Crazy Together

Marcus & Esme O’Kayvius

If you’re sick and tired of listening to the negative talk track playing in your head, then why not listen to us instead? We are Marcus and Esme O’Kayvius (not our real names), a married, neurodivergent couple with a lot of experience managing our own mental health issues while raising a daughter and navigating the dystopic hellscape that is corporate America. Join us each week as we discuss trending mental health issues and explore how they impact our health and wellness. We’ll also examine the myths and misconceptions associated with mental health and what we can do about them. Visit our website: crazytogetherpod.com

  1. 1D AGO

    96. When ADHD Makes You Go Blank

    Picture this: you’re actively working on something that requires a lot of attention (e.g., homework, an assignment at work, an e-mail to a boss who requires communication that is somehow both succinct and robust, etc.). But then, all of a sudden – whoosh – your mind goes blank. No thoughts. Just blank. It would be a real Zen sound of one-hand clapping moment if the timing wasn’t so inconveniant. Because, eventually, you snap back to attention. You shake your head, bewildered by the experience, and upset that you allowed yourself to lose focus again.  But what if it wasn’t entirely up to you whether you lost focus or not? In this week’s episode, Marcus and Esme review two recent studies that suggest: a) those moments where we lose focus, trail off in thought, or just go blank are a product of naturally occurring phenomena in our brains; and b) there are structural differences in our brains that differentiate our experiences from those of neurotypical people. What does it all mean? Well, maybe we can start by being a little kinder to ourselves.  Visit our website: crazytogetherpod.com Contact us: https://www.crazytogetherpod.com/contact Sources for this episode include: Pinggal, Elaine, et al. “Sleep-like Slow Waves During Wakefulness Mediate Attention and Vigilance Difficulties in Adult Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.” Journal of Neuroscience, 16 Mar. 2026, doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1694-25.2025. Currie, Jake. “Adults With ADHD Experience Sleep-Like Brain Waves While Awake.” Nautilus, 18 Mar. 2026, https://nautil.us/adults-with-adhd-experience-sleep-like-brain-waves-while-awake-1279024.  Pan N, Long Y, Qin K, et al. Mapping ADHD Heterogeneity and Biotypes by Topological Deviations in Morphometric Similarity Networks. JAMA Psychiatry. Published online February 25, 2026. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2026.0001 Bradshaw, Helen. “There Might Be 3 Different Types of ADHD, New Brain Study Suggests.” National Geographic, 3 Mar. 2026, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/health/article/adhd-brain-study-three-subtypes.  Our theme music Midnight—Declan DP [Audio Library Release] Music provided by Audio Library Plus Watch:    • Midnight — Declan DP | Free Backgroun...   Free Download / Stream: https://alplus.io/midnight-declan-dp

    36 min
  2. MAR 26

    94. Time Blindness and Misdirected Accommodations

    October 2023: A TikTok creator uploads a video in which she tearfully recounts her experience asking about the possibility of time blindness accommodations during a job interview and the angry rebuke she received from her prospective employer. And people descended on her comments section like a plague of locusts. “Time blindness isn’t real!” some wrote. Another 30 or so commenters wrote some variation of “what if your employer had paycheck blindness - would that be fair?” The neurodivergent came for her as well. “I have ADHD and terrible time blindness and I’ve learned to deal with it. It’s our problem. Not our employers.”  Why are we so quick to jump on someone who asks about reasonable accommodations for a legitimate issue? American workers make accommodations all the time. The only problem is, we make them for our employers. Salaried workers work 50 - 60 hours a week but only get paid for 40. Shift workers are at the mercy of algorithmic scheduling programs that optimize for efficiency and ignore employees’ personal circumstances and needs (e.g., childcare, transportation, etc.). In this episode, Marcus and Esme discuss time blindness, affirm that it is a very real thing, and make a case for accommodations. They then shift course to try to figure out why we are so willing to do our bosses' work for them and criticize anyone who dares question the status quo.     Visit our website: crazytogetherpod.com Contact us: https://www.crazytogetherpod.com/contact Sources for this episode include: Ly, Adam. “Time Unbound: Managing Time Blindness at Work.” Attention Magazine, Feb. 2024, CHADD, https://chadd.org/adhd-news/adhd-news-adults/attention-time-unbound-managing-time-blindness-at-work/. Kuhn, Peter, and Fernando Lozano. The Expanding Workweek? Understanding Trends in Long Work Hours Among U.S. Men, 1979–2004. NBER Working Paper No. 11895, National Bureau of Economic Research, Dec. 2005, https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w11895/w11895.pdf.  Mishel, Lawrence. Vast Majority of Wage Earners Are Working Harder, and for Not Much More: Trends in U.S. Work Hours and Wages over 1979–2007. Economic Policy Institute, 30 Jan. 2013, https://www.epi.org/publication/ib348-trends-us-work-hours-wages-1979-2007/.  Our theme music Midnight—Declan DP [Audio Library Release] Music provided by Audio Library Plus Watch:    • Midnight — Declan DP | Free Backgroun...   Free Download / Stream: https://alplus.io/midnight-declan-dp

    1h 13m
  3. MAR 13

    91. HYPERFOCUS BONUS: Behold the PriceMaster!

    Marcus and Esme share one of their all-time favorite videos: The PriceMaster – a weird and wonderful recording of a 2001 performance art piece in which a handful of college kids turned an everyday, run-of-the-mill yard sale into a surreal allegory about capitalism. They also discuss how the city of Denton, Texas (the setting for that particular performance) has adopted the PriceMaster and continues to celebrate its legacy to this day. Visit our website: crazytogetherpod.com Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/C0C216B887  Contact us: https://www.crazytogetherpod.com/contact Sources for this episode include: The article about the legacy of the PriceMaster McPhate, Christian. “From Absurd Garage Sale to Local Legend, Denton Marks 25 Years of the PriceMaster.” Denton Record‑Chronicle, 7 Feb. 2026, https://dentonrc.com/entertainment/from-absurd-garage-sale-to-local-legend-denton-marks-25-years-of-the-pricemaster/article_0a1eff6c-2dd0-495a-aca0-96278b645f40.html.  The original video (32:23) - The PriceMaster. “The PriceMaster (Full Version).” YouTube, uploaded by The PriceMaster, 7 Dec. 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUmmxW7Ksc8.  The Found Footage Fest edit (2:08) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9GBLVRPeaE  Our theme music Midnight—Declan DP [Audio Library Release] Music provided by Audio Library Plus Watch:    • Midnight — Declan DP | Free Backgroun...   Free Download / Stream: https://alplus.io/midnight-declan-dp

    24 min
  4. MAR 6

    89. HYPERFOCUS BONUS: But That Happened Before I was Diagnosed!

    Most people have at least one cringe-inducing memory: the kind of memory that can come flooding back all of a sudden and trigger a spasm of embarrassment and regret throughout your entire body. People with ADHD tend to have a lot more of those memories, especially if they were diagnosed later in life. The years we spent acting on impulses and chasing dopamine without knowing why all but guarantees we’ll have at least one or two memories we’d prefer to forget. So, what should we do if we can’t forget them? How about we try to own them instead? That’s the experiment Marcus and Esme are trying in this week’s Hyperfocus Bonus. They each take turns sharing an embarrassing memory that was the direct result of poor decisions they made with their pre-diagnosis brains in the hopes of stripping those memories of their power.  But that’s not all – they’re also inviting you, the listeners - to share your own stories if you feel comfortable. Simply send them an e-mail at crazytogetherpod@gmail.com with your own cringe-inducing pre-diagnosis story and they might feature it in an upcoming episode! Visit our website: crazytogetherpod.com Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/C0C216B887  Contact us: https://www.crazytogetherpod.com/contact Our theme music Midnight—Declan DP [Audio Library Release] Music provided by Audio Library Plus Watch:    • Midnight — Declan DP | Free Backgroun...   Free Download / Stream: https://alplus.io/midnight-declan-dp

    21 min
5
out of 5
9 Ratings

About

If you’re sick and tired of listening to the negative talk track playing in your head, then why not listen to us instead? We are Marcus and Esme O’Kayvius (not our real names), a married, neurodivergent couple with a lot of experience managing our own mental health issues while raising a daughter and navigating the dystopic hellscape that is corporate America. Join us each week as we discuss trending mental health issues and explore how they impact our health and wellness. We’ll also examine the myths and misconceptions associated with mental health and what we can do about them. Visit our website: crazytogetherpod.com

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