Men Have Called Her Crazy

Tendler’s mother plays an important role throughout the text. Tendler has a nuanced relationship with her mother. When she was younger, Tendler often wore her mother’s old clothes, which her mother made when she hoped to attend fashion school. Tendler’s cultivation of her style via her mother’s clothing illustrates the closeness of their relationship, as does Tendler’s attendance of fashion school, fulfilling her mother’s unrealized dream. However, their relationship is not only positive. Tendler’s mother has unpredictable moods, and her rage is something that particularly affected Tendler in her youth, as she writes, “I was not rebellious—too afraid of my mother’s rage to act out against her. I did not scream or cry. I just went numb. I retreated into myself” (29). Tendler’s mother’s actions directly contributed to Tendler’s experience with Mental Health and Societal Expectations, as her depression and anxiety worsened because of her mother’s behavior toward her. Tendler writes, “My mom’s rage lived outside her” (84), illustrating that the anger her mother exhibited could take aim at anyone around her, creating an unstable and unpredictable environment for Tendler growing up.

Tendler’s mother’s psyche is clear in something Tendler tells the house manager at Dalby House: When she wanted to accompany her mother on walks when she was a kid, her mother would refuse because she didn’t want to be “slowed down.” Tendler’s mother refused to slow down, even for her child, who wanted to accompany her. This reflects Tendler’s mother’s desire to live her own life, unencumbered by the needs of her children, like when she refused to keep taking Tendler to Broadway auditions, crushing her dreams of becoming a child actress like her brother. Tendler’s mother wanted to preserve her independence, something again mirrored by Tendler—particularly in her aversion to motherhood that she explores later in the memoir when she begins the process of freezing her eggs.

Despite her mother’s rage and unpredictability worsening Tendler’s mental health, Tendler still has empathy and love for her mother. She told her mother that she loves her when she called her from Dalby House, even though her mother does not reciprocate the words. She also expressed hesitancy to blame her mother for her anxiety and depression despite the clear impact her mother’s rage had on her throughout her youth, adolescence, and early twenties. She yearned to tell Dr. Samuels about her mother’s trip to India, particularly the empathy and understanding her mother showed to a different culture. Her mom wrote Tendler beautiful emails detailing her travels through India: “I was moved by her bravery and by the care and understanding with which she depicted this new world, so vastly different from the one she was used to” (96). Tendler’s empathy for her mother again illustrates the important role her mother plays in her life. This role is further emphasized by Tendler’s mother’s care for Petunia and Tendler while Tendler is in inpatient care; she sends Tendler numerous emails with updates about Petunia and her house, and she fills Tendler’s fridge and freezer with food, acts of service indicating her love for Tendler despite their complicated mother-daughter dynamic.

Dr. Karr is Tendler’s long-term therapist, with whom Tendler worked for five years before she entered inpatient care. Though Tendler initially has a positive impression of Dr. Karr throughout their relationship, Dr. Karr begins acting strangely toward the end of their time working together. In Tendler’s outpatient meeting, Dr. Karr stated that she thought they needed to reevaluate their relationship and potentially “divorce.” When Tendler mentioned feeling anxious about Dr. Karr’s words, Dr. Karr tried to blame her. In their final conversation, when Tendler ended their client-therapist relationship, Dr. Karr accused her of manipulating her male doctors at the inpatient care facility. Tendler felt extremely hurt by this, especially given she never found out what caused Dr. Karr to begin acting this way.

About her relationship with Dr. Karr, Tendler said in an interview: “A real lesson learned from it is that you’re not always going to know why something happened. It’s important to learn how to move past something or make peace with something when you don’t get all the answers, which is really hard” (Tingley, Anna. “Anna Marie Tendler on Distrusting Men, Dating Millionaires, Surviving Depression and Her Debut Memoir ‘Men Have Called Her Crazy’: ‘I Wrote It For Women. I Hope Men Read It, Too.’” Variety, 2024). Tendler acknowledges that she will never know what happened to make her relationship with Dr. Karr collapse, but her language reflects an important lesson she learned that served her during The Process of Healing and Self-Discovery. Though the breakup with Dr. Karr was painful, Tendler had the tools to get through the pain and find a new therapist.