Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - The Gulf Between Your Internal Life And How The World Sees You | Anna Marie Tendler

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Lessons learned from the psychiatric hospitalWe’ve got a fascinating and very personal discussion today about the often very painful gap between the way you feel on the inside and the way the world perceives you. We also cover the urgency and difficulty of sitting with your own discomfort. Anna Marie Tendler is an artist and writer. She is also the author of a new memoir called ‘Men Have Called Her Crazy’. In this episode we talk about:The circumstances of her checking into a psychiatric hospital in 2021The difference between our interior emotions and our exterior selvesThe help she found through Dialectical Behavior Therapy – DBTWe dive into a very specific theme of the book – and its title – the insidious ways in which men have impacted her life. And lastly, how she found a way to sit with discomfort and pain, while showing up in the world authentically to herself.Related Episodes:#510. Me, a Love Story: How Being OK With Yourself Makes You Better at Everything | Sharon SalzbergThe Science Of Speaking Up For Yourself | Elaine Lin Hering (Co-interviewed by Dan's wife Bianca!)Sign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter hereFollow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTokTen Percent Happier online bookstoreSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelOur favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular EpisodesFull Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/anna-marie-tendlerSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to 10% happier early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. It's the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody. How we doing? We've got a fascinating and very personal discussion today about the often very painful gap between the way you feel on the inside and the way the world perceives you from the outside.

We also cover the urgency and difficulty of sitting with your own discomfort, and much, much more. I should say from the jump here that my guest today is an old friend, so do not expect journalistic objectivity here. Anna Marie Tenler is an artist and writer. She's also the author of a buzzy new book that has just been released called Men Have Called Her Crazy. It starts with the story of Anna checking herself into a psychiatric hospital back in 2021 as her marriage was falling apart. While in the psychiatric hospital, she does a deep dive on a form of therapy called dialectical behavioral therapy or DBT, which she will talk about in this interview and which she found incredibly helpful. She also does a lot of thinking about her painful history of entanglements with men, which as you can tell from the title

of the book is a major theme. So we talk about that, of course. I think it's interesting that this, the first interview she's done for her new book is with a male interviewer. She also mentions that her shrink is a male, so it's complicated. It's also very interesting, like I said. So we'll get started with my friend Anna Marie Tendler right after this. But first some blatant self-promotion. This will be quick. One of the biggest problems that many of us face in terms of keeping our meditation habit going is that we don't know other people who do it.

And actually having that social support can be a huge, huge deal, which is the operating thesis behind the meditation party retreats that I've been throwing with Jeff Warren and Sebenay Selassie. We've got another one coming up on October 11th at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. You can do it in person or online. BIPOC scholarships are available. Go to eomega.org for more information. Meanwhile, over on the 10% Happier app, they're rolling out a new feature called monthly check-ins are available, go to eomega.org for more information.

Meanwhile, over on the 10% Happier app, they're rolling out a new feature called monthly check-ins at the start of every month. You can set an intention, share your obstacles, and get a personalized meditation plan. And for a limited time, you can get 40% off a subscription. Head over to 10% dot com slash 40. Listening to Audible helps your imagination soar.

Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, new ways of thinking. Listening can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits, and ultimately your overall wellbeing. Audible has the best selection of audiobooks without exception, along with popular podcasts and exclusive Audible Originals,

all in one easy app. Enjoy Audible anytime while doing other things, household chores, exercising on the road, commuting, you name it. My wife, Bianca, and I have been listening to many audiobooks as we drive around for summer vacations. We listen to Life by Keith Richards. Keith, if you're listening, I'd love to have you on the show. We also listen to Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.

Yuval, if you're listening to this, we would also love to have you on the show. So audiobooks, yes. Audible, yes. Love it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free free. Visit audible.ca, audible.ca. Alice and Matt here from British Scandal. Matt, if we had a bingo card, what would be on there? Oh, compelling storytelling, egotistical white men and dubious humor. If that sounds like your cup of tea,

you will love our podcast, British Scandal, the show where every week we bring you stories from this green and not always so pleasant land. We've looked at spies, politicians, media magnates, a king, no one is safe. And knowing our country, we won't be out of a job anytime soon. Follow British Scandal wherever you listen to your podcasts. Anna-Marie Tendler, welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. Happy to have you here.

It's so interesting to interview somebody I've known for so long. Other than Bianca, you're probably my brother. You're probably the person I've known the longest to come on the show. I'm very nervous. You are? Yes. Even though I feel like I shouldn't be because I know you, but I am. Hopefully that will fade as we go through it.

Is this one of your first interviews you've done? This is the first interview that I am doing for the book. Well, then the nerves seem even more justifiable. Yeah, no pressure. I know how it feels to have written a memoir and then to go talk about it. Yeah, it's hard. So you have a lot of empathy

on the other end of this conversation. Thank you. Well, let's get into it. I know we have to step gingerly around this, but can you just describe to the extent that you're able or comfortable with the conditions that led up to you checking yourself into a psychiatric care facility? Was that the right way to describe it? A psychiatric hospital? Yes, that is the correct way to describe it. It was a

private hospital, it wasn't a state hospital, so those are, I think, quite different experiences. But yes, it was January 1st, 2021. And I had been dealing with some pretty serious mental health issues, basically my whole adult life. But I think there were a combination of a lot of things going on in my life at that time. Also, COVID was happening and part of my anxiety is germophobia. So a global pandemic is literally my worst nightmare and that had been happening for almost a year. Some things in my personal life, I think probably medication that needed to be adjusted a little bit.

Oh, I was finishing graduate school. I think part of it was situational, but part of it was just chemical. I became incredibly suicidal. I basically stopped eating. I was engaging in a lot of self-harm. It got to a point where my therapist at the time was like, you need inpatient care. This is beyond just what you can deal with, with a therapist. I know this is very sensitive area, but the self harm. I don't think we've talked much on this show about self harm. And in preparing for this interview, I sort of learned through you

a little bit more about why people do that. But can you do some education here? I certainly don't think I'm like the poster child for self harm. And I think that people come to it for different reasons and people do it for different reasons. So I can kind of speak to the reason why I was doing it. So it feels very personal to me and it might not be what resonates with other people. But I started when I was 14

and it was a very destructive way for me to deal with emotions that I otherwise couldn't deal with. I didn't have the language to express it. I didn't have the ability to kind of sit with very difficult emotions. I was very angry. My life felt very out of control, which I think when you're a teenage girl, life does feel very out of control. And so I came to it as a way of coping with that. I was feeling so much that I couldn't so much that I couldn't describe, I couldn't process, I couldn't handle. And that was a way to feel in control, albeit a very destructive way to feel in control. Would a rough analogy be when I'm getting a shot, I will squeeze some other part of my body because I can control that pain

But I can't control the pain from the shot Yeah, it was like a pain that made sense to me because I could see it I knew exactly where it came from and When I'm saying all this I have to be very careful not to make it sound like a good coping skill because it is a thousand percent not. There are a million other things that you can do that have that same effect, but I didn't know what they were at the time. I would say that was exactly it. It was like, I can't make sense of all of the pain and the anger that I'm feeling, I'm channeling it into something

that makes sense to me. If you hurt yourself, you're going to feel it. You know where it came from, especially if you did it. It is something you have control over. And just to put a fine point on it, the self-harm in question here was cutting yourself? Yes. point on it, the self harm in question here was cutting yourself. Yes.

I do also think that restricting eating is a form of self harm. And that was something that as I write about in the book, it started as an anxious response to my surroundings of being like, I literally feel sick. I can't eat, but then snowballed into something a little bit more intense and destructive. I'm glad you said earlier what I hope should be obvious to everybody that you're not recommending self-harm and I'm sure you would say that same thing about restrictive eating. Yeah. And it seems like at the core of both of them, I'm glad you made the connection to between the two is, and this is a huge theme in the book,

not being able to sit with pain. This is a universal issue. We all experience uncomfortable emotions. How are we gonna deal with them? You found some dysfunctional ways to deal with it. That's what landed you in the hospital. ways to deal with it. That's what landed you in the hospital. Yeah, for sure. I didn't have access to the functional ways to deal with it, which I think a lot of people don't. And also, you know this as being a meditator, it is difficult

to sit with difficult feelings, learning how to do that and be okay with that. It's hard work. Yeah, you could argue it's like the work of being a human being. So it sounds like the hospital stay was really transformative in this regard in particular. in this regard in particular. And one of the techniques that you picked up was something called DBT or dialectical behavioral therapy, which is another thing that I don't think we've talked about much on this show.

I know we've talked about cognitive behavioral therapy. Can you teach us a little bit about what DBT is and whether it's worked for you? Yeah, DBT saved my life. It changed my life. It was developed by a woman who was really struggling to get any sort of care for bipolar disorder. So, originally, it was developed for people with bipolar disorder, borderline personality

disorder. And as it started being used, people started to realize like, oh, this is also amazing for addiction. This is also amazing for self harm. This is also amazing for anyone who has mood issues, has trouble controlling their emotions. And basically what DBT is, is it's set up in five modules and you go through these modules, one of which is mindfulness, and you learn how to act opposite of your destructive instincts. You learn how to sub in more constructive coping skills, both when you're in acute crisis and just every day when you're not in acute crisis. You learn how to have more effective interpersonal relationships, sort of how to talk to people,

how to get a difficult point across. I've done DBT multiple times now, usually going through all five modules takes about six months, and I've done that three times. And I truly believe that there isn't a single person who wouldn't benefit from DBT. It is basic life skills that when you're learning them you're like this is common sense. Why am I learning this? And then

you realize oh yeah it is common sense but these are not things that when you're in an acute state of stress, you are naturally able to access. And doing DBT and sort of exercising these skills allows you to be able to access them when you are in grief, when you're in crisis, when you're about to have a panic attack, really like any emotion that is difficult. So walk me through it, like how it works for you now. Just say you're nervous about this interview, or you're nervous about putting your book out, or you get a shitty text from a friend or whatever.

Or if it's even something more grave than any of those, when the rubber hits the road, how do you apply it? This is another thing that I think is really interesting for DBT is that everyone has a different way of applying it. There are so many skills that you can use and you find the ones that work for you. And what works for me may not work for someone else and vice versa.

So for me, basically when something really intense happens, the first thing that I do is kind of stop and like take deep breaths where I'm very aware of the breaths that I'm taking. I don't make any sudden actions. I kind of repeat back to myself, okay, what are the facts of what's happening right now? What does this text say? What's the thing that's happening that's making me anxious? I identify what that thing is. Coming into this interview, I'm like, okay, I'm feeling anxiety. I know that it's because I'm about to talk about this book and what if I fuck up, say the wrong thing? And

you make sense of and identify the reasons why you're anxious and what is actually going on. And then I personally do something called checking the facts, which is you separate the facts from the assumptions that you're bringing into it. I don't want to say it removes emotion from it, but it removes your first instinctual emotion, which is not always the one that you want to lead with, as I know that you know. It sort of interrupts that for me, and it gives me time to sort of like, okay, what's going on here?

How do I want to approach this? How do I want to answer this? How do I want to deal with this? If it's anxiety, okay, I'm going to now figure out some coping skills that I can do. And that can be anything from, I'm going to sit before this started. I sat, I closed my eyes, I took three deep breaths, breathed in for three, I held it for three, and then I exhaled for six. And I did that three times and I was kind of like, OK, I can feel myself getting calmer.

Or maybe I'll go for a walk. There are so many different things that you can do. And then it just gives your brain time to actually look at what's happening, separate your emotion from the facts of it, and figure out how you want to respond to it, whatever it may be. Yeah, one of my favorite cliches in the meditation world is respond, not react.

And it sounds like you've learned through DBT how to do that. Yeah. And that's sort of the point of DBT. And they always say, like, when you're starting DBT, it can feel very mechanical, where you're like, okay, this is what's happening. What do I do now? It feels odd to sort of interrupt your natural way of being in this way. But the more you do it, the more second nature it becomes. And now, you know, my brain doesn't go through all the steps one by one. It just naturally knows what to do. I mean, not always, but a lot of the time.

Yeah. It's actually useful for you to say that because I think people get into any form of self-improvement or personal growth and expect perfection, but that is not gonna happen. to say that because I think people get into any form of self-improvement or personal growth and expect perfection but that is not gonna happen. No and it also doesn't make the initial feeling about something disappear. It's not like I don't get mad about something. I'm not a person who has a lot of arguments but let's say I do have an argument with someone in my life. It's not like I'm not mad. I am. But in the moment, I can interrupt myself, my brain, and think,

okay, how do I want to react to this? What is the most helpful way to react to this? Yeah, it's about going through these steps. I heard three steps. One is like stop instead of just habitually barreling forward with that first emotion. The second is analyze with some to the extent possible dry eyes. And the third is whatever coping skills work for you from breathing to walking to whatever. Yeah. And I think what people go to first is different for everyone, but there is something in the mindfulness module, which I think you'll appreciate, which is what they call emotional mind and wise mind. And you're trying to approach things from your wise mind, which is like, again, this is a mindfulness meditation technique of separating yourself from the emotional mind,

the immediate emotional reaction to something. Yeah, I mean, I've never taken DBT, although I can imagine it would be useful for me. On a brain level, the emotional brain is kind of like toward the back, right above the spine, sometimes referred to as the lizard brain. The amygdala. The amygdala, yeah, the fear center, the limbic system, all that. And then up front of the newer parts of the brain that only the humans have, to my knowledge, of the prefrontalal cortices and they can't fire really at

the same time. So if you can stay in logical reasonable brain regions, you're taking the amygdala offline and the reverse is true as well. If I can feel a panic attack coming on like on a plane, you know, feeling claustrophobic. One technique that I learned in doing exposure therapy is putting a number, what is the number out of 10 of my fear level right now? That actually just forces you into the prefrontal cortex and you can't do as much fearing in that zone. Does that all land for you? Oh yeah, totally.

I mean, it's the same concept as your sympathetic and your parasympathetic nervous system can't be functioning at the same time. So when you go into states of deep breathing, you're forcing the parasympathetic nervous system to fire and function, and it takes you out of the sympathetic nervous system. And there are also a lot of things in DBT for that sort of acute panic, where it's like there are times where you can't access, you actually just can't break yourself out

of the panic attack. And then there are physiological things that you can do. One of them is literally going face first into an ice bath, holding your breath and going face first because it fires the mechanism in your brain. And your brain goes into survival mode and is like, oh, I'm going into water face first. I have to hold my breath so I don't drown. And it will pretty much immediately take you out of a panic attack. Hard to do on a plane. Not a lot of ice baths available in the middle seat in coach.

I have a maybe kind of embarrassingly obvious question, but what's it like in a psychiatric hospital? And I know this was a private one and not one flew over the cuckoo's nest. I'm being slightly facetious here, but like, what's the vibe? So I was very lucky to be there in the first two weeks after the new year,

which is a very quiet time of year. For most of the time I was there, it was just me and four other people. I really, really liked all of the other girls that I was there with. I think that something I tried to get across in the book when talking about it is there's sort of a monotony to it that is almost like a walking meditation. Things are very still and quiet, or at least they were for me. You have a routine and your day is or at least they were for me, you have a routine and your day is sort of the same every day.

You're going to these groups and you're going from this building and back and that building, there is like a contained monotony to it that I found very comforting. I'm sure that there are times when it's not like that. And I do write about in the book how by the time I was leaving the house that I was living in was much more full of people. So I think a lot of my experience of it had to do with the time that I was there

as well. Did you create a lot of close relationships? I did. Well, I was in there. It is a very singular experience and you're sort of forced into these living situations with people that you've never met before and then you get to know them very quickly. It's an intense experience but I was very lucky to be with a group that they were just so interesting and really cool women. Coming up, Anna Marie Tendler talks

about the very personal realization she had while hospitalized, the difference between our interior lives and the way the world sees us. And we'll get into the major theme of her book, Men. In April 1912, the luxury ocean liner RMS Titanic embarked on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, en route to New York. Spirits were high, but as the ship sailed into the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, danger was lurking. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondry's podcast American History Tellers.

We take you to the events, times, and people that shaped America and Americans, our values, our struggles, and our dreams. In our latest series, we'll take you to the early hours of April 15, 1912, when the Titanic strikes an iceberg, 2,200 passengers and crew are left scrambling for the lifeboats and their lives. Follow American History Tellers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge this season of American History Tellers on the Titanic early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.

Welcome to the Offensive Line. You guys, on this podcast, we're gonna make some pics, talk some shit and hopefully make you some money in the process. I'm your host, Annie Yeager. So here's how this show is going to work. OK, we're going to run through

the weekly slate of NFL and college football matchups, breaking them down into very serious categories like no offense. No offense, Travis Kelsey, but you got to step up your game if Pat Mahomes is saying the Chiefs need to have more fun this year. We're also handing out a series of awards and making picks for the top storylines surrounding

the world of football. Awards like the He May Have a Point Award for the wide receiver that's most justifiably bitter. Is it Brandon Iyuk, T. Higgins, or Devante Adams? Plus on Thursdays we're doing an exclusive bonus episode on Wondry Plus, where I share my fantasy football picks ahead of Thursday Night Football and the weekend's matchups. Your fantasy league is as good as locked in. Follow the offensive line on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can access bonus episodes and listen ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus. Before we head back into the interview, just want to remind you about the Meditation Party retreat coming up on October 11th. EOmega.org to sign up. Also want to remind you about the new feature over on the 10% Happier app where you can do a monthly check-in and get a personalized meditation plan. You learned a lot about yourself in this experience and there's one quote among many I'm going to get in the habit of

reading you little chunks from the book and then getting you to talk about it but this is a very small one to start but one of the doctors says to you and this is the quote from the doctor to you there's a you inside that feels invisible to those looking at you from the outside to those looking at you from the outside. Why was that such a big revelation for you? I've always had anxiety. I've always had depression, but I have always been incredibly high functioning. I wasn't a person who couldn't make it to school or couldn't make it to work. I continued to show up for things and I spent a lot of my life feeling like my internal experience was wildly different than my external experience in the world and how people were experiencing me. I felt often at war with myself in that sense, where when I went through the psychological testing and this doctor who had never met me before,

the day that he tested me was the first time we had ever met. So I knew whatever this assessment of me was going to be pretty objective based on the testing. And there were so many things that were mirrored back to me about my experience in life, how I go through life, how I present this incredibly sturdy exterior and I'm able to do that even when I don't feel that way internally was hugely healing. I think it was the first time in my life where I felt like a person kind of saw my internal experience. Okay, so I'm going to read you from the results of your psychological testing, which you include in the book.

Here's what the doctor says to you. You have tendencies toward orderliness, persistence, careful deliberation and focus. You're cautious, detail oriented, and try to actively manage situations and tasks. My assumption is you are also very reliable and dependable. You likely react very strongly to situations that have the potential to evoke fear, anxiety, sadness, guilt, and shame. You doubt yourself and also blame yourself for negative outcomes. When you feel like you might fail at something or like you've let someone down, your anxiety becomes so overwhelming that you shut down. He pauses and then asks, how does it feel to hear this?

This is obviously back to you writing your description of this scene. And then this is back to you here. I'm so stunned, I almost don't know what to say. That sounds like my exact experience of life. Just say a little bit more about that scene. I had said to this doctor during the testing that I in undergrad, one of my focuses had been psychology, and I was really

interested in psychology. And so he came to the house after the testing and asked me if it would be meaningful to me to go over my results in person instead of just reading them in this report. And I was like, yeah, I would love that to like hear it from a psychologist directly and be able to have a conversation about it. It's interesting. This is actually like the first time that I've had what I wrote, read back to me. I've obviously read it out loud, but even when you were reading it to me, I was like, oh yeah, it is right there. You can hear the difference between what is happening externally and what is happening internally, like conscientiousness, openness. These are all things that are

exterior. It is how I am, but it's also how other people experience me that I like show up for things on time. You know, I have friends that are like, oh I know that like you're always gonna be the first person there. And then the other things of the guilt and shame and not wanting to get in trouble or not wanting to let someone down, not wanting to let myself down, those are such interior emotions. I think even when he was saying those things to me, I could hear and see the dichotomy

of how I go through the world and how I feel internally as I go through the world and how different they are. And that difference, that delta is the source of a lot of pain and discomfort, anxiety, depression, etc. Yes, I think a lot. It can feel very isolating at times. I think you can come away from social situations feeling incredibly misunderstood, feeling as though the people closest to you don't understand you, feeling like you're always on the precipice of intense anxiety flooding, I think that's a huge, huge source of anxiety and stress and depression. It kind of brings us to a huge, if not dominant theme in the book, which we are halfway through this interview

and we haven't gotten to, is men. The book, as a reminder, is called Men Have Called Her Crazy, which I think is a great title. So maybe without me asking a pointed question, maybe you can just say a little bit about why this book, which I guess could have just been very starkly and pointedly about your time in psychiatric care,

really evolved into a book that weaves that into your relationship with men and to men writ large. It felt impossible not to do. It almost wasn't even a question. My life from the time I was young until now and continuing going forward, I feel so aware of the differences between how men and women are treated, how they're able to move through the world, how success is defined, how they're defined in public, how my life has been impacted by men. I couldn't tell my life experience without that being a huge part of it.

We live in a patriarchy and I feel it all the time. This question is very on the nose, but is it weird then to be having this discussion with me, given my chromosomal makeup? It's not, it's actually, I revel in the opportunity to talk to a man about my experience with men. I've also had like amazing experiences with men and it's not like I think that they're all bad, though I do think they're all slightly problematic.

But my therapist, when I got out of the hospital, was a man. He was my therapist for three years. I never thought I would have a male therapist. And it was like the best thing I could have done. And part of what was so great about it is that I got to say, this is my experience in the world. This is why I'm so angry. These are the things I've experienced. And he had to listen to it and hear it. And I found that there were times

when I had a female therapist where I would say that and it was just like, yeah, fuck men, fuck men. And like they're experiencing it too, but there was something really healing and cathartic about saying it to a man and being like, no, you're sitting here. You can't go anywhere. You have to listen to this. Yep.

That makes a lot of sense. Let's just go back to the comment you made a minute or two ago about all men being slightly problematic. What do you mean by that? Well, listen, I think that this exists on a continuum as well, because I'm coming at this from the experience of a straight white woman. My experience in the world is not all that different from a straight white man, but it also is. The gap between what it is to be a man and to be a woman, I think, is huge. And when I say the problematic thing, I don't mean individual men. What I sort of mean is the social construct that is holding up the patriarchy.

There are so many things about it that are unavoidable. I think about when I was dating and I would be on dating apps, men would be like, so where do you live? And I would be like, I'm not gonna tell you where I live. That person is not a bad person, but it didn't dawn on them that a single woman wouldn't want to say where she lives and that might make her uncomfortable. I think there is just an ease with which men move through the world that women do not have.

Yeah, that feels right to me. I'm an expert on what it's like to be this man. So I don't want to speak for all men, but it does seem right that we move through the world with a lot of ease that's unacknowledged on our parts that can lead to insensitivity. that can lead to insensitivity. Yeah, that in and of itself is maddening to me. And I recognize that doesn't make you a bad person, but when things like that happen, I am now at a point in my life where I'm sort of like, come on, just have a little bit more awareness of just these small things. It goes a long way for women. It's like, God, the bar is so low.

Don't ask this woman where she lives. Don't ask her if she wants a ride home. She's probably not going to want to get into a car with a stranger. I had men when I was dating who would ask me to have dates at like private places. You're living in a different world. That's not the world I'm living in. Picking up on the undercurrent of frustration, if not anger in those comments, there's a little passage from the book. I'm going to read this to you and then maybe you can just free associate on the other side.

Here's 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 that we have been correct all along We do go bat shit fucking crazy and it is warranted Yeah, I mean I can't tell you how many times I have confronted a man about something and they've been like

No Mm-hmm. No that didn't happen You're wrong. I do try and understand, I think, where it's coming from on their side, where it is a self-preservation. It is an avoidance. Like, oh, this is touchy and I don't want to deal with this now, so I'm going to say something that's going to divert the conversation. That is always worse. Women are very intuitive.

There has always been this sort of aura around women that like, oh, women are crazy. She went through my email. She read my diary. She did this, that, and the other. She's crazy. And it's like, well, how many times did she ask you to tell the truth before she went into the email? I'm not condoning going into email. It's not anything I've ever done. But I think that there's a way in which we're told, no, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong. And then you're not wrong. And then everything comes out. And then people point to that and go, she's crazy. Let me read you another passage. I don't hate men.

I still want to fuck them. I still want to love them. I've simply changed the way I relate to them. And what of myself I'm willing to fuck them, I still want to love them, I've simply changed the way I relate to them and what of myself I'm willing to give. I no longer get lost inside the abyss of the other. There is space between us now. It's shocking how much faster I recover from an ending when I don't have to disentangle my sense of self from the other person. I can at times feel mad at the men who came before this moment because I know for sure no man has ever had to work so hard

to disentangle himself from me. You are so stupid, I want to tell myself, but I redirect my thoughts to something more constructive. You're so lucky to have learned this now. It will keep you safe and happy. My brain makes a slight amendment. Maybe not totally happy, but perhaps happier. I'm still me after all.

I still do feel like I'm dying after a breakup and I wanna normalize this feeling. It's okay to feel this way within a healthy context. So there's a lot in that chunk that I just read to you, but what comes up for you as I read that? I think something that has been my life's work in relationship, especially romantic relationships with men is I think a lot of times women are really taught to be agreeable and to go with the flow.

And if you're not agreeable, then you're difficult. And I really never wanted to be difficult because I saw how being difficult hindered things for me. It made people break up with me. It created arguments. There was always this thing of, okay, I'm just gonna do the path of least resistance. I think in that sense you get, or I could get very lost in what do I want and how am I contorting myself to make this other person happy that doesn't feel authentic to who I am. And coming to terms with that, which is very difficult because you are putting yourself more at risk when you can speak up for yourself and say the things that you want or have healthy conflict. There's a chance that you can greet another person that way and they'll sort of retreat

and be like, oh god, no, I don't want that. So I think that when you come to a relationship in that way, there's way more of a chance of rejection, honestly, but being okay with that rejection and being like, okay, I stayed true to myself and I'm gonna be me. And if someone can't meet me where I am, then they're just not the right person. It doesn't mean that I should be someone different so that this person will like me. It kind of goes back to distress tolerance, maybe.

Let's see if I can make this connection. But even though it was uncomfortable It kind of goes back to distress tolerance, maybe. Let's see if I can make this connection. But even though it was uncomfortable to subsume your personality into the other, it did keep you safe in a way. And it gave you a sense of control in some way too. It doesn't seem utterly unrelated to cutting. No, I think control and belonging, right?

Like the human instinct is to be in relationship with other people. Nobody wants to feel unloved or rejected. And so I found myself figuring out ways in my relationship that I could save myself from being rejected, save myself from feeling unlovable. That's work you have to do on your own. And really, I realized what it is, is building up the tolerance to the distress and being able to sit with an emotion of, I brought my authentic self to this situation and there was a conflict and I wanted to deal with it and I wanted to talk about it and that person wasn't at that point

where they could do that and therefore they broke up with me or didn't like me anymore and I just have to be like, that's okay. But it also sucks. You have to like learn how to be okay with feeling some sort of rejection and understanding that it's not necessarily about you or it doesn't make you unlovable. And that's very hard to do, I think. It's been a minute since we've spoken in real life, but you've made several references to

when I was dating. So are you now no longer dating? I am not dating at the moment. I'm in a relationship now. I sometimes wonder though, like, even if I wasn't, if right now I would be dating. Now I'm drawing a little bit from our private conversation, but because dating is just so arduous emotionally. Yeah, I find it very, very arduous emotionally. It's not like I have everything figured out. There is a point where things don't work out with a bunch of people in a row or you know and you do sort of feel like the rejection or the unbelonging or the unlovableness and you're like oh okay I gotta take a break from this because I'm putting my own self-worth in how somebody else is experiencing me and that's not a healthy way to live.

Also, I will say, I absolutely am not one of those people that thinks that we should 100% be able to stand on our own and generate everything we need from the inside. That's not how life works. We live in relationship with other people. So I think that to be in relationship is incredibly important. You can't just be like an island. Speaking of relationships, I was interested to see that you are actively thinking about whether you want to have kids. And I was remembering you were one of the first people to come visit us. Bianca and I, when we had Alexander nine years ago, and you were adamant that you did not want to have children. Yes. And so that's I guess I'm curious what's changed.

And also, like, how would it go for you if you had a boy? I still really don't see that as like my path in life. In the book, I do write about freezing my eggs and that felt like an insurance policy, a very expensive insurance policy, but I wanted to be open to the possibility of an accident or changing my mind, but it's very difficult for me to picture myself as a parent. And it is very hard to picture me as a parent of a son. But I think that I would also like love any child that I had. I wouldn't like lock him in the basement or something. I could rise to the occasion.

And also like I've been around you and Bianca and Alexander, and I feel like he's such a like cool, sensitive boy. They're possible, right? They're possible. Yes. I was a sensitive boy and then really got pulled into the sort of classic male cover-up macho bullshit. Not that I could really pull off machismo, given that I'm very small as a human,

but being rough on my exterior, et cetera, et cetera, as a way of pretending that there was no vulnerability beneath. And so, yeah, Alexander's a sensitive boy now, but when the world sets in on you as you get older, lots of tricky things can happen. There's a whole scene in my book where I have that conversation with a partner

saying how I really think with raising boys, it's not what's happening at home. Like you can raise a son with the absolute best intentions, but our world is pervasively male. And once they're exposed to the outside world, I think a lot is out of your control. Do you feel that way? Absolutely, but my parents were proto hippies, early, early hippies. And my mom was a pioneering female full professor at Harvard med school.

I had a very strong female role model in the house. And then I go to junior high and things happen and you pick up bad influences from whatever Hollywood from the early Beastie Boys tracks from your friends, maybe didn't have enlightened parents and off to the races you go. Yeah, I think I had like an inverse of that where my mom too was a very strong force She was the main force in the family and she was and is and I say this Lovingly a force to be reckoned with and what's very interesting about her as well Is that even when I talk to her now?

she often doesn't see the differences between men and women and how they go through the world. And sometimes I'll talk to her about the male-female dynamic and she'll be like, oh yeah, I don't feel that way at all. Or like, no, I never felt that way with men. Kind of like, yeah, because you're an intensely you person. She really embodies herself. And so when I was young, I was like that too.

I was like a firecracker. And I got into trouble a lot in middle school or even early high school. I was like a brat. I would like talk back to the male teachers and I kind of had this punk rock, I don't give any fucks about anything attitude. And then I went out into the real world and I was like, oh shit, this is different than what my home was. Women are not in control here. I'm not in control.

I am at the mercy of all of these men around me and what the fuck is this? And I think I really Closed in on myself in a major way to keep myself safe Sorry, I'm just thinking back on knowing you for I met you in like 2006 or 7 or something like that and I think it was 2008 2008. Okay. I think you very much struck me as shy and introverted early, but getting to know you, I mean, you are an introvert or as your doctor diagnosed you, you're an anti extrovert in some ways, but I wouldn't describe you in private when you're comfortable

as a shrinking violet. violent? No, not at all. Just going back to the exterior interior as well, when I am in groups or when I am in social situations where I'm uncomfortable or I don't feel understood or something, I'm so quiet. I remember some of those Hamptons parties that we would go to when we first met and I probably didn't say a word all night. You know, I was just kind of, these aren't my people and I don't think anyone here understands me and everyone thinks I'm dumb and I don't have money and I'm just gonna shut up. But then when I'm with people who I'm very comfortable with, But then when I'm with people who I'm very comfortable with, who know me well, then I feel like that's the real me. I see so many similarities between your description of your inner world

and what I think I understand about the inner world of Bianca. I actually asked her whether she thought we should do this interview together because we do sometimes do interviews together. She said no, just because it would be too weird given how close she is with you. But like, I think I'm now understanding why the two of you hit it off so early and powerfully. For sure. There's a whole chapter in the book about my time in the Hamptons. I felt like such an outsider in that world. I knew I was a fish out of water.

I knew that everybody was looking at me and was like, why is this person here? Bianca's maybe eight or nine years older than me, but we met and it was like, you. You're my ally here. Like, you understand. You think these people are a little crazy, right? And so we would end up having like so many conversations, just the two of us, that it

wasn't small talk. We would like talk about really deep life things and she was one of the few saving graces of that time in my life. She will be happy to hear that. Coming up, Anna talks about how sexism is bad for both women and men. The role fear plays in our relationships, and lastly, how she found a way to sit with her own discomfort and show up in the world in a very different way. What's up, guys? It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season. way. Polar, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on. So follow, watch, and listen to, baby, this is Keke Palmer on the Wondery app,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I wanna go back to, you used this term earlier, the patriarchy, and you were kinda questioning me a little bit about what my take is on all of this as a man. And this is not an original observation at all, so I don't wanna pretend that I am coining anything here but sexism is actually really bad for men. I kind of referred to this obliquely earlier my junior high experience being a sensitive boy and then taught that any displays of weakness are unacceptable that reduces your emotional repertoire

down to a nub in ways that are bad for you. And so like nobody, I don't really think anybody's, well maybe somebody's winning in all of this, but I think most people are losing. I totally agree with that. And I will say no part of me thinks the emotional handicap that men I feel go through life with that I would want it. I don't.

And I have this conversation with my female friends a lot where we will be like, damn, we feel really bad for men. I have this group of female friends that I can talk to them about anything. I can go to them with the smallest or the biggest problem. We all talk about things we're insecure about. Just this past week, one of them was like, do you guys have imposter syndrome?

We were all like, yes, let me list all of the reasons why we have imposter syndrome. And some of us, we were also like, I feel like I have imposter syndrome with you guys as a friend. I feel like I'm not doing good enough as a friend. And we were all like, no, everybody's doing great. The conversations that we have and the level of deepness, there is an intimacy in my female relationships that my romantic relationships with men have never and I don't think will ever rival because I have never met a man who can go there the way that women can go there. And I think that it creates such amazingly close special relationships when you can have

that sort of emotional intimacy with someone. You know, I look at so many of my friends, we talk about how their dads don't have friends. Their dads live these very lonely insular lives. And I'm like, damn, that is not going to be my experience. I have like this group of women around me that have like this group of women around me that I love and the feeling is mutual, you know. This is a bit of a non sequitur. But if there's a guy listening who may in his lesser moments feel the reflex to dismiss the behavior of the women in his life as crazy, what would you say

to him? of the women in his life as crazy, what would you say to him? To be honest, first, because I am interested in people and I like to know why they do things that they're doing, is I would be like, what behavior is she doing that is setting you off and why is it setting you off? Because I think that the root of understanding why we get upset at other people is understanding the thing that it is triggering in us.

And so what I would say to a guy is can you take a moment to think about what it was that it triggered in you that made you upset What's the thing that made you mad? What are you afraid of? What's underneath the anger because I think what's underneath anger a lot of times is fear. I would urge men to Really look at that Because I think when you can look at that it allows you to drop it a little and then when you can drop it the relationships that you can look at that, it allows you to drop it a little. And then when you can drop it, the relationships that you can have with people are just exponentially better. That makes a lot of sense. If I just kind of interpolate back through my own personal experience, maybe she would disagree. But I don't think I'm in the habit of calling Bianca crazy

now or in the past, but it's possible that I'm letting myself off the hook here. But crazy now or in the past, but it's possible that I'm letting myself off the hook here. But I know that I've had sort of irrational levels of anger, especially in the past, to when she would get emotional. And I would tell myself she was being overly emotional. And the fear that was beneath that was that I was incapable of love of being a good partner in those moments. I had no visibility into that until the last couple of years. So anyway, that tracks very closely with what you just said. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. I do this too. I think everyone does this.

I think that men are more apt to stonewall in situations. more apt to Stonewall in situations. So that is sort of what I'm reacting to in those moments. But also I think about if I was having a conversation with someone and they were getting mad at my reaction about something and then they were able to drop their ego for a moment and be like, the reason why this is upsetting to me is because I'm afraid of what it means about me. The way that that would change my whole reaction to the

conversation, how disarming. And when you're able to be upfront with what you're feeling, you have to of course first be able to identify what you're feeling and put language to what you're feeling, which is a whole other skill that I think is important to learn. But in those moments to be able to say the thing you're really feeling, I think it neutralizes conflict pretty quickly. Because if someone said that to me, I would be like, Oh God, that sounds awful and scary. And I don't experience you as a bad partner. And what can we do so that we both feel like we're getting the thing that we need? I think the stonewalling as speaking as a veteran stonewaller is not a aggressive strategy.

Like I just for myself, I don't think I was doing it deliberately as like a tactic. It was more dissociation. I just was absenting myself because I couldn't handle it. And it was raising these fears that I was not actually really fully in touch with. So it was the only option available to me. At least that's the way it felt. Yeah, that's interesting. I would also be so curious

to know if that somehow makes it easier to identify and correct, because I've certainly been on the receiving end of that type of stonewalling and also the more aggressive type where it's like you're being punished. And I wonder if the kind that you are experiencing. Would be any more or less difficult. I don't want to let myself off the hook here because I do think I've done the you're being punished stonewalling plenty of times. But I actually think that beneath all of it is still the fear. Right. Okay.

So it was like identifying that which allowed you to move past. I mean, I think of shame as psychic constipation. It just stops everything up. It's like when you're in that that zone like nothing good can happen and you're highly disincentivized Against looking at it because you're wrapped up in the shame of it. That's just gonna make it worse is the story You're telling yourself. So yeah only when there's like some Empathy in the system some warmth in the system some understanding can you?

empathy in the system, some warmth in the system, some understanding, can you unlock and do what you were calling for earlier, which is to say, hey, I'm sorry, the reason why I'm freaking out right now is because it's raising my fears of being incapable of love. Like that requires years of therapy, or could require years of therapy. Yeah, oh, I know.

Which is why I find romantic relationships so difficult. Yeah. Is because I feel like I come up against a lot the people where I'm like, oh, this is going to take a while. There's some things that need to be worked out here. I was actually going to ask you, like, does it go a long way to in those moments have somebody else, whoever you're talking to, whether it be Bianca or someone else be like, I'm saying this to you and I don't think that you're a bad person.

I wanna be clear that I'm not saying that you're a bad person. Cause I feel like that is something I have dealt with so many men that I feel like have that exact piece of shame where it's like, if you're mad at me about something, you're saying that I'm a piece of shit person. And I'm like have that exact piece of shame where it's like, if you're mad at me about something, you're saying that I'm a piece of shit person. And I'm like, no, that is absolutely not what I'm saying.

I think that you're a great person. You did a thing that hurt my feelings. That is exactly, that is- That does go a long way. It does go a long way because that is, for me at least, that is what the core of it is. The accusation, I go right to a whole shame-based story and then nothing happens.

You're constipated, the whole relationship. You know, this is just from my point of view, so I think I've had an easier go of it in relationships than you have. I feel pretty comfortable saying that. I'm based on knowing you for a while. I think, and this again is not an original observation, I think I'm stealing this from our couples counselors,

Michael Vincent Miller, who's awesome. And by the way, just side note, couples counseling, especially as a preventative measure, I just wanna put a shout out for that. I think it's really helpful. It's been very helpful to me and Bianca. I agree. I believe it's Michael or maybe it's Esther Perel

or both of them have said that, you know, you can look at romantic relationships as a crucible for like an extraordinary amount of personal growth. And so as hard and frustrating and demoralizing as they can be, a lot of good can happen in the tough stuff. Oh, a hundred percent. And I think that's also goes back to what I was saying earlier about how we as humans learn in relationship with other people. I learn about myself in relationship with other people and we all do that. We learn about our triggers.

We learn about the things that make us feel good and the things that we want and need. And so I agree. I've actually so far to no avail have tried to get some of my partners to do early preventative couples therapy as a way to just be like, Hey, let's figure out how we can best talk to each other. It's a hard thing to convince people to do. Yeah. She tried for, Bianca tried for years. It took me a while to convince people to do. Yeah. She tried for years. It took me a while before I listened to her.

So, yeah. You're a lucky man. You have an angel for a wife. I will not argue with you on that. As we near the end of our allotted time, let me just ask, like, so it's been, I'm not great at math, but I think about three and a half years since you checked yourself into the facility. Yes. Yeah, three and a half. I want to ask like how you're doing now, but I'm going to for the last time, I'm going

to read you back to you and then let you kind of answer the question on the back end of this little section I'm going to read to you. Here it is. Now I'm a new person. Life has in no way gotten easier in so many ways it has become harder, but I've become sturdier. I'm now a sturdy person. Someone who feels tremendous emotions, but who knows how to acknowledge those feelings, sit with them, communicate them if need be,

and then let them go. Yeah, none of that I will say is easy to do. It's not like I don't have anxiety anymore. It's not like I don't have depression anymore. I am a person with big emotions, but I have learned how to exist with them instead of them overtaking me, which I think has been the most beneficial thing. And it's not that I don't feel sad. I'm having a really hard week, but I can kind of say, okay, I know why I'm having a hard week and I'll talk about it with my therapist or I'll talk about it with a friend and then I can let it go and come to this

and be excited to have this conversation with you. The bad thing doesn't have to color everything. The anxiety doesn't have to color everything. I can live in the continuum that my brain gives me which is a wide continuum of motion. And I now see it as something that is such a gift. I mean, it is hard. I still at times find it very hard to be in my head and to live my internal life that I'm living, but I also see it as a gift

and the things that it's allowed me to do. It allowed me to write this book. It allowed me to create some of the art that I've created in the past few years. It allows me to be a really good friend and a really good partner. And I feel very proud of myself for where I have come to. Well, I'm proud of you too. What you just described is a huge achievement to be able to be okay,

a quantumist, no matter what's happening, not all the time, but more of the time than you used to be. It's a massive achievement. Thank you. I also feel like you've seen me in some low moments. Well, that's part of friendship. Yeah. It's also, I just want to say, a huge achievement to write a book. So on that note, can you just remind everybody of the name of the book? And also, you know, is there a website, social media place that you want to direct us to? The name of the book is Men Have Called Her Crazy.

It's out on August 13th. Anywhere that you buy books, ebook, hardcover, audiobook, which I narrate, and my Instagram is Anna M. Tendler, where I post artwork and information about the book and photos of me from high school. Which are adorable, by the way. Thank you. Thank you. [♪ music playing. Fading out.

[♪ Music playing. Thanks again to Anna Marie Tendler. Go check out her book. If you want to support this show, don't forget to give us a rating or a review in whatever podcast app you use. That actually really helps us. And go to danharris.com if you want to sign up

for my weekly newsletter in which I sum up my favorite learnings from the week's episodes and also share some cultural recommendations. Finally, before I go, I want to thank everybody who worked so hard on this show. They really worked hard, this team. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, I want to thank everybody who worked so hard on this show. They really work hard, this team. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People.

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