CAT RIDGEWAY’S ROCKING NEW SINGLE “SPRINTER” PUTS THE SPOTLIGHT ON MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES

All the warning signals were there, and no one saw them coming. But, in retrospect, Cat Ridgeway did, yet like any friend of a friend, she has never thought the grim outcome would happen or be the result. “Sprinter” is a metaphor for that. You can’t outrun or distance what is ailing you, profoundly troubling and hurting you. The friend was a former track star, too.

One taking their own life is tragic and serious. Especially for all those left behind to grapple and deal with a heavy loss, feeling guilt and a sense of shame of their own because they will always wish they could have helped or saved that person. Suicide is no joke. The pain can be so hard to bear, and one feels there is no way out.

Ironically, “Sprinter” is a musically fun and freewheeling ride/song (quite a rush!), maybe a template for how out of control her friend felt in her life, unraveling and spiraling down wayward. The nights at the bar taking shots, comparing them to self-medication versus getting psychiatric help, uppers in the back of your car, and having the check engine on are truly hard-hitting and deeply profound in retrospect.

Cat Ridgeway has brilliantly written a fitting, vibrant, chaotic epitaph for a troubled friend no longer here but always remembered in spirit, blazing a hot, burning path in her youth extinguished way too soon by her haunting, out-of-control demons.