Between 1887 and 1893, at the height of her career as the head of her cosmetics company, Blanche Howard, a finishing school mistress in Stuttgart, Germany, turned Ayer's daughters, who were enrolled there, against her.
Ayer's mental symptoms, a combination of "Melancholia" and addiction to doctor prescribed morphine for headaches, exhaustion, and insomnia, led to her commitment as a 'lunatic.'