Men Have Called Her Crazy is the multidisciplinary artist Anna Marie Tendler’s unvarnished account of her years-long struggle with depression, disordered eating and self-harm. Tendler, 39, began cutting herself when she was 14. It was a means of escape from pervasive anxiety and sadness, and something she did on and off for decades, often wearing long-sleeved shirts to conceal her habit.
In February, when Tendler announced that she was working on a memoir, the internet lit up with excitement. Scads of strangers were titillated by news of what many hoped would be a juicy tell-all by the aggrieved ex-wife of the nice-guy comedian John Mulaney. Mulaney, a former Saturday Night Live writer, checked into rehab for addiction in late 2020 and then, according to a statement Tendler issued in May 2021, “decided to end our marriage”. That same month, Mulaney and the actor Olivia Munn were known to be a going concern.
But the book is a striking departure from what Reddit habitués might have been hoping for. References to Tendler’s ex-husband and their divorce are few enough to count on one hand. Instead, she offers up a modern-day The Bell Jar that centers on her health struggles and their intersection with the patriarchy.
“From my view, the field of psychology was developed by white men using white men as the baseline standard for behavior and sanity,” she writes. “Centuries of conditioning has taught them, and us as a society, that when a woman expresses anger, paranoia, fear, anxiety, depression or even intuition, they might be crazy.”
Tendler details the two weeks she spent at a psychiatric hospital starting on New Year’s Day 2021 at the recommendation of her therapist. The chapters about her time at the hospital are interspersed with ones about relationships with boyfriends past – from the 29-year-old rock star to whom she lost her virginity at 17 to the casually cruel millionaire tech bro she took up with when she was working as an $8-an-hour shampoo girl at a hair salon.
Tendler spoke with the Guardian from her home in the woods of Connecticut, which she shares with her three cats.
How did you initially come to check into a psychiatric facility?
It was recommended to me by my therapist. It wasn’t something I had thought about or was seeking out on my own. She knew about this hospital that had an evaluation program. It was only a week long, and she suggested that I do that at the time, since I was engaging in a lot of self-harm. I was pretty suicidal. I checked in on New Year’s Day in 2021.
Your accounting of every hour at the facility is so exact.
When I was in the hospital, I took really detailed notes, not anticipating that I would do anything with them. It just felt like what was hopefully a singular experience that I really wanted to remember. Writing about my story, I was also able to tap into something that is universal, which was my goal the whole time. What I really wanted to get across is not necessarily the ordinariness, but the way that my experiences are probably the same as those of so many other women.
Right after reading your book, I read Liars, Sarah Manguso’s new novel about marriage and mental health, and gaslighting. In one passage, the narrator is talking about how her husband used her stint at a psychiatric hospital before she met him against her: “Somehow in the ensuing years that hospitalization had twisted, under the influence of John’s contempt, institutionalization. Not just that, but willing institutionalization. As if that were worse than a forced hold. As if you had to be extra crazy to accept treatment.” I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this.
That was not my experience at all in terms of going to the hospital. I felt like everybody in my life, all of my friends and my family were incredibly supportive. It was truly a lifesaver and I really never felt any shame about it. Since being in the hospital, I’ve come across so many other people who have gone through in-patient treatment.
It’s funny because my experience with going to the hospital itself was the least crazy that I ever felt. When I went to the hospital, I went in feeling crazy. And when I got there, I felt not crazy, and not because I was around people who were crazy. I was like, “Oh, we’re all in the same boat here. We’re all just struggling.”
Do you consider yourself as struggling with mental illness now?
I kind of take issue with the term “mental illness”. On one hand, terms are a linguistic way for us to feel to make sense of something and to feel part of a community. But on the other hand, I think that they can become super rigid. I have depression and I have anxiety. I manage those things, but they’ll always be there. So while I feel like I’m in a much different place than I was when I was in the hospital, those are also aspects of myself that will be there forever.
The title of your book is Men Have Called Her Crazy, and you devote a lot of time to unpacking the patriarchy.
I came up with the title pretty early in the process of working on it. I knew that I wanted to move back in time and address my interactions with men. This book goes back so far – and this was something that I really came to [understand] at the end of writing the book – that it’s difficult for me to blame individual people because I think that there are structures in place that create these systems. I also wanted to examine the things that I brought to the situations as well.
Your book is not as salacious as some people might be expecting. How do you imagine it landing in the world?
I set out to write something literary. I wrote through college and I wrote through grad school. And when I was writing this book, I had a very specific idea of the story that I wanted to tell. The book centers around [my time at] the hospital so that very much feels like the bedrock of the story, and I think frames it more into a story about mental health.
Reading your book, I was struck by a mood of grief. At the end, you expressly talk about uncovering the grief that lies beneath your depression.
I was kind of melancholy as a kid. I thought about death a lot. Sad things hit me really hard. And then there were things that happened later in my childhood, like when I was training really hard for ballet and got injured and had this realization of: I’m not good enough to do this. And it was my whole identity. I stopped dancing when I was 17. [Dancing] was a huge part of my life and then I had to switch gears and find something else that I liked as much. That was really difficult.
There’s a nice moment in your book when you talk about the happiness that you get from making Victorian-style lampshades.
Jumping back and forth between things that are more cerebral and things that are more tactile and that use different parts of my brain is helpful for me getting out of that feeling of being stuck and not creative.
There are many therapists who populate your book – more than one abandoned or betrayed you.
When I was a teenager, I saw the same therapist who my mom saw and who my parents also saw for couples therapy, which was not ethical at all. And the therapist that was so great for many, many years, and who recommended my going into the hospital [urged me to end our relationship].
I know you are working with a different therapist now, but how else would you describe your current mode of self-care?
One thing actually that came out of the pandemic was that my group of female friends got even closer. I have a really strong support system. We already texted today – about the Olympics. And then I have my cats who I also love very much. They’re great companions. But that is also not to say that I don’t have depression anymore or I don’t have anxiety anymore. I also have days where I feel terrible.
I’d be remiss not to mention the notable absence in your book. A lot of people are going to be reading between the lines.
I was just like, I didn’t need to talk about it to write a great book. I didn’t have to rely on the one thing that people may have known about me. And I also wanted to write a story that people could relate to. When you write a book, you get to choose what’s in there.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
• In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. You can also reach Crisis Text Line by texting MHA to 741741. In the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978
• Men Have Called Her Crazy by Anna Marie Tendler (Bonnier Books Ltd, £20). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
