanded by the authorities. This is what we call thinking out loud, discovering what you believe in the course of articulating it. But it takes just as much time and just as much patience as solitude in the strict sense. And our new electronic world has disrupted it just as violently. 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.

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

Madison and her friends were the first generation of “digital natives”—kids who’d never known anything but connectivity. That connection, at its most basic level, meant that instead of calling your parents once a week from the dorm hallway, you could call and text them all day long, even seeking their approval for your most mundane choices, like what to eat at the dining hall. Constant communication may seem reassuring, the closing of physical distance, but it quickly becomes inhibiting. Digital life, and social media at its most complex, is an interweaving of public and private personas, a blending and splintering of identities unlike anything other generations

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 pressure to be great, not good, is unrelenting. Believing that this pressure will simply disappear once kids arrive on campus seems like wishful thinking.

And we're not just talking high school students; this practice of hovering often begins before they've learned how to write. Kids used to grow up in a neighborhood-- on the block or in the parks, playing games with other kids. These games had rules, but the kids themselves determined them, flexing their imaginations. Social scientists called these activities -- capture the flag, bike races, pickup baseball games -- "free play, " and it's been steadily decreasing since the 1950s. Scientists have also noted a correlation between the decreasing amount of childhood free play—any play not directed by adults—and the increasing rates of anxiety and depression among kids. As free play decreases, anxiety increases.

When Jim was growing up, good colleges were challenging to get into, but it wasn't like it is today, when being a solid, diligent student is no longer enough. Students today must display excellence -- not just competence --- in numerous areas. The pressure to be great, not just good, is unrelenting. Believing this pressure will disappear once kids arrive on campus seems like wishful thinking.

Digital life, and social media at its most complex, is an interweaving of public and private personas, a blending and splintering of identities unlike anything other generations have experienced.

Some stories simply touch us more deeply as they reach right into our hearts, settle there, and never leave.

of being okay, and having everything together, and almost, like, say, even though I’m stressed, I still have time to have a perfect social life, perfect grades, to join all these clubs, and I’m super successful. But in reality people are stressed, and do feel alone, and it’s important to address those things. Peter: Picture a duck, and below the surface they are scrambling for their lives, but above the water everything appears peaceful—not a care in the world. That’s Penn Face. Kathryn: I think Penn Face also comes from the expectations we have for ourselves, and that people around us have for us at an Ivy League university—you’re supposed to be having the best four years of your life. We get this messaging everywhere. And having a hard time is not part of that messaging, which perpetuates the belief that “I’m not okay” must mean that something is wrong with you instead of something a lot of people might feel. Devanshi: Ivy League schools compile all the top students in one place and

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.

We have little sympathy for injuries that we can’t see and touch, for whatever is hurting that isn’t bloody or outwardly broken. But that’s where the comparison between the two ends, because with mental illness, unlike anemia, an official diagnosis usually doesn’t end the stigma. And to make matters worse, those with the least empathy are often teammates—peers.

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.

My clients spend their childhoods and in particular their adolescences putting their healthy development on hold, coached and managed by parents who are so fearful and anxious about helping their children succeed that there is simply no room for their children, my clients, to begin to know themselves.

She didn't have to return to Philly until Sunday, yet from the moment she sat down in the car, Madison was already projecting five days into the future and anticipating the sadness that returning to campus would bring.

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. And if she told enough people that things were going to go well this time around, said it out loud repeatedly, maybe she could even convince herself.

A runner is always attempting to control everything- time, energy, form, workouts, food intake, hydration- yet simultaneously conscious that she shouldn’t become controlled by any one variable. She is the agent. It’s as if each discipline is a necklace, and a runner must know when to put one on, when to take one off, when she can handle more than one, when she can’t . If all runners lose this talent for calibration, they end up wearing all the necklaces at once, and they sink. In other words, the art of elite running is often about the negative space. It’s less about knowing when to run; more about knowing when not to.

And to make matters worse, those with the least empathy are often teammates—peers.

That's the interesting part - it's about reframing the suicide story to be about the person's life, not just about their death.

photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are

Nobody here knows you from before, knows who you are and how you act' Kathryn said. 'So nobody really knows if you're different, or if there's something really wrong, because the truth is, they don't know you at all.

I literally got here and I was like 'I'm not unique, I am not special, I am just like everyone else.' The culture here, the first week of school, the library is packed, everyone is studying. That was my identity in high school she's a hard worker. And I came here and it's like "Who am I?" And it manifested itself into anxiety and sadness. I didn't feel comfortable with who I was anymore.

What if she did transfer, but then nothing changed? What if she was walking around that new school, the pain as sharp as ever?

Too often, kids are herded into commitments and activities that are born not of passion but of obligation.

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.

If coming of age used to mean summers and weekends working at 7-Eleven cleaning the Slurpee machine to make a few extra bucks to buy your favorite record, now it’s about checking boxes on a college application: becoming fluent in a second language, volunteering at a shelter, taking weekly SAT prep courses.