Men have called her crazy A memoir

Struggling with depression, restrictive eating, cutting, and suicidal ideation about a year into the pandemic, photographer and writer Tendler was scaring even herself and checked into a mental-health facility. The two weeks she spent there, particularly the care and diagnoses she received and the other women patients she met there, frame this companionable memoir that also charts Tendler's coming-of-age and relationship history. (Outside of oblique mentions of a divorce occurring in the background, there's no mention of Tendler's high-profile marriage to a famous comedian, which feels like an odd flyover, but Tendler has other stories to tell.) The author's fellow millennials will likely relate to her experiences of growing up in the girls-can-be-anything 1990s, and all the contradictions therein, and many readers will see themselves in her first relationships, which were more about feeling liked than feeling good. Special page space goes to Petunia, the French bulldog Tendler loved, lost, and learned from. Tendler even shares her anger with warmth in this instructive, accepting view of owning and coping with one's always-evolving mental health.

Multimedia artist Tendler (The Daily Face) recounts her struggles with mental illness and low self-esteem in this devastating personal history. She begins in 2021, when, at 35, she checked herself into a psychiatric hospital at her therapist's urging. From there, she weaves in flashbacks that describe, in wrenching detail, her teenage experiences with self-harm ("I am not sure how I landed on cutting... but I am certain I would have found my way to injurious behavior eventually") and a high school relationship that made her "a girl who, well into adulthood, would contort and conform to the desires of a man, overlooking his easy dismissal, and dampening self-worth, all to be loved." Much of the account examines a string of failed romances that eroded Tendler's self-worth, including teenage sexual experiences with much older men. (Her marriage to comedian John Mulaney is only ever alluded to.) She also discusses daily life in the psych ward, and the peace brought to her by her dog, Petunia, before she checked in. After contextualizing her depression as a partial by-product of a turbulent childhood spent witnessing blowout fights between her parents, Tendler ends on a hopeful note ("Life has in no way gotten easier..... But I've become sturdier"). In a sea of mental health memoirs, this stands out. Agent: Meg Thompson, Thompson Literary. (Aug.)

A chronicle of a woman's life upended by severe depression and anxiety after a difficult childhood. In her unreserved memoir, artist Tendler exposes her consistent struggle with depression and self-harm since she was a teenager. In early 2021, at age 35, after decades of severe anxiety and depressive behavior successfully managed by medication, the author's self-injury tendencies, disordered eating, and suicidal ideation resurfaced. Following her therapist's advice, she checked herself into a "full-blown psychiatric hospital," covered in self-inflicted scissor cuts. Seeking out the source of her mental illness, Tendler reflects on her childhood, when she struggled socially and was bullied in grade school. She also tolerated volatile, incompatible parents who "toughed-out" her illnesses with homeopathic remedies, only resorting to conventional medicine after her raging infections became unbearable. Craving love and validation, Tendler dated boys (and a series of older men) "who would pay attention to me." Her coping mechanisms were cutting and her dog, Petunia. The author writes candidly of her adult years prior to her breakdown when she attended graduate school for fashion, until the mandatory solitude of the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated an already simmering depression. The author concludes with a psychiatric dual diagnosis, though Tendler contends that some of the source of her rage and depression has been her complicated relationships with men. The author's calm, affable narration belies the seriousness of her condition, and the striking detail she provides offers readers a clear sense of the rigorous inpatient psychotherapy process meant to disarm anxiety and return a sense of normalcy. While Tendler admits that her condition is a lifelong struggle, the book ends on a hopeful note, with the author on the path to maintaining a happy, structured life. She does not elaborate on her former marriage to comedian John Mulaney. An intensive, conversational portrait of one woman's battle with mental illness. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.