Men Have Called Her Crazy Quotes

“Here is the thing about men lying to women while telling them they are crazy or overreacting. The lying, the underplaying on their side, makes us doubt our intuition and intelligence, so eventually when suspicions are confirmed, when we find out we have been correct all along, we do go batshit fucking crazy. And it is warranted.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“My wish for myself is that one day I'll reach a place where I can face hardship—because I fear the worst is still to come— without trying to destroy myself.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy

“Parents can be our greatest allies, they can fiercely love us, but they can also be the cause of our trauma.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“Women with consumption during the nineteenth century were thought to be the epitome of beauty. They are described in books and depicted in paintings as being luminescent with their milk-white skin and red lips. This is how men saw them, anyway. The perfect woman—impossibly pale, impossibly thin, lips tinted red (from coughing up blood), too tired to speak, too weak to move. All she can do is sit and stare out the window, incandescent as life leaves her body. A woman was thought by many to have contracted consumption due to some moral failing, so while her beauty was fetishized, her character was denigrated. Fucking men.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“These men may have done nothing to me personally, but I hate them and I hope the force with which I’m packing my lunch conveys this to everyone.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“Instead, I cemented my role in relationships as a pleaser, a convincer, a girl who, well into adulthood, would contort and conform to the desires of a man, overlooking his easy dismissal, and dampening her self-worth, all to be loved.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“I have never felt truly good at any of the things I started, so I abandon them when the weight of mediocrity—or worse, inability—becomes too overwhelming.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“I am becoming increasingly anxious the other girls might not like me because I am quiet. This has been a theme my whole life. I have been antisocial since puberty, preferring to watch others rather than participate.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy

“At this point tears begin to fall from my eyes, not because I am sad or angry, but because I have never had these dueling aspects of my personality mirrored back to me in such a matter-of-fact way. I have, at so many times in my life, felt unknowable, but here I am having me explained to me as it feels to be me. One three-hour test and I finally have objective words to demystify a tumultuous and ambivalent life experience. “We will leave it here, but I have one last thing I would like to say. The Rorschach and image testing reveal evidence of trauma associated with very early childhood development. I see a preoccupation with blood, morbidity, dismissal, and power struggles. There is a way in which you present as very sturdy to the world, yet inside you are carrying an incredibly heavy weight. There is a you inside who feels invisible to those looking at you from the outside. I feel an incredible amount of compassion for how hard each day feels for you.” “Thank you,” I say, my voice quiet and quivering with emotion. “I really appreciate this.” “Yes,” he says, “I believe you really do.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“Years of my own experiences with men have taught me they struggle to see women as autonomous creatures with complicated, interesting, rich inner lives. Usually, they see us only in relation to themselves.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“I am becoming increasingly anxious the other girls might not like me because I am quiet. This has been a theme my whole life. I have been antisocial since puberty, preferring to watch others rather than participate. Or, even better, to get lost in my own thoughts and imagination, crafting made-up scenarios and arguments of which I am both the director and the only audience member. I have been trying to ask questions, but I feel like it is not enough. I create a scenario in my head where they interpret my lack of participation for bitchiness.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“It is dark now and she is dead, but still I tell her how much I love her. I tell her how grateful I am for her love and companionship.
"I'll miss you forever," I say into her ear.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy

“There is comfort in happiness and beauty if I'm willing to relish it.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy

“Here is the thing about men lying to women while telling them they are crazy or overreacting. They lying, the underplaying on their side, makes us doubt our intuition and intelligence, so eventually when suspicions are confirmed, when we find out we have been correct all along, we do go batshit crazy. And it is warranted.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy

“For my mother’s fifty-eighth birthday I had all her emails from India printed into a book, along with the beautiful photographs she had taken on her journey.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“They are described in books and depicted in paintings as being luminescent with their milk-white skin and red lips. This is how men saw them, anyway. The perfect woman—impossibly pale, impossibly thin, lips tinted red (from coughing up blood), too tired to speak, too weak to move. All she can do is sit and stare out the window, incandescent as life leaves her body.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“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.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“Petunia was the Jesus Christ of dogs—pure resilience and a little magic.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“I know mothers feel excluded from life too. I guess that’s the paradox of being a woman: no matter what path you choose, chances are you’ll feel invisible.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“I decide I will eat every dinner like this, a whole production with the fire going and all the candles lit. Even if I am wearing sweatpants and microwaving precooked food, I can make dinner feel like a special occasion, not something sad I have to do alone. There is comfort and happiness in beauty if I am willing to relish it.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy

“I had, in my mid-twenties, eventually finished my bachelor's degree, which allowed me to apply to graduate school, but that feels like a minor victory in the midst of constant failure. I have never felt truly good at any of the things I started, so I abandon them when the weight of mediocrity—or worse, inability—becomes too overwhelming. Graduate school, I believe, is something I am good at. For it to become another thing I do not finish, cannot finish, would be devastating.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy

“I picture a small fern, low and compact. I have always liked ferns, their triangular fronds with tiny but hearty leaflets, their deep green color. If I am small like a fern, I am less exposed than a tree with high-reaching branches; the wind cannot whip me around. Yet, I am also more susceptible to being stepped on. Which is worse? I stop envisioning myself as a fern.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy

“Adam is not good at yoga. I am better than him, and this makes me happy.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy

“At sixteen, I saw myself as Annie Leibovitz or Linda McCartney. I did not see myself as a teenager, but maybe this was because so few people treated me like I was one.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“Being the bearer of good news to the rest of the group, to join in this celebration, no matter how small, makes me feel like I am part of their team. In this quotidian exchange, they allow me into something I am barely a part of, and they do so enthusiastically. They do not question my own excitement over the new coffeepot—I having suffered without it for less than seventy-two hours—instead they match my excitement with their own. I feel the energy of our group change instantaneously. We are no longer four women plus one new girl; we are five.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy: A Memoir

“Dr. Emily and her vet tech Kate show up to my house at seven p.m. and we decide to do the euthanasia outside on my back patio. I don’t want Petunia’s soul getting stuck in the house. I want it to float up and out into the sky. Dr. Emily walks me through exactly how it will go. First Petunia will get a medication that will make her sleep. Once she’s asleep she won’t feel anything. Then she will receive medication to slowly and peacefully stop her heart. The whole thing should take around twenty minutes.
“Do you want a few minutes alone with her before we start?” Dr. Emily’s voice is soft. She places her hand on my back. Both she and Kate have known Petunia for years, and like everyone who knows Petunia, they love her. Petunia will die surrounded by love.
I pick my beloved dog up into my arms and walk with her from room to room of our house, recounting all the things we did together in those sacred spaces.
In the kitchen, I say “This is where you watched me bake banana bread and licked spilled flour dustings from the floor.”
In the dining room: “This is where we ate dinner. Remember how beautiful it looked the first night I lit all the candles?”
In the living room: “This is where we watched movies.”
And in my office, my favorite room, the room where my new career and life have flourished, I say “This is where we pulled tarot cards every morning. This is where you helped me sew lampshades. This is where you kept me company while I edited all the photographs.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy

“There is a moving type of yoga, vinyasa, but I don't like vinyasa classes. My experiences have shown me that most teachers are not well enough versed in proper alignment to be teaching vinyasa in a way that is actually safe. Alignment is everything. It is how you protect your body from injury.”
― Anna Marie Tendler, Men Have Called Her Crazy