Armstrong's deepest bout of depression, she says, started when she downloaded her training program for the Boston Marathon, inviting months of exhaustion and hunger.
Or was it the moment three weeks later, when a boyfriend’s comment triggered her lifelong anxieties about body image? But could that be traced back to the remarks she says she heard relentlessly growing up, about "what a beautiful woman looks like?” Of course, she only agreed to the marathon while mourning the death of her dog, whose health took a nosedive after Armstrong’s divorce.
The “why” of depression has flummoxed Armstrong since she rose to international fame blogging about it in the early 2000s on her immensely popular website, dooce.