Today is World Mental Health Day, and author and artist Anna Marie Tendler comes on the show to talk about her buzzy, New York Times bestselling memoir Men Have Called Her Crazy. In her book she recounts her experiences being hospitalized at a mental health facility, her journey to understanding herself in the wake of several failed relationships over the course of her life, and the power of self-acceptance. Anna’s precise, brave account is an invitation to women to break patterns, practice better mental health, and commit to the hard work of rewriting a bold future for yourself.
Hey fam, Hello Sunshine. Today on the bright Side, it is World Mental Health Day. We're joined by Anna Marie Tendler, the author of the New York Times bestseller men Have Called Her Crazy.
It's Thursday, October tenth. I'm Danielle Robe and.
I'm Simone Boyce and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day.
How many of us could fill a book with our bad relationship stories. I know I have a few.
Well, our guest today did just that.
Anna Marie Tendler penned men have Called Her Crazy in introspective memoir that begins with her checking herself into a psychiatric hospital in a desperate attempt to heal, and throughout her experience there, she weaves in these reflections from the relationships that she's had over the years with men.
And some very high profile relationships at that And I think that's one of the reasons why there's been so much anticipation around the release of this memoir, because people expected her to talk about some of those celebrity relationships. I mean, most notably, Anna Marie Tenler went through a very public divorce with her ex husband and comedian John Mulaney. But you won't find his name mentioned once in this book, y'all. And she says that's by design.
It's definitely a specific choice and one that interests me because throughout the book she basically shares that her life has been defined and controlled by her relationships with men, and now in this book, it's finally about her.
I read the book, and I found so many of the passages to be very compelling and relatable, especially as she's remembering her encounters with powerful men as a young woman. And then for me, the book also raised questions about what it looks like to hold others accountable for how they have disrespected you or disappointed you, and also what it looks like to maintain a sense of personal accountability, which is essential for all of us to move forward in an empowered fashion. Well, we're going to ask her all these questions and more. She's here with us now, So let's welcome here in Anna Marie Tyler. Welcome to the bright Side.
Thank you so much for having me.
So this book begins with you checking yourself into a psychiatric hospital and you became suicidal. Can you describe the conditions that led you to check into a psychiatric hospital.
I think, like so many people, it was a culmination of things that had started happening way earlier in life, but certainly around that time.
The pandemic did not help.
It was very isolating, anxiety and doucing. I began going through a divorce. I was in the middle of graduate school. It was as if like a lot of little things had kind of piled all on top of each other to the point where it just became obvious to me that I needed some type of help.
I really appreciated hearing your perspective and just your experience inside the hospital, because it honestly took me back to when I was a child. I had a family member who was hospitalized, and by hearing your perspective, I think I can understand that family member a bit better and what they went through. At the same time, Anna, most people who have experienced what you've experienced hospitalization for mental health reasons, nobody wants to relive that. So the fact that you wrote a book about it is really brave. What gave you the courage to write this book.
I think that some of it is when you write a memoir you really have to dive into the naivete of what writing a memoir is. You kind of have to suspend disbelief bit and be like, oh, no, one, we'll read this. This is just for me. This is just an exercise with me and an editor. And so certainly when I was writing it, I wanted to write it as unself consciously as possible. It had been a really long time since I had read a memoir that spoke to mental health or hospitalization. And when I was in high school, I had read Girl Interrupted, which I think is an amazing account of being hospitalized, but that was written in the seventies. So often, whether it be in books like fiction or in movies, we have this really kind of scary idea of what hospitalization is, like one flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. And I wanted to kind of present a different take on what it means to be hospitalized, also what it means to be voluntarily hospitalized. And I was incredibly lucky that I was hospitalized, you know, in a private hospital. It was not a state hospital, which I know is a totally different experience for people. I also know people who were state hospitalized and saved their life as well, So my goal was to write it in a way that would remove some of the stigma of it. I had a very positive experience, and it certainly saved my life.
I was struck by your language throughout the book, because it's at once honest and also precise, even down to the title, including the word crazy in the title, which just brings up so many historical connotations and how that term has been weaponized against women, how other terms like hysteria have been weaponized against women. But through your language and your honesty, and also the way that you describe the women that you are hospitalized with, you really do humanize these women who could be painted with these broad stereotypes about what it looks like to suffer from a mental illness. How did your time in the private psychiatric hospital and the people you met there change your perception of that term crazy, which is so loaded.
First of all, thank you so much for the compliment of precise. That is like as a writer, to be told that the writing is precise is very high praise.
So I really.
Appreciate that cool and I took such care, especially with how I wrote those women. But you know, going into the hospital, it seemed very scary, and people seemed totally unhinged, and what's going to happen to me? And so when I first was about to check in, it was right after the New year, so it was a very quiet time. There were only five of us there, which is pretty atypical. And then the second that I met everyone, it was so disarming. I met these women that ranged from eighteen to me being the oldest at thirty five, and I was like, oh man, we're all just trying to get through it. These women are so interesting and really smart and really cool. We're all at these different stages in our life. And as the book goes on, you know, the house fills in a bit and the vibe changed drastically. So I think I was also incredibly lucky that it was not that many of us and we really got to know each other.
There is this chapter in the book I felt like I was really a turning point, not just in the book, but also for you personally. And it's the part when your clinician is reviewing the results of an extensive psychological exam. He's going through and just naming all these characteristics about you that felt accurate to you. But it was almost like you were hearing the language for the first time, or you were able to grasp it for the first time. Characteristics like you're clearly capable of rich abstract thought, you're highly conscientious, you have tendencies towards orderliness. You also get easily overwhelmed when it feels like you might be in trouble or you're disappointing people. And it feels like in that moment you went from invisible to visible or unknowable to knowable. What did that do for you?
Yeah, I mean those conversations with that doctor will never leave me. And what was so interesting about it was that it was from a like a three and a half hour long psychiatric evaluation, which, by the way, anyone can have one of those.
I want one, now, I want one.
Maybe we should do one on the show, Danielle.
The one bad thing is that, like they also give you your IQ.
No, I was like, I don't nobody needs to see that. Wow, that's quite a significant evil. I just want to.
Convince myself I can change my IQ all the time, so like, don't tell me if I'm locked in at a certain QUES.
That's why, like in the book, I keep being like, am I smart.
Am I average? Am I like?
And that was kind of the joke and the funny thing to me because I was just like, Okay, I am going to find out that, like I'm a secret genius.
And then it's like, oh no, you're not.
You are what you are.
So funny, but I went into it not knowing what to expect. I am a conscientious person, so I was like, I want to do my best and then to like just from this three and a half hour test, and this clinician was highly skilled, very good doctor incredible. It was like telling me who I knew myself to be. Yeah, and I had never ever experienced that before. Like even in therapy, I would talk about feeling a certain way, even if it's bad or like low self esteem. It's like okay, but you know that's not true and let's try and like reframe. And this was just like brass tacks, no reframing, no positive spin. It wasn't negative either. It was just like, here are the facts about you. And it blew my mind how accurate it felt and what a life changer.
There's no running from it anymore at that point, right like you're gobsmacked with the truth about yourself.
Yeah.
And also it was like, oh, there's not something.
Wrong with me.
I think like so many times, especially as women, like we think that there's something wrong with us, and to just be able to say like, oh, yeah, that's that's just me. I'm introverted, or I am afraid of getting in trouble. Like there are things that you can work on, and there are things you can kind of try and change, but some of it is it's just the way you are. But knowing it you can then learn to work with it.
It's time for a short break.
We'll be right back with Anna Marie Tyler, and we're back. Sophie Gilbert from the Atlantic wrote a review of your book entitled her piece, A Memoir about Recovering from Men. I'm wondering if that feels accurate to you.
It did, and I have to say I loved that title so much. After I read it, I reached out to her and I was like, first of all, thank you for taking this on in the Atlantic, And also, man, what a great headline I write about men are they are part of this book, They're certainly not not the whole thing.
And I think that.
The relationships that I write about They're all problematic, but they're all problematic in different ways. It's not as if the same thing is happening over and over again with these men, like the final result is the same, But there are these nuances over the course of my life and having relationships with men, and then over the course of writing this, I think I really picked up on patterns that I had and patterns that other people have, and ways to identify them, and I think that that is recovery.
I want to recount some of the significant relationships and encounters that you detail throughout your life and the book. There's a class mate who violated your boundaries in high school, the twenty eight year old musician you met at sixteen, the wealthy man who convinced you to quit your job in your early twenties.
And I'm just scratching the surface.
You know.
Reading your book, you struck me as someone who has this deep curiosity and someone who seeks out experiences as well. I felt very akin to that, and so I'm personally curious how you feel in hindsight about these moments in reflection. Do you regret any of them? Do you value them, even the painful ones? How do you feel like they have shaped who you are.
God.
That's such a good question and also so hard to answer. I am who I am because those things happened to me. However, the one with the musician, while it was consensual, it was also illegal. If I could remove that from my past, I think I'd probably be better for it, And I hesitate to be like, I'm glad all these things happen to me, because that kind of makes allowances for really bad behavior from men. They are also to varying degrees, and I think that I learned something from all of them, things to look out for and patterns to not repeat. The thing that came up over and over again is that they are all in some way connected to power. An older man going after a much younger woman, like, there is a power dynamic there. There's a power and balance.
You said, we live in a patriarchy, and I feel it all of the time.
I'm so curious how you.
Feel it day to day and mostly asking for a friend because I find myself feeling it and not being able to articulate it a lot.
Yeah, I think a lot of people feel that way. I certainly feel like that way. Like they'll be things, it will happen, and I'll be like, ah, that was annoying, And then later I'm like, patriarchy, how dare you?
But you know, now I live alone in the woods with three cats, so I would say I have minimized, you've removed yourself. Yes, I've minimized the way that the patriarchy affects me. However, Like this is an example that I like to use when I'm dating and I'm like on dating apps and in a conversation with someone who I'm sure is very nice, not malicious, not at all trying to stalk me or murder me, will be like, oh, where do you live? And I'm like, that is a question of a person who has never had to worry about their own safety, you know. And I'll say to them like, oh, I don't tell people where I live. And then they're like, oh, oh, of course, of course, of course. And it's not that I think that those people are bad people, but.
I'm like many men don't, not all, but like many men don't have to consider that, like I shouldn't give you my address because like that's actually a safety concern for me, And most men I know don't share their location when they go on a date, or have a friend check in to make sure that everything is going okay.
Or cover their drink at a bar.
Yes.
Yes, And I think that that is just a different way of moving through the world. I feel like I'm constantly reminded of that. If something doesn't work out with something or you don't like something, do I speak up? Like? Is what happens if this person gets angry at me? I feel all that stuff all the time.
Do you have any interest in partnering again? Do you want to be with a man at this point?
Oh god, this is really hard, so.
Like yes and no, it's I was with someone for about like nine months and we were together when this book came out, and about three weeks after it came out, I found out that he had cheated on me. Stop and I'm like, you read the book like really, Like that's that's bold, that's bold. So that really rocked me. I have to say in a way that, like my other breakups didn't, I now find that my relationships with my female friends are much more intimate, much more supportive than any relationship that I've had with a man. I want to show up for something, and like this last one, I feel like I really did show up in a big way. And then it's like, oh, but it happened again. And at a certain point you're sort of like, well, when, okay, Like when do I remove myself from this?
But that's also not fair.
I'm like, these guys got to get it together, Like do the work please.
That's been a theme on our show. We had many people come on and say that.
Did that send you into like a psychological relapse or did you feel like you had the tools to power through it.
An amazing thing about the book and doing all of the work that I talk about that gets written about in the book is that my ability to mentally and emotionally rebound from these things has gotten so much better.
And like, that's amazing, thank you, that's great.
Like this last thing that happened when I found out, I was with him at his apartment and I just like got up and packed up all of my stuff, and within twenty minutes I was out the door and I said I wish you well and I left.
Wow, And that was the end of the relationship.
And I think that if I were in a different place, or if I were younger, or if I had not done all of this work.
I could see.
A world in which I would have even had a conversation about it, like why did this happen? Crying and yelling, and I was just like, this is not worth any of my energy. I mean, I was so sad and I was so disappointed. And it still feels like a loss out of my life because you're like, oh, I've got to start all over and I miss this person. But never once did I regret walking out the door that quickly. And if we as women can learn to kind of do that and not make space for really bad behavior, I'm just no longer going to make space for bad behavior. It's like you have this one shot, and if you blow it in that way, there is no second chance.
I'm gone.
I'd rather be by myself. I'd rather be with my cats.
Like I like that phrase, I'm no longer making space for bad behavior.
Yeah, I just I can't.
Cats never cheat. A cat will never cheat. We have to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with Anna Marie Tenler.
And we're back with Anna Marie Tenler.
I thought it was interesting that the word anger is mentioned forty seven times in this book.
By my count, I could be wrong, and I could be wrong.
Oh my god, I love that you counted.
I had a little help from the search bar. I think that women's anger is so often misunderstood in our society, but it's actually a tool. I think that it reveals so much about our desires and what we believe that we're worth. So what has your anger revealed to you on this journey to trusting yourself?
Yeah? I completely agree with you.
And when you can learn how to tap into your anger and use it constructively, I think there is so much information there that we can glean. And I think that my anger really taught me what I am not willing to tolerate and also what I'm afraid of, because I think that a lot of times what is underneath anger is fear.
I'm angry at you because.
You cheated on me, of course, like anyone would be angry about that.
It's total disrespect.
And at the same time, I'm terrified of being alone, of starting over, of like losing connection. I think so often fear can come out as anger, but then other things is just like feeling like you were being pushed or silenced, like don't mess this up for a man, like keep yourself in check and that that information and the anger that I feel there and now going into my life, and when I feel times where anger is really bubbling up, I can sort of look at it and be like, Okay, there is something that is happening here that is not in line with how I want to live, with how I want to have relationships with people, with how I want to move through my life. And if I'm feeling this much anger, like that is a cue for me to really look at what is happening and to decide do I want to be a part of whatever this is? And often the answer to that is now.
When your book was first announced, the expectation was it was going to be the Scorched Earth tell All, and it was so the opposite of that. It had everything to do with your own journey. I'm wondering what you hope readers take away from this shift in narrative.
You were totally right, Like there was this narrative of like, oh my god, she's going to like spill the tea, She's going to tear it down, And I believe that like that is very patriarchal and misogynistic, because as women, we are expected that we are going to do that. We are expected that we are going to gossip, that we're going to drag somebody. And what you are saying, like you collective you, what you are saying when you put that on women, is that we are somehow operating below how men are operating. Men can remove themselves from it and write about themselves and write about them are and not get into the nitty gritty and listen. I completely understand the instinct to be like vindication of things. I do believe that when we do that, it centers the other person. And I think that when no matter what the story is, whether it's about men or about terrible things that have happened to us, like you can center it on Okay, here are like the facts of what happened, but it's not this person did this, this person did this, this person did this, because that is about that person. This happened, and here's how I dealt with it, Here's how it made me feel, Here's how I internalized it and moved forward from there.
And so.
That was incredibly important for me to do because I had no interest in perpetuating a patriarchal idea and a misogynistic and patriarchal idea about how women behave.
I love that answer.
I thought about Nora Efron's work quite a bit as well when I was reading your book. I think between like an artistic identity that you have and reinvention and so many reflections of love and loss. In her book Heartburn, she wrote a quote that's like very well known. Now if I tell the story, I control the version. I am really dying to know what this book was for you. Was it a reclamation a proclamation? What was at stake for you in sharing your version of the story.
So it wasn't quite a reclamation because like that implies that something was taken from me, And I'm kind of like I have always been me. I have always been this. No one, no matter what they do to me, can like shake who I am and take who I am from me. But I think it was more a proclamation of here are some of the things that have happened to me. I am positive that I am not the only one. People can read this and extrapolate and put their own experiences on it and be like, yeah, I went through something similar in all things in life. We give power to things when we talk about them. That is why I wanted to write this book and why I wanted to talk about In no way was this giving my story over to these men that I wrote about. I really feel like if we don't talk about things that are happening and make them public and talk about things that could be happening to other people, that is how bad, dangerous or illegal behavior continues to happen. Because talking about something is the only way that we have power, the only way that we can find connection with other people, and the only way that we can hold the society accountable.
And just to wrap us up here, there's a phrase that you wrote to your future self while you were in treatment. You wrote resilience to survive. What are you living for now? What makes life worth living?
Oh?
Boy?
I mean, I really am so happy to be here, and like, I love my friends, and I look outside and like the leaves are changing color and I'm like, oh my god, how beautiful. And listen, there is also a lot of really awful stuff happening in the world right now. And it's not as if I am unaffected by those things. It's not as if I am unaffected by ruptures in my personal life. I still have days that I'm incredibly anxious or I'm incredibly sad, like my whole personality didn't change. I'm still me, But I trust that I know how to ask for help and that there are also people around me that really care for me and are there if I need them, and I know what I need as well, And so I think that having that sort of fortified idea of myself just makes it easier to move through things that can be very difficult.
Well, Anna, thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you for your openness. It's not easy to do with a topic like this.
Thank you so much for having me. I really really enjoyed talking with you.
Guys.
Thank you.
We love getting to speak with you too. Anna Marie Tydler is a writer, visual artist and author of the New York Times best selling memoir Men have called her crazy.
That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, we're popping off with TV host and producer Naz Perez. Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok oh, and feel free to tag us at Simone Voice and at Danielle Robe.
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See you tomorrow, folks, keep looking on the bright side.