Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

by Anna Marie Tendler

Parents can be our greatest allies, they can fiercely love us, but they can also be the cause of our trauma.

that to love her was to one day be without her.

This feels more like a breakup between two friends than a doctor and a patient, and perhaps, I realize in this moment, this is why it needs to end.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so quick to pathologize everything men do as merely a failing of being male—though men do make it difficult not to.

social issues are inextricable from the individual experience.”

“In two minutes I’m going to call a cab to my hotel,” I say. We sit quietly, neither of us wanting the night to be over. “Has it been two minutes?” I say after five. “No,” he says, taking my hand in his.

Instead of thinking, Will he want me?, I coax my inner monologue to a new option: Do I want him?

I have chased unrequited affection because to me, struggle is indicative of love. Volatility is indicative of love. Dismissal is indicative of love. But that is not how I want to do love anymore.

Men have judged me and men have called me crazy, trusting in their own neutrality. But when neutrality is only accepted by the one who has created it, it is an illusion.

You were so stupid, I want to tell myself, but I redirect my thoughts to something more constructive. You are so lucky to have learned this now; it will keep you safe and happy.