Last year, an article about Madison Holleran, the Penn State over-achieving athlete who jumped to her death from the top of a parking garage, gained insane amounts of media attention. You can read more about her life and death here on ESPN.
I knew about the incident earlier last year, but this article in particular struck me in such a way that I was in tears by the end. I even still read it today, over a year later. Sometimes when I’m feeling sad I read it over again. I can relate to it, in the sense that I’ve just wrapped up my freshman year of college a few months ago…something Madison Holleran will never have the chance to do.
In another article where pieces of her suicide note were revealed, she wrote:
“I don’t know who I am anymore. Trying. Trying. Trying.”
Reading those words felt like a punch to the gut, as I know that feeling all too well.
Who am I? Who do I want to be? Why can’t I be good enough for myself, just as I am?
I feel as though many like me are always all trying. Trying. Trying.
Never succeeding.
You see, I sympathize with Madison on more levels than one. I am a born perfectionist, and I want the best everything. I want to have the best grades, the best boyfriend, the best job, the best friends, the best life. And if I’m honest with myself, I have all of those things. Though the idea of perfection manifests itself in different ways. Even just the letter grade of “B” is failure to me. The problem with being a perfectionist, is that being good at something isn’t even enough to satiate the constant hunger to be perfect.
Everyone says it, “nobody is perfect”. To me, this means that no matter what I do, I fail. It’s not easy. Every day I wake up, and if I haven’t lost weight, I’ve failed. If I receive a score less than perfect, I’ve failed. If I mess up at work, I have failed. If I fell asleep at 4 a.m. and didn’t finish all of my tasks, I have failed. I have always been this way. Being perfect is not enough to be content with myself.
Madison’s parents started a campaign for suicide awareness, focused on the idea that it is OK to not be OK.
I think often times in college, we are encouraged to keep going when we aren’t okay at all. In fact, we are encouraged to push ourselves hardest when we are the most stressed or self doubting. Each day of college is difficult. Roommate issues, bad professors, and heavy work loads weigh on you as a person, and college has a way of making you feel like you’re just not good enough for the big bad world.
My first week here, I was sure that I was going to transfer to a smaller school in my hometown and live with Mom and Dad.
I was not OK. I was dropped off with my pillow and blanket, and I was terrified. Within three days I was expected to memorize a syllabus, write a paper, organize a dorm room, start my first day of work, and make new friends. I felt like I was drowning. I felt like God was ignoring my desperate pleas to ease my anxiety and help me transition. I felt like I had no friends, nowhere to turn, and I wanted to run away from it all.
Even as the year went on and I received a bid from the sorority I wanted so incredibly bad, I still felt alone. Sometimes, no amount of good people in your life can change that. Though the hardest part is, I hardly ever admitted that I wasn’t okay. See, the thing about being perfect, is that perfect people are never sad, so acting upset would completely go against everything I strived for.
In the ESPN article, social media is something that was touched on often. It is often true that we see other people living their lives on social media, and they look like they are doing so much better than you. Their teeth always seem whiter, they are always skinnier, their friends are all pretty, and so on. Who isn’t guilty of laying in their bed feeling sorry for themselves after Insta-stalking someone?
I had to delete my Instagram before college. It got to the point where I was so unhappy with myself that I began to constantly compare my life to the pictures of others. What’s the problem with that? Well, for starters, we live our lives through filters. Madison always had filters on her photo, as the ESPN article noted, even up until her last photo of lights in the park. I couldn’t live my life through a filter anymore, I was tired of being worried about people judging my worth just by the pictures online.
Perhaps, if we became okay with who we were before filters were around, we could be OK with not being OK. Perhaps if we put down our phones, and spent some time working on ourselves, we could learn to be okay with who we are. We could learn to love ourselves and the world without having to wear rose-colored glasses to see it all, as the world is not always rosey.
Life seems to be a never ending, constant to-do list for us perfectionists. Between sticky notes on the walls to remind you to write that paper for biology and reminders on your phone that tell you to eat, you know how crazy life can get.
Maybe there is something to be learned from Madison. It’s possible that this tragic event can be turned into a lesson for all the perfectionists out there. In the last moments of Madison’s life, after she purchased gifts for each member her family, and left notes for each of them before she ran and jumped to her death. In a sick way of sympathy, I can see how free she may have felt just before the moment of impact. Free from the stresses that had once weighed her down. Free from the stress of not being enough.
However, this may be the signal from the universe that is telling you, you perfectionist, to take a break today. To take a deep breath. To slow down. To step back from what is overwhelming you. Pray. Ask for guidance. Write in your journal. Spend time with yourself. And ultimately, to reach out and tell people when you aren’t doing well, to be honest with yourself when you’re not doing well.
Maybe in memory of Madison’s soul and life we will remember that it is OK to not be OK.