Fast Girl

by Suzy Favor Hamilton

Why is this happening to me? I wondered. I lifted my head and looked out into the peaceful woods that surrounded our house. We lived in a beautiful home. We had each other, and now, Kylie. I didn’t ever have to face the stress of racing again. There was nothing to worry about, nothing to fear. And yet, even as I told myself all of this, wishing I could feel better, nothing soothed my frayed mind. I thought of Mark upstairs with Kylie and the way he’d been watching me closely with a worried look on his face, and how I couldn’t explain, even to him, what was happening to me. I thought of my parents, who were devoted to Kylie, and how any tension that had existed between me and my family because of my running had melted away, now that they could involve themselves in her care, which Mark and I were happy for them to do. I even became closer to my sisters, who had so badly wanted me to have a baby who would grow up with their own children that my sister Carrie had even offered to carry a child for me if we’d wanted to start a family while I was still competing. Our little angel had not only brought great happiness to Mark and me, but she had also brought my family back to me. I didn’t want to admit how weak and vulnerable I was feeling, especially at what was supposed to be such a happy moment for us. I just wished all my feelings away.

  Weeks went by, and nothing changed. Finally, I couldn’t deny it anymore. The next time I took Kylie to the doctor for her shots, my doctor smiled at me as she examined Kylie.

  “How are you doing?” she asked.

  I took a deep breath, knowing I had to come clean.

  “Actually, I’m not doing very well,” I said, trying to hold back the tears.

  “Well, it’s normal to experience some postpartum depression after having a baby,” she said.

  It was a relief to know there might be an explanation for what was wrong with me, but her words didn’t seem right. I had always thought that postpartum depression was when a new mother didn’t want to be around her baby, and I felt just the opposite, like being close to Kylie was the only thing that could make me feel better.

  “Do you ever have thoughts about hurting yourself or your baby?” she asked.

  “No!” I said, appalled she could even suggest such a thing.

  “Good, I’m glad to hear it,” she said. “Try to take care of yourself and come back in two weeks. If you feel worse before then, call me.”

  I nodded, grateful to gather Kylie up in my arms and carry her out of the examining room, so I could get home with her where I felt safe.

  In an attempt at normalcy, I threw myself into preparations for Kylie’s first Christmas. Even though she was far too little to know what was going on, it was so much fun to dress her up in cute little holiday outfits and to buy her gifts and toys. And then, on December 15, the phone rang. It was Fred, Mary’s husband, calling with the news I’d secretly feared.

  “I’m so sorry, Suzy, but Mary passed away,” he said.

  The tears were instant and thick.

  “She was fighting until the end,” he said. “Never wanting to die, and determined not to let the cancer get the best of her. But she couldn’t beat it. She’s gone.”

  I was crying too hard to talk and I got off the line as soon as possible, collapsing in upon myself. Mary was not only my best friend, the only person besides Mark who I could be anything close to honest with, she was also the person I most admired for her strength and confidence. When I was still so far away from having a voice of my own or standing up for myself, I could at least look at Mary and feel like there was hope for me if I could just be a little more like her. And now, she was gone forever. I’d never be able to make it up to her that I’d missed her wedding so that I could race in Switzerland. She’d never have a child of her own. She’d never get to hold Kylie. We’d never again walk or talk or run together. She was really gone.

  My depression deepened. Nothing calmed me except for holding Kylie, and soon even that wasn’t enough. As a well-recognized celebrity in my home state, I’d frequently been approached by people who wanted me to get involved with a charity or business, and because I’d never been able to say no, I’d often agreed to even questionable collaborations, much to Mark’s frustration. That was how I’d agreed to become a real estate agent, although it wasn’t a career path that had ever held a particular appeal for me. Of course, what this really meant was that Mark, who already had his real estate license, ended up running our new real estate business when I failed to have the focus and organization necessary to do so. Although the business was our own, we were essentially independent contractors under the umbrella of a larger real estate firm, and our offices and website were a part of their overall organization.

  Luckily, Mark’s naturally calm demeanor and good nature, as well as his law background, made him a natural for his new career path, and he was soon doing quite well at a job he liked. I also enjoyed and was good at real estate, as long as I didn’t have to work too much and stayed in the role that was a natural fit for me, interacting with the easier clients and staging homes and getting them ready for market.

  That spring, another opportunity came my way that seemed like it might contain a solution that would smooth things over at home and maybe even lift me out of my depression. I was approached about going to work for Badger Sports Properties, an agency that sold advertising for the University of Wisconsin Athletic Department. It was a great job with amazing benefits we did not have from the real estate job, and given my passionate relationship with my old alma mater, it seemed like a natural fit. I love sports, especially University of Wisconsin sports. Mark was all for me taking the position. I wanted to be as excited as he was, but that old doubt and worry crept in, as it would be something new, without him there to hold my hand, and I felt inadequately prepared. Deep inside, I knew I was already hanging on by a very thin thread and that this job, with demands for meeting sales levels, was the last thing that would help me. I felt, though, that I owed it to Mark to try, as the income would be steady, rather than the uncertain income we earned from real estate. I thought I had to take the job. As my start date approached, a rising dread lapped at my insides, almost as bad as my pre-race anxiety. By the morning of my first day, I could barely climb out of bed, and when I finally forced myself to get ready, I started to cry.

  Mark came into the room, already showered and dressed, Kylie in his arms. Since our real estate business was just in its infancy, he was able to stay home with Kylie while I was at work, and we had childcare lined up for when he needed to go to an appointment.

  “Mark, I can’t go,” I said through tears, desperate to convince him.

  “You’re just overreacting,” he said, taken aback by my sudden reluctance regarding a job I’d previously seemed to be excited about.

  I was nearly hysterical by this point, but I forced myself to get on with it, the way I always did.

  I had been right to be nervous about my new job, which I immediately hated, even though I tried to pretend to others—including Mark—that I liked it. I loved landing new clients. That part, at least, was fun. All I had to do was talk to people, mostly men, which was easy for me, and it seemed like everyone I reached out to was thrilled to take my call and schedule a meeting with me. But I noticed my clients weren’t necessarily just interested in buying the advertising packages I was offering. Instead, most wanted to show me off, introduce me to their associates, and say that they had gone to lunch with three-time Olympian Suzy Favor Hamilton. Or they asked me to make an appearance at their daughter’s school, or some other favor that had nothing to do with my job, which I felt like I had to do to keep them happy and perhaps close a sale. Even so, it was better than being in the office, where I worked with all men who I felt treated me like a blond bimbo and a boss who seemed to be constantly looking over my shoulder and second-guessing my work. Of course, looking back, I realize that my coworkers could probably see what I couldn’t at the time: that largely because of my name, I had landed a job I was woefully underqualified for. Although I was making sales, it was impossible to earn a higher salary, and I
felt trapped in a no-win situation. I started to wonder what I was doing, staying at a job I hated that took me away from my most important role in life, as a mother, but I felt powerless to push for what I needed. In addition to my ad sales job, I was helping Mark with our real estate business in the evenings and on weekends. And what had started as a few motivational speeches here and there was blossoming into a busy motivational-speaking career that often required me to travel. I was increasingly exhausted and frayed, but I just did my best to hold on to all of the strands.

  Information is power, and this is especially true when it comes to mental illness. Unfortunately, we are still far behind where we need to be as a culture. Take the link between postpartum depression and bipolar disorder, which doctors are just beginning to understand. As recent studies have shown, all women run the risk of developing bipolar disorder in the wake of childbirth because of the hormone plunge that occurs at this time. And women with a history of depression, or a family history of depression, are even more likely to develop bipolar disorder. Unfortunately, many of the extreme emotions surrounding childbirth, from elation to the irritability that comes with sleep deprivation, seem normal, and so they are not properly evaluated as symptoms of bipolar disorder. And because of the lingering stigma surrounding mental illness, women are not always as open about the history of mental illness in their family tree as they should be. In my own case, with my family history of bipolar disorder, I should have been flagged as at-risk for becoming bipolar after I gave birth. But I was too conditioned to keep my family’s secret, and too enraptured by the experience of being a new mom to think about saying anything to my doctor. And even when symptoms began to emerge, neither Mark nor I thought bipolar disorder might be a factor. We just didn’t know what we were up against. Hopefully my story will help other new mothers to get the help they need sooner, without the dangers of misdiagnosis and mistreatment, and without any feelings of shame.

  Chapter 7

  A DIAGNOSIS

  After eight months of this increasingly tenuous balancing act, I was trying to sneak into the office, late again, when my boss called me into his office.

  “What time is it, Suzy?” he asked, as if I were a child.

  I hated being patronized like this, and my adrenaline spiked with anger, but there was no way I was going to talk back. I just kept my head down, cheeks blazing.

  “Ten o’clock,” I said.

  “And what time are you supposed to be here?” he asked.

  “Nine o’clock,” I said.

  “This seems to be a real problem for you,” he said. “And I can’t help but think you’re overextended. I know you’ve been doing a lot of speaking on the side, and I’m afraid you’re going to have to choose between this job or being a motivational speaker.”

  Instead of being upset by this ultimatum, I felt my spirits lighten immediately. Here it was: the escape I’d been so desperate for but unsure how to make happen.

  “I quit,” I said, my mood soaring for the first time in months.

  “Excuse me?” my boss said, clearly not expecting this response.

  “You asked me to choose, and I just did,” I said. “I quit.”

  As I walked back to my desk and started clearing out my personal belongings, I was practically floating. For once, I didn’t care what the other men in the office were thinking. I never had to come back there again, and I couldn’t have been happier. I just had to make sure Mark was on board.

  “What do you mean you quit your job?” he asked that night. “You didn’t think to talk to me about it first?”

  “He asked me to choose, and so I did,” I said, my mood sinking under his displeasure, hating to make anyone unhappy, especially Mark. “I hated that job. I’m so happy I never have to go back there again. I wasn’t meant to sit at a desk.”

  “Okay, Suzy.” Mark sighed. “It will all work out. We’ll be fine.”

  I started selling real estate with Mark again. On the one hand, we were a natural duo—my celebrity and bubbly personality bringing in clients, Mark’s business sense and negotiation tactics sealing the deals—and we rose to the top of our agency. But the busier we became, the more pressure I felt, and even with the fifty to sixty hours a week I was soon putting in, it felt like I was never doing enough. Mark was working even more, which meant Kylie was often with her babysitter, and when I was home an increasing share of our parental duties was falling to me, from meals to bedtime. I was quickly miserable again. I was working more than I had at my last job, and I hated not seeing Kylie and hated how swamped I felt. I saw the business as hurting our marriage, and Mark was disappointed by my displeasure. I had always told him that after my running career it would be his time, and now I wasn’t always holding up my end of the bargain. Tensions between Mark and me simmered, even though I could tell he was trying to be gentle. Still, I felt he was requesting too much of me. When overwhelmed, which was all of the time, I made mistakes and didn’t come through on my obligations. Mark tried to cover for me, but he did sometimes call me on my shortcomings, and when he did, I was hypersensitive. It was a clear case where a husband and wife shouldn’t have been working together, but we couldn’t see it at the time because we’d always done everything together. I hated how no one seemed to care what I wanted, and especially hated how I felt so powerless to do anything about any of this. I couldn’t bring myself to speak up and tell Mark I was unhappy and needed a change.

  Over the next year and a half, I did my best to hold on, but the situation got worse and worse. By March of 2007, I was holding it together, barely, as long as Mark was home, but as soon as he went off to the office in the morning, I fell apart. My mind raced, my anxiety spiked, and I couldn’t slow down. I rocked myself, back and forth, back and forth, unable to stop the motion once it started, soothed slightly by the repetition, but still not feeling good. Everything overwhelmed me, even the smallest details of life. I was in our bedroom, sitting on the bed, rocking, when our two dogs started barking at the front of the house. Rage ripped through me. I can’t handle this, I thought, tears pressing out of my eyes. Why won’t they stop? I rocked harder, trying to calm myself. I can’t handle this state I’m in, I thought. I have this baby. I have this job. It’s all too much. I hate real estate. I don’t get along with my husband. I just want it all to end.

  One of the few things that brought me any relief was to masturbate, and when Mark wasn’t around, I would do it constantly, compulsively, unable to stop myself from my urge, instantly agitated as soon as I was done, and filled with a need to do it again. The phone rang as I started. It was Mark.

  “Suzy, you were supposed to be at the open house an hour ago.”

  “I’m sorry, Mark.”

  “I can’t keep covering for you,” he said.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’m on my way.”

  Driving home from an appointment with a client that night, all the darkness I’d been feeling crested to the point where I couldn’t bear it anymore. I gripped my steering wheel and prepared myself to drive my car off the road and into a tree. As I followed the windy country road through the dark stands of large oaks, my headlights glided over miles of empty asphalt, not another car in sight. I didn’t want to hurt anybody else, but I didn’t have to worry as long as no other cars approached. A plan formed in my mind as I accelerated faster and faster, gripping the wheel tighter and tighter. My mind raced along the road I knew so well, picturing the landscape I was about to approach. It would be so easy. I just need to get my car up to a hundred miles an hour and then hit that patch of trees that’s right around the corner, or take that next corner as hard as I can and see if I can hit that barn that’s just beyond. I was just at the point of no return, pressing the gas pedal down hard, ready to wrench the wheel to the side and veer off the road, when an even worse thought rose up from amid the chaos in my mind: What if it doesn’t work? I can’t be in a hospital bed for the rest of my life. Maybe I should jump off a building like my brother did. That would be instantaneo
us. There would be no room for error.

  As I drove, I was getting closer and closer to home, where my sweet baby girl was waiting for me. Her face kept rising up in my mind, pressing back the dark thoughts and reminding me that I had something so much more important than me to live for now.

  You can’t leave your baby. What’s her life going to be like without you? You have to remember the people in your life who love you. You have to remember Kylie. You have to stay alive for her.

  I was exhausted and wrung out by the time I drove up our driveway and parked in front of the house. I sat there for a long moment, my fingers still gripping the steering wheel, terrified by how close I’d come to ending it all. I was in a fog that whole night, my mind still partly back on the dark roadway, consumed by my dark thoughts, which I couldn’t quite shake. Mark and I were up in the loft of our house after Kylie had gone to bed for the night when he had to ask me the same question twice before I was able to focus on him enough to answer.

  “What is with you, Suzy?” he said.

  I was so tired, I couldn’t think clearly anymore. We were always stressed around each other, always short with each other. I always seemed to forget what he needed from me, and then when he asked me about whatever it was I’d forgotten, I got mad at him for bringing it up. I was angry that I had to do this job I hated. My mind couldn’t seem to hold a thought, and I was frustrated with how bad that felt—and what our marriage had become. I wanted to push him back as hard as I could so he’d finally leave me alone.

  “Well, I almost killed myself tonight,” I said.

  The air in the room grew very still and we both just stared at each other. I hadn’t been planning to tell him, ever. It just kind of slipped out of me. But as soon as I said it, I was glad I had. I knew I didn’t want to die, even if I didn’t know how to get better.

  Mark immediately softened. The anger went right out of him and he walked across the bedroom and hugged me.