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Alison Stewart: You are listening to All of It on WNYC, I'm Alison Stewart. Listeners, before we begin, we wanted to let you know that this next conversation deals with self-harm and suicidal ideation. If at any time you feel you need support, please call the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. The number is 988, it's open 24 hours a day. When artist and photographer Anne Marie Tendler decided to check herself into a mental health facility, she felt her life was unraveling. She stopped eating. She was self-harming. Her marriage to comedian John Mulaney was fraying. The Covid-19 pandemic caused her to feel isolated and anxious. She considered suicide, but during her time in treatment, Anna delved into her complicated relationship with her sometimes volatile mother to the much older man she dated when she was a teenager to a dysfunctional dynamic with her own therapist. Anna recounts this period of hospitalization along with the circumstances that led to her psychiatric hospital visit in her new memoir, Men Have Called Her Crazy. We are featuring this conversation today as our ongoing series Mental Health Mondays. Anna Marie Tendler is speaking Friday evening at McNally Jackson, Soho location, at 5:30 PM, but first, she joins me now in studio. Really nice to meet you.

Anna Marie Tendler: You as well. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: When you enter the hospital, you were worried that your little notebook wasn't going to be big enough-

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: -for you to write down everything in. In the end, you barely, you wrote anything at all, yet, your memoir is full of incredible detail. How were you able to recall the vivid details about this time in the hospital?

Anna Marie Tendler: Actually, I had brought a notebook with me. The hospital gave us these very small, laughable notebooks, but I had brought something with me. Because I didn't have my phone on me, because I didn't have email, I didn't have access really to anything in the outside world, I found that I just wanted to keep track of everything that was happening while I was there. It felt like such a singular experience and hopefully, an experience that I would never have [chuckles] again, so I just wrote everything down. A lot of it was just to pass the time.

There's a lot of downtime when you're in hospital. And so, you know, I would just write things down like, "Oh, I went for a walk," or "This is what I ate for dinner. This is what we watched on TV." It was more just to keep a record for myself so that I could look back on this time and really remember it. I never thought that it would be turned into a book. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: What was surprising about checking into a mental health facility?

Anna Marie Tendler: I think that the most surprising part of it was that when I arrived there and I started seeing the doctors, it was the first time in a while that I didn't feel crazy. [laughs] I think it was a period of time when a lot of people were struggling because of COVID and just everyone's world was really thrown upside down. To even just go into the hospital and have people reflect back to me what was happening or to say, "Yes, people are going through it right now. You're not alone in this." To be able to talk with the doctors and understand that I had a grip on reality, [chuckles] that I wasn't "crazy," was surprising and very helpful.

Alison Stewart: As best you can remember, when did you first start engaging in self-harm?

Anna Marie Tendler: I was about 14 when I did. From what I've heard, that's a pretty typical age. I think it's such a hard age for girls, especially, and I don't know how I came to it, really. I can't really explain it.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting because you seem ashamed of it. In part of the memoir where you were covering your arms or warning people about scars and you know there's something in it that's not right for you. Yet, why did you continue to do it?

Anna Marie Tendler: The best way I can describe that is that when I was in these acute states of crisis where I was physically harming myself or acting out in a way always towards myself. It was never really towards other people. For me, anyway, I was never thinking about the future. In those moments, I never had the-- I want to say- lucidity of looking forward. Those moments felt as if they would last forever, that there was nothing else that came after them, and so I just didn't think about it, honestly. I know that that sounds so bizarre, but in those moments, it was not something I considered.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Anna Marie Tendler. The name of the memoir is Men Have Called Her Crazy. You had disordered eating before you entered the hospital, but it's interesting. Once you entered the hospital, you seem like you could have a bag of chips. [laughs]

Anna Marie Tendler: Yes. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: What changed for you in the hospital?

Anna Marie Tendler: I'm really careful in the book to describe it as disordered eating because I have never felt that I am someone with an eating disorder. I think that that's something very different. This was not a long term issue that I had struggled with. I really think it was born out of anxiety in the beginning and then feeling like I wanted some sense of control over my life, and this was something that I could control in not a healthy way. As soon as I got into the hospital, I felt like I didn't have to control it anymore. I felt that I was where I needed to be. I trusted that I would get the help that I was going to get. Like I write in the book, I never felt good not eating.

Alison Stewart: When you checked yourself into the hospital, you were suffering from suicidal ideation. We can see throughout the book, like, what led up to this choice that you thought you had. When you look back now, why did you think about ending your life?

Anna Marie Tendler: I mean, that was not the first time I had gone through that. Suicidal ideation had started in my early teens. It felt much different as a teen than it did as an adult, but it's hard to explain almost now being on the other side of it. When you're in that state, there is a bleakness, and you have a really hard time holding on to the fact that there is another day tomorrow and there's another day after that, and things change, and truly, nothing is permanent. Everything feels permanent. Everything bad feels permanent, and that's a really heavy, dark feeling.

Alison Stewart: Anna Tendler is my guest. The name of the book is Men Have Called Her Crazy. I want to mention that Anna will be speaking Friday night at McNally Jackson in Soho at 5:30 PM, tickets are available now. Before we get into the details of the book, there's one thing that cracked me up-

Anna Marie Tendler: [laughs]

Alison Stewart: -is you had things to say, but they were in your head. Like, in the moment, you were polite and you demurred. "Yes, no," but then you had thoughts about what you wanted to say. Why didn't you say how you really felt?

Anna Marie Tendler: Well, first of all, I'm glad that you found parts of it funny, because I really--

Alison Stewart: [chuckles] Well, sometimes it is.

Anna Marie Tendler: Yes.

Alison Stewart: I mean, it sounds like it isn't, but it is a little bit.

Anna Marie Tendler: That was my hope, is that people would also find the levity and the humor in it. As women, I really believe that we're taught to hold our anger back, right? Like, we can't express that. We're called crazy or aggressive or if we express our anger in that sort of way, so I think part of it is that. I think another part of it is, in those times, I didn't quite have a constructive way to communicate my anger. A lot of going through DBT therapy, and other types of therapy, was learning how to take the immediate anger that I feel or what pops into my head where it could be venom and think, "That's not the most constructive thing to say. Let me think about this for a second, and how do I want to get this point across?" but when those things were happening, I was not in a place where I could do that.

Alison Stewart: You did do it, though, once with your mom.

Anna Marie Tendler: [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Your mom was a difficult woman. We'll say that and you screamed at her the way she screamed at you. Do you remember what made you come to that point where I'm just going to yell at my mom the way she has yelled at me?

Anna Marie Tendler: [sighs] I don't know. I think by that time, I was nearly out of the house. My mom and I, the thing is we were always really close, despite all of this. I felt that she was a person who had trouble expressing her anger, but I loved her. I mean, I love her. I love her very much still. We spent so much time together. She really dedicated her life to me and my brother, and I never wanted things to be difficult between us. I think that that moment was a last-ditch effort of, 'If I match her, is that a way to help her understand what it feels like from my side?' It was, in that moment, [chuckles] effective.

Alison Stewart: It worked.

Anna Marie Tendler: Yes. My mom is a totally different person now than she was when I was in my teens. I think both she and I have come a long way.

Alison Stewart: We will have more with Anna Marie Tendler, the author of Men Have Called Her Crazy after a quick break. This is All of It.

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Alison Stewart: You're listening to All of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. I'm speaking with artist and photographer Anna Marie Tendler about her new memoir, Men Have Called Her Crazy. It's about her time in a psychiatric hospital. Anna will be speaking Friday night at the McNally Jackson in Soho at 5:30 PM. Tickets are available now. You were adamant about one thing, going into treatment at this hospital. You didn't want to live in a house with men.

Anna Marie Tendler: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Maybe you were even, like, reluctant to have male doctors. Why were you so dead set against avoiding men?

Anna Marie Tendler: I think at that time I felt very angry at men, and [chuckles] I didn't want to look at them.

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Anna Marie Tendler: Like I didn't want to wake up in the morning and have to interact with them. Now, the funny thing is, when I end up getting there and I'm in the all-women's house, I find out that we actually do everything with the all-male house, so that backfired on me. After being there, I realized that I would have been 100% okay in the co-ed house. That really felt like almost a misstep on me, which I tried to address as well.

Alison Stewart: You were put with women who had addiction problems as well, and you were non-addict yourself. What did you learn about addiction during your time there that's proven useful to you, you didn't expect to have it happen?

Anna Marie Tendler: I think when you're around people who struggle with addiction, you just see the human side of it. Being with those women and being in therapy groups with them was they're just human beings, and you realize how hard it is and how hard they're working as well. Then I write about in the book an AA meeting that I went to, where the woman speaking had had this incredibly difficult year where she lost people in her family and didn't relapse. She made it through, and right after that, celebrated 25 years sober. In that moment, I realized, "Oh, you can live through something that is really, really difficult. You can go through a really difficult time, and you can stay healthy."

Alison Stewart: That stuck with you.

Anna Marie Tendler: It really did, yes.

Alison Stewart: When you're in the hospital, you take a comprehensive series of tests as well as your therapy, and there's a long report that is sent to you by one of the doctors, but you decide not to read it at first. Why didn't you read it?

Anna Marie Tendler: Well, a large part of the report had been communicated to me by one of the doctors that I really, really liked so much there, and so I almost felt when I left that I had heard the important parts because most of the report would have been from the psych testing. As time went on, leaving the hospital and I felt better and better, I think I identified less with the woman who went into the hospital, and the actual substance of the report became less important to me.

Alison Stewart: When you did read the report, what did it say about that woman?

Anna Marie Tendler: [chuckles] Yes. Well, reading that report was really difficult because I think so much of it-- and just to say not the parts of it that had already been communicated to me by that one doctor- all of that was as I expected, but there were other parts of it that were written by a doctor that I saw less. It felt to me as though it was a catalyzation of everything that I think is wrong with psychology as it relates to women. I felt as though the report cast me in a light that lacked a lot of contextual information, that was put together by a cis straight man because that's the basis of modern psychology and didn't take other things into consideration. I really saw the limitations of that report.

Alison Stewart: You actually leave the hospital, but you have to make a U turn-

Anna Marie Tendler: [chuckles] Yes.

Alison Stewart: -because of this interaction with your therapist, Dr. Carr, who really has harsh words for you. Will you tell us what happened?

Anna Marie Tendler: I'm not really sure what happened, to be honest.

Alison Stewart: Her language was really personal with you.

Anna Marie Tendler: It was. I think that that whole interaction was really upsetting because I had spent so many years with her as my therapist where I felt like I got so much out of it, and it was so helpful. Then to have it end the way that it did was really disappointing and scary as well.

Alison Stewart: The other doctors were like, "What is this?"

Anna Marie Tendler: Yes.

Alison Stewart: The other doctor's like, "What is this person doing?"

Anna Marie Tendler: Yes, I think that was a saving grace as well because there had been things that had popped up before I went to the hospital that made me wonder, "Is this normal? Is this within the bounds of normal patient-doctor relationship?" To have the other doctors flag it and say, "Hey, we're seeing some dynamics playing out here that are not quite right," allowed me, I think, to trust my instincts that something was off.

Alison Stewart: Would you tell someone to trust their instincts in that position?

Anna Marie Tendler: Absolutely. Therapy is deeply personal, and I think it's such a therapist and patient relationship is such a singular relationship, but if you feel that something is off, find a new therapist or bring it up with the therapist and see how they react to it, if you really like the person.

Alison Stewart: Anna Marie Tendler is my guest. The name of her memoir is Men Have Called Her Crazy. When you do leave the hospital, you decide to start taking self portraits. What compelled you to start capturing yourself on camera, and what did you see?

Anna Marie Tendler: It started as a practice to remind myself that I existed. Also, a huge part of that had to do with the pandemic. I was in my house. I hadn't seen my friends for 10 months. There was nobody else around me. I thought, "Well, I'm here, so I'm going to use myself." It was a real healing practice as well. I think when I felt overwhelmed by my emotions, if I changed course and started taking photographs, it really switched something over in my brain and I could focus on something that felt constructive.

Alison Stewart: What is a way that your artistry, your photography, has helped you deal with your mental health?

Anna Marie Tendler: I think it's given me an immense outlet. Writing and taking photographs are so different. Photography is much more vague, and there's so much that's unspoken and writing, it's you're putting a fine point on something, but I think art has always been an outlet for me. When I was young and through all of my years, it's always been something I've gone back to when times are difficult.

Alison Stewart: What do you hope that someone understands about hospitalization after reading this book?

Anna Marie Tendler: A few things. One being there should be no stigma in it. If you need help, you need help. I think also to understand the limitations of it as well. To go in understanding that they might say something that you don't totally agree with, or you really have to give in to the experience of it. Granted, people have such a wide-ranging experience in the hospital, but I really think that it should be destigmatized, and there's no shame in asking for help if you need it.

Alison Stewart: Anna Marie Tendler has written a memoir, it's called Men Have Called Her Crazy. She'll be speaking Friday night at the McNally Jackson in Soho at 5:30. Tickets are available now. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

Anna Marie Tendler: Thank you for having me.

[00:22:36] [END OF AUDIO]

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