Fast Girl (2 page)

Dan was no different behind the wheel. He once took a curve on his motorcycle so fast that he nearly killed himself in the crash. On the rare occasion I went somewhere with him in his beat-up blue car, he always tore down the highway, REO Speedwagon blaring, the windows down, causing my blond hair to whip around my face. The excitement built as we
approached whatever adventure he had planned for the day, just like it always did with our dad, but with an added edge of fear. I wanted to believe he wouldn't risk my life with his, but I wasn't sure. I often wondered if he had no thought of dying at all. When he jumped out of an airplane in his early twenties, I swore I would never, ever do anything like that. But that was only the tip of the iceberg for Dan.

Dan teased me, too, much more than the average big brother harassing the pesky little sister. It wasn't so much any one thing he said or did; it was the intensity with which he pursued me. He pushed and pushed, constantly, trying to make me as upset as possible. I was sensitive, so it didn't take much. And Dan gave more than enough. For some reason, he never targeted my sisters in the same way. Maybe because he saw Carrie as an ally, and besides, as soon as she started dating her boyfriend in high school, she was never around. And Kris didn't challenge him in the same the way I did. It wasn't that I wanted to make him mad. It was just that I couldn't understand why he had to be so loud all the time. He loved Queen, especially the band's songs “Don't Stop Me Now” and “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and when our parents weren't home, he cranked them loudly on the stereo in the living room, listening to them again and again and again, until finally I couldn't take it anymore. I strode into the living room, all righteous indignation.

“Can you please turn it down?” I shouted over the music.

Dan stared at me with a wicked gleam in his eye and turned the music up. Tears started to press against the back of my eyes.

“Please, Dan,” I said, my voice shaky. “Turn it down.”

He turned the stereo up as loud as it would go. The noise pressed on me, as did his gaze, which was challenging and mean, all trace gone of the big brother who'd once filled my kiddy pool with hot water so I could swim on a cold spring day. Finally, I couldn't fight back my tears anymore, and they poured free. Dan just glared at me. Now, I understand it was Dan's illness that made him behave in this way. But, at the time, I couldn't take his meanness anymore, and I ran to the phone to call my mom. Of course, having me tattle on him only made Dan more determined to show me that he couldn't be controlled. In the summer, he chased me around my grandparents' yard with a snake, waving it wildly in front of me while I ran around screaming. In the fall, the giant dead sunflowers in my grandparents' yard had cracked black centers that looked like burnt-out eyes, and when he came after me with one of those, that was enough to make me cry and beg him to stop, too. But nothing I, or my parents, did or said seemed to have any affect on him. He only harassed me more.

In the mid-seventies, Burger King had these television commercials with this silly little jingle, “Have It Your Way,” which Dan turned into its own form of psychological torture.

We were both home alone after school, Mom and Dad still at work. I was in the kitchen looking for a Twinkie to eat. Dan rushed in and slid across the linoleum, always in motion, just like our dad, just like me. He hulked over me, pinning me against the cabinets.

“Have it your way, Suzy,” he crooned at me, singing into an
imaginary microphone. “Have it your way. Have it your way at Burger King.”

“Dan, stop it,” I said.

“Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us,” he continued, completely ignoring my pleas.

“Dan, I mean it,” I said, my bottom lip trembling as the tears rushed forward. I cried easily and often as a kid, which only gave Dan that much more pleasure. Maybe it was because I was the baby of the family, and Dan was so much bigger and older than me, but I felt like I had no choice but to get my parents involved. And because they always took my side against my brother, I came to expect and need their protection.

He slid back just enough to let me pass, but as soon as I crossed into the dining room, he was right there behind me, singing the stupid jingle over and over again, following me from room to room.

“I'm calling Mom,” I cried.

“Have it your way,” he sang, totally immune to my tears and threats.

There was nothing I could say or do. Dan was on a tape loop, animated and totally amused. By the time I reached my mom on the phone at the hospital where she worked as a nurse, I was bawling so hard I could barely choke out words. She felt terrible, but there was nothing she could do. She was at work, yes, but there was no stopping Dan when he was like this. And he was like this more and more by the day, even with his medication.

My dad always expected Dan to be able to maintain the
same degree of control over himself that Dad did, and he became furious when Dan could not.

One night, my dad came home already on edge, because it was one of those nights when I'd called my mom at work about Dan, and she hadn't been able to get him to stop doing whatever it was he had been doing. All six of us were at the table, and Dan's behavior set my dad off.

“Dan, stop it,” Dad said. “We're trying to have a nice dinner here.”

As usual, Dan could never stop once he got started, and he kept carrying on.

“Dan, go to your room,” Dad said.

Dan did not get up or curtail his behavior. My father grabbed his plate from the table and threw it against the wall, away from where we were all seated. It shattered, the broken pieces making tiny holes in the wallpaper. Still fit and fast, Dad then grabbed Dan and pulled him the four feet across the floor to his room, forcing him inside and slamming the door. The rest of us sat in silence, our heads down, our food untouched. This was so unlike my dad, who was high energy, yes, but maintained the orderly discipline of the navy throughout his whole life, assigning us kids to specific seats at the table and giving us a particular order in which we had to get ready every morning in the one bathroom we all shared, limiting us all to three-minute showers. I had seen Dad and Dan fight before, but this was too much. I began to cry, and as we sat in silence, the only sound was my snuffling.

Dan started to self-medicate, the way so many mentally ill
people do. One day, when I was twelve and Dan was eighteen, I came home from grocery shopping with my mom to find him passed out on the floor, clutching an empty vodka bottle. Instantly, I could feel Mom's panic rising. This was the first time I'd seen him like this, but I knew it wasn't the first time something like this had happened. Having his bipolar disorder identified hadn't done anything to lessen his desire to obliterate his dark thoughts, and we all worried he was drinking way too much, often to the point of becoming argumentative and reckless, especially when our dad attempted to discipline him, hoping it would help Dan pull it together. My brother had moved down into the basement by now, and another time, our cousin and my dad found him in his bedroom, an empty vodka bottle nearby, pointing one of the shotguns he and Dad used to hunt geese at his head. He didn't respond when our cousin called his name, so Dad rushed in and grabbed the gun out of his hands. Although no one in my family ever mentioned these scenes after the fact, it was impossible to deny the anguish they caused, and a shadow began to creep over our house. I could sense the great tension, even as the youngest, and I began to feel very alone. My oldest sister was close enough to Dan's age that she wasn't home much, and when she was they had an easy camaraderie left over from the childhood years they'd shared as the family's only two children, despite Dan's manic behavior. And although Kris was only a year older than me, and we remained close, she too began to find ways to be out of the house as much as possible.

To me, ours was a family of secret pain. We didn't talk about the moments of fear we felt when Dan went too far, or when my father exploded into a rage. My mother just kept doing what nurses do—care for the hurting people without ever healing them. And I, doted upon as I was, still bore the brunt of Dan's behavior. Nothing was normal, though we pretended it was. I wanted to make up for all of the pain my brother caused. I was going to be perfect.

W
hen I discovered running, I loved that it was so pure, just my body and me. I was in charge of the outcome, no one else. I didn't have to worry about letting my teammates down like I'd done when I tried basketball, where my legs were too fast for my limited coordination. Or in gymnastics, where my body just wouldn't bend like the other girls', and I couldn't seem to keep up.

Every year, we had an elementary school track meet that included all of the schools in the region. I was running the 400-meter race when I had probably the best running moment of my entire life. As on that day in the woods, I found myself running effortlessly, faster with each stride. As I rounded the final
corner in our school's 400-meter track, I found myself leading the pack of young runners by at least seventy-five meters.

The bleachers were crammed with kids from nearby schools, and with the last hundred meters to go, I passed the section of the stands where my schoolmates were seated together. When they realized that I was winning, and by such a big lead, they went wild. “Suzy! Suzy! Suzy!” they chanted as I ran by them.

Soon, all of the students in the stands joined in. A feeling of pride and joy swelled up inside of me. I crossed the finish line, feeling the triumphant sensation of the tape hitting my chest, far before anybody else on the cinder track. As I slowed to a stop, I looked up at the stands, where everyone was beaming down at me, shouting and clapping.
Oh my gosh, all of these people are cheering me on.
In an instant, my triumph turned to self-consciousness.
They're all staring at me
.

I'd found my thing, what I was meant to do. I ran as much as I could after that, not just in school, but on my own, too. Now, my need for perpetual motion was met not as much by frenzied cleaning of our house for my mom, or hours of active absorption in an art project, but by going for a run.

When I joined our middle school's track squad in seventh grade, I was introduced to the concept of training. Everything changed. I was so much faster than the other girls that our coach had me run with the boys' team, so I'd have a more challenging workout. This only went so far, as I was already faster than most of the boys, too. I didn't like being singled out like this, and track practice became anxiety inducing. While I still loved to run, I now found myself unsure about continuing. I'd always tried hard to keep up with my dad and brother,
but this was different. Competing against my peers was more complicated. I wanted to win, but I could also tell that my talent made me different. Being different means you are treated differently. I hated not being able to blend in. Thankfully, my sister Kris was already on the track team, and while she wasn't as fast as me—or as obsessed with winning—she was also a gifted runner. We were still very close, and she helped to make practice fun. We would goof around with our teammates, playing pranks on each other and pulling down each other's track shorts, which always made us laugh so much.

My parents were immediately very supportive of my running. They attended all my meets, no matter where they were. My dad borrowed a van from his company and drove my team across the country to meets in other states. The praise and accolades that came with track made my parents proud. I saw that I could distract them from their stress and fears about Dan. But their attention made me feel more pressure to win; there was no way I could let them down, not when I was making them so happy. Kris was generous enough to make sacrifices for me, but I never thought of doing so for her because I couldn't focus on anything but crossing the finish line first. During one cross-country race we ran together, my glasses fogged up, impeding my visibility and slowing my pace. Kris stayed by my side, leading me through the course, until the last two hundred meters. With the finish line just ahead, I lost sight of sisterly solidarity and sped ahead of her, winning the race. At the time, I thought nothing of such behavior. As long as I won, nothing else mattered. Of course, looking back, I can see how selfless her act was.

I was completely focused on my running, and how it made me feel. Running was my answer to everything. The more tension-filled the situation with Dan became at home, the harder I trained. The harder I trained, the more I won, and the more I was taken away from home by practice and meets, which also took me away from the family drama. Unfortunately, this didn't bring me any relief, though. My anxiety and the added drive it caused within me led me to pull up into myself. This became the pattern of my life, and it fit. We didn't share our emotions in my family anyway, and by training constantly and pushing myself on the track, I could deny I had any. As I got older, I became even more focused, and winning became even more complicated. In my freshman year at Stevens Point Area Senior High, I won every race, and all of the local and regional races too. Then, at the statewide meet, I won for the mile, and in cross-country for the two-mile, or 3,200-meter, race. My parents, and my hometown, were overjoyed, but I became instantly miserable.

Sure, I wanted to win. I liked to win. But, in truth, I
needed
to win. Even as I stood with my teammates, receiving my medal, the wheels in my head were turning.
Now I have to win every state meet I ever run. There's no choice. If I were to lose, I'd let everyone down—my parents, my coach, my community—and that can't happen.

And thus began a cruel cycle in my life. The more obsessed I became, the faster I ran; the faster I ran, the more notoriety I received; and the more notoriety I received, the more obsessed I became. Soon, even winning wasn't enough.

AT THE END OF MY
sophomore year, the '84 Summer Olympics were held in Los Angeles. From the moment I started running competitively, the Olympics were in my sights. Becoming an Olympian now became my obsession.

I'd just won the 1,500 meters in a record time of 4:19 at the U.S. Junior Nationals. That year, the Junior Nationals were held in conjunction with the Olympic trials in order to give us student athletes a feel for international competition. International competition meant larger crowds, more intense scrutiny, and that I'd be running alongside Olympians.

Before my race, my coach brought me to the warm-up track where the Olympic runners were all stretching. I stood beside him, watching uncertainly.

“Okay, Suzy, go warm up,” he said, nodding toward the runners.

I froze. These were the great Olympians I'd always idolized. Who was I to warm up with them?

“I can't go in there,” I said, ducking my head in shame.

“Of course you can, Suzy,” he said. “You're the Junior National Champion.”

I shook off his words and stepped away from the grass near the track. My coach didn't understand. No one could. I knew that I was in constant danger of failing at any moment. I knew that I was never good enough. But my coach was confused and frustrated, though he finally let me warm up where I felt like I really belonged: in the parking lot.

Even so, when I saw the runners I most admired fly around that track, being cheered on by the whole world, I knew I
had
to be an Olympian. I decided I was willing to do anything it took to make this happen. School, relationships, family, anything that didn't directly support that goal would have to be put aside.

For an overwhelming majority of my cross-country races during my junior and senior years, I beat all my competitors by a substantial distance. Given that, I should have been flush with confidence. Instead, meets became a source of dread. My mind began to go to very dark places before each and every race. As the hours before a meet ticked away, my stomach became a fist of nerves, and I had one thought:
If I could just break my leg
,
I wouldn't have to run this race.

I wasn't alone in these feelings. In 1986, during my senior year in high school, one of the top college runners in the country, twenty-one-year-old junior Kathy Ormsby, was running the 10,000-meter race in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's outdoor track-and-field championships when she found herself in fourth place. She suddenly veered off the track and jumped from a bridge in a suicide attempt that left her paralyzed. This was obviously big news in the running world, shocking many. I was too young and, frankly, too consumed to see the connection between Kathy and myself. I just kept my head down and trained harder, convinced I would never let myself fall to fourth place in any race.

I took it upon myself to do extra miles in the morning before school, but that quickly proved too difficult, as it meant waking up at 6
A.M
. to run, doing a full school day, and then training with my team afterward. So I began running at lunch during the week, usually after eating only an
apple, while my friends in the cafeteria flirted with boys and planned the next party or night of drinking and hanging out. Kris didn't feel compelled to put in extra training, and so we didn't spend as much time together as we once had. My dad began asking if he could run with me, but the idea of having him get involved with my training so directly felt like more added pressure, so I didn't let him. Instead I sought his praise in other ways, continuing to take on extra chores around the house, such as the laundry and ironing, and mastering skills I knew my dad admired. I already loved art, so it was easy for me to throw myself into art projects at school, in hopes he'd appreciate my work. He built stilts for us kids to use, and I was the one who used them the most. I was also the one who mastered the unicycle he brought home, sometimes riding it to school. My family didn't have to be on my runs with me to see how hard I was pushing myself. Eventually my mother stopped me in our kitchen, with concern in her eyes.

“Just take a day off,” she said.

Not an option,
I thought as I shrugged and went out for a ten-mile run. As I ran, my worries ricocheted through my head:
I'm not fast enough. I'm not thin enough. My body has to be stronger and tighter. I can't let anyone beat me because I'll let my family down. I'll let my coach down. I'll let my community down.

ONE NIGHT IN HIGH SCHOOL,
I was babysitting for a single mom who lived nearly two miles from me. She was friends with my older sister Carrie, and the two of them were out together that night. The baby was little, and soon after I arrived he fell asleep.

The mother had assured me that she would be home by ten, which was important to me because I had a big regional race the next day. My dad was the meet promoter, and the event was a huge deal in our small community of twenty-eight thousand people. It was my hometown. My dad was hosting the race. I had to win. Around nine thirty, I stretched out on the couch. The next time I looked at my watch it was ten thirty, and the woman wasn't home yet. My brain went to the dark place.
Why aren't you here? I'm going to lose tomorrow because you said you would be home at ten, and I'm not going to be able to get my sleep, and I'm going to lose. My father will be mortified. My whole town will be angry.
I forced my eyes shut. I felt guilty, because I knew I shouldn't go to sleep when I was supposed to be caring for a child. But I needed my rest for my race in the morning. I must have finally drifted into sleep. Somehow, while I was sleeping, I got off the couch, went to the door, and opened it; I had a very clear vision of my hand on the knob.

The next thing I knew, I was running. It was like I woke up, and my legs were already flying beneath me. The night was dark and hazy, with the shadows from the streetlamps suddenly coming up on me, then falling away behind me, as I ran faster and faster. I felt like I was sprinting through a nightmare. I was washed in waves of panic, but I couldn't stop my legs. They were moving of their own will.
Oh my god, what did I just do? I left that baby all alone.

I wanted to stop. I wanted to turn back. All I could do was run. By this time, I was about half a mile from my house and nearly hysterical. I ran in the door and burst into my parents'
bedroom. I leaned down over my mom, in tears, and woke her up.

“Mom, I left the baby,” I said, crying hard.

She sat up, surprised.

By this point, my mom and dad were both fully awake. My dad got dressed and led me to the kitchen. He told me to get into his car so he could drive me back to the woman's house. I was petrified that we'd discover that something terrible had happened to the baby. As soon as we parked, I raced into the house, my dad close behind me. I opened the door as gently as I possibly could, my hand shaking, and peeked in: the baby was asleep in his crib, just as I'd left him earlier in the night. My dad then left me sitting on the couch, placing a book and a glass of water near me. The baby was safe, but I couldn't calm down. I felt terrible about what I'd done, and my heart was pounding. When the mother came home a few moments later, she was concerned when I confessed to what had happened, but relieved that her son was safe. Needless to say, that was the end of my babysitting for a while.

Finally, I made it home and climbed into bed. I got up the next day, and I won the race.

Feeling out of control, I found one thing I did have power over: what I ate, or more accurately, how little I ate. If my parents pushed, I ate even less. Between the minuscule amount of food I was eating and the excessive training, my body was starving itself. But I didn't think about that. I was running faster by eating less. I liked the results.

At this point, my biggest goal was to get into a college with a great running program. The college-level runners I saw were
far thinner than I was. They all looked anorexic, and I wanted that for myself. I tried to starve myself completely, but with all my training it just wasn't sustainable, so I became bulimic instead. I worked out a complicated system, where I binged on a whole tray of brownies or a bunch of pasta—I think my body craved sugar—and then I purged. Right afterward, I felt awful, worse than before I had stuffed myself. It was a vicious, terrible cycle, and one that I hid completely. I'm sure my parents suspected, but if they had ever confronted me I would have become furious. My parents stayed silent, true to the culture of our family. They never wanted to do anything that might upset me—the one in the family who made them the most proud.