63 pages • 2 hours read
Anna Marie TendlerMen Have Called Her Crazy
Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 16-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of self-harm, mental illness, emotional abuse, and suicidal ideation.
David invited Tendler to a concert, even though they were broken up. Tendler agreed to go, partially because she missed David but also because she wanted to seek help for her relapse into self-harm. The past two years weighed on her heavily, between her relationship with Sam, failing her cosmetology boards, her parents’ divorce, and her father’s remarriage, Tendler felt unmoored, though she did not know how to ask for help. Instead, she cut herself visibly before the concert so David would see it, hoping that he would make good on his past promise and help her talk to her parents. When David saw her cut at the concert, he was angry but agreed to talk to Tendler’s parents with her.
Tendler and David returned to Tendler’s childhood home to meet with her parents, who both awkwardly sat across from them. Tendler told them about her anxiety, depression, and self-harm. Her parents were upset that she was suffering, but her father’s first concern was how much therapy and treatment for Tendler would cost. Her mother tried to mitigate his concerns, promising Tendler they would help her, but her father reiterated his concerns about the price. Eventually, they put Tendler in therapy with her mother’s therapist, which did not work out. Tendler only went for six months, during which she did not engage in self-harm, so she stopped going. She and David got back together for a year but broke up for good after her 21st birthday.
Chapter 17 Summary
Back at Dalby House, Tendler wakes up with her period, which is six days early. Tendler attends a meditation meeting with the Dalby women and the men from Oscar House, but during it, she starts to feel intense pain in her ovaries. She exits quickly as she starts to feel faint. She thinks she’s ruptured an ovarian cyst, something that happened to her while she was living in LA.
She had moved back to LA for her husband’s career, and she woke one morning in excruciating pain. She eventually called 911 after remembering an article she read that stated that women die more frequently in emergencies because they are more hesitant to take their pain seriously. The firemen and EMTs arrived and took Tendler’s vitals, and her blood pressure was dangerously low. They wanted to take her to the hospital, but Tendler was hesitant. When she stood up, her blood pressure plummeted, so they loaded her into the ambulance. She realized she hadn’t walked Petunia, and one of the firemen realized her distress. He offered to take Petunia outside briefly for Tendler, which he did before the ambulance took Tendler away.
Shawn walks Tendler back to Dalby House, and the house manager summons a nurse. They give Tendler Advil, as she does not think she needs to go to the hospital. She feels strong enough to walk to her room, but she also feels ashamed that her body is betraying her like this; she acknowledges that women often feel too ashamed of their bodies. When she feels better, she attends a chaplain-led spirituality meeting. She is overcome with emotion throughout the meeting, especially as a man that she previously dismissed as wealthy and entitled shares about his sports injury that ended his athletic career, something Tendler relates to deeply because of her loss of dance. They complete a questionnaire tallying their losses, and Tendler checks 15 out of 34 boxes. Tendler wants to say something in solidarity with the man, but instead, she goes back to Dalby House to cry alone in her room.
Chapter 18 Summary
In 2007, Amanda moved back to New York from Chicago, and she and Tendler moved in together. Tendler was still working as a shampoo girl and doing makeup jobs on the side while attending art school at Queens College. She met Amanda’s boss, a man named Theo, who made millions from selling his website that he still ran. Tendler was attracted to Theo because he was the opposite of David; where David was sensitive, emotional, and deep, Theo was “light and uncomplicated” (169). Theo wasn’t funny, but he was fun: He often planned fun activities for him and Tendler, and he paid. At first, Tendler did not think the economic inequality would impact their relationship, but looking back, she realizes that it was inevitable.
Theo’s friend Rachel told Tendler that Theo didn’t want to date someone who worked in a salon and lived in Queens. Tendler didn’t like Rachel and later saw an email on Theo’s phone from Rachel making plans to go upstate together over the weekend. Tendler asked Theo to hang out over the weekend, but he told her he probably wanted some space to be by himself. Tendler was suspicious and finally brought up how Rachel doesn’t like her at dinner with Theo. Theo dismissed Tendler’s concerns but encouraged her to quit working at the salon and instead cut his and his friend’s hair in their houses. Tendler agreed.
Tendler and Theo spent two summers of their relationship in the Hamptons on weekends. Tendler hated it, the pretension of the people around them, and being forced into proximity with Rachel. Tendler struggled to find reliable work, and Theo offered to have her clean the Hamptons rental house, which the owners declined.
Tendler and Theo’s relationship came to a head after Theo took Tendler on a trip to Tokyo. At the airport, on their way back, Tendler looked over at Theo’s laptop and saw an email from Rachel that called Tendler a gold-digger and other derogatory terms. Tendler shouted at Theo for gaslighting her concerns about Rachel. They flew back to New York in silence. They dated for a little while longer, but inevitably, they broke up. Theo had paid for half of an SFX makeup class for Tendler, and she insisted on paying him back, though she didn’t have the money on hand. She paid him back in haircuts, which he kept note of until her friends encouraged her to cut her losses and stop.
Chapter 19 Summary
As a child, Tendler had little notion of religion—her family was culturally Jewish but not religious. She attended an Episcopalian school, but her parents refused to have her attend any religious classes, so, during any theological classes, she stayed with the art teacher and worked with clay. This fostered her love of artistic expression and working with her hands. However, Tendler’s unfamiliarity with religion also led to an unfamiliarity with God, so mentions of God now make her uncomfortable. She defines herself as spiritual, given she believes in a spirit world, reincarnation, and the idea that people can get stuck in the liminal space between life and death. However, this label gives her discomfort, given her lack of familiarity with God. Regardless, as she attends a chapel service at the rehabilitation center and hospital, she tries to keep an open mind as the speaker talks about God and the concept of epiphany. Her epiphany is that she wants to do whatever it takes to not return to the hospital.
Later, Tendler and the other Dalby House women participate in jewelry therapy again. Tendler asks the therapist to make her bracelet smaller, and it finally fits. Tendler makes a necklace that says “extraordinary machine” in reference to a Fiona Apple song. A new, older woman moves into the house, upsetting the equilibrium. Tendler pays for an acupuncture session to help with her anxiety, and the music the acupuncturist plays reminds her of a road trip she took with her family. It does not help her anxiety, but it alleviates her headache.
The Dalby House women celebrate Mary’s departure with a rock ceremony. Mary asks Tendler to take care of her Cuban oregano, and Tendler agrees.
Chapter 20 Summary
In her early and mid-twenties, Tendler made ends meet by working as a hair and makeup artist. She worked on various magazine shoots, TV sets, and weddings. One day, she received an inquiry for a job styling a man for a magazine cover. She asked if there was anything special she should bring, and the email replied that she only needed basic grooming supplies. When she arrived at the set, she styled the French Canadian actor and filmmaker with wavy hair and light makeup. The director of the shoot then verbally berated Tendler for not having hair extensions or a wig because she wanted the actor to have long, curly hair. The emails Tendler received did not mention needing these materials, and though she offered to get them, the director continued to yell at her. Tendler ran to the beauty store and returned with hair extensions, and then the director tried to curl them with a curling iron despite Tendler telling her that it would burn the hair. Tendler left the shoot with her kit, feeling demoralized. She decided never to work in hair and makeup again, though she briefly ran a makeup Tumblr and online show.
In a period of transition, Tendler started making artisanal Victorian lampshades. The first one was nice, and they got progressively better. Tendler began to wonder if people would pay for them.
Chapters 16-20 Analysis
Tendler’s continuing inpatient treatment begins to make tangible impacts in The Process of Healing and Self-Discovery. She makes numerous self-discoveries in these chapters, especially about her relationship with her mother. Tendler has numerous similarities with her mother, as both women live with depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. However, Tendler’s mother expressed more rage throughout Tendler’s childhood than Tendler expresses as an adult. Through reflection and therapy, Tendler realizes the source of her mother’s rage: “At eight years old I didn’t yet understand what I would come to realize later, that my mom’s anger was often a secondary consequence of a primary emotion—fear” (187). This epiphany reframes the way Tendler views both her mother and herself, which allows Tendler to become more self-aware about her feelings and better explore her relationship with her mother on the page. By acknowledging her mother’s fear as the root cause of her anger, Tender better understands their emotional exchanges. In turn, she can make progress in healing her emotional wounds, especially as they relate to the fraught mother-daughter dynamic.
Throughout her healing, Tendler has both losses and victories. This duality underscores the nonlinear nature of recovery, where both setbacks and achievements coexist. After one of the Oscar men shares about a sports injury, something that resonates with Tendler, she wants to approach him to talk about it. She does not, writing, “Instead, I grab two hot chocolate packets and walk back to Dalby to cry alone in my room” (168). This anecdote emphasizes Tendler’s internal struggle: She wants to forge emotionally intimate connections with others, even with a man, but is still too guarded to take that step. As a result, she is not quite able to trust others enough to be vulnerable, which is especially relevant in the wake of Dr. Karr’s breach of Tendler’s trust. However, there are symbolic victories that Tendler makes, like the successful resizing of her bracelet. While earlier, the bracelet served as a symbol of Tendler’s unreadiness to leave Dalby and the wrongness of her relationship with Dr. Karr, it now represents Tendler’s readiness to leave and forge her path.
The Impact of Gender Dynamics on Personal Identity rises in thematic importance as Tendler examines financial inequality. Tendler and Theo’s relationship is inherently unequal because of Theo’s wealth. Tendler foreshadows this inequality’s impact on her relationship with Theo, writing:
This inequality might begin as innocent, but eventually it coalesces into an insidious dynamic where the person with less remains submissive and pliable to the will of the one with more […] like men since the dawn of time, like so many men who have passed through my life, [Theo] simply did not consider it (171).
Tendler’s use of “insidious” emphasizes how financial inequality can erode the autonomy of the less financially privileged partner. Theo’s disregard for how his wealth affects their dynamic reflects a broader structural problem where those with power (financial or otherwise) often fail to recognize the imbalance they create in intimate relationships. The manipulation, dishonesty, and gaslighting in Theo’s behavior reinforce Tendler’s wariness of men, confirming her fears about their potential for betraying and emotionally harming her in romantic partnerships. Her reflections here deepen her understanding of how men, including Theo, have manipulated and controlled her—a dynamic she seeks to avoid in future relationships.
