Crazy Together

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. 

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Esme reaches an important milestone with a new endeavor and shares a few valuable lessons she learned along the way. Marcus attempts to manpower his way through a landscaping task that is best left to machines; and much like John Henry, the "steel driving man" of legend, he pays a price for it.

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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.  

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Marcus acknowledges a common theme from the last several episodes of Crazy Together – specifically, the artistic and crafty endeavors of various members of the Irish diaspora - and promises to pursue different themes in due time. He then precedes to outline a complicated St. Patrick’s Day prank he’s always wanted to pull off that would almost certainly earn him a punch in the jaw from a drunken American reveler. Esme then bemoans the erratic nature of March weather in southeastern Pennsylvania, but is quick to reassure herself and everyone else that better days are coming now that Spring is (almost) here.

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Marcus and his daughter have a lot in common. They both enjoy crafting, storytelling, and creative problem-solving. They’re also both riddled with ADHD. In this week’s episode, Marcus shares the full story of the annual leprechaun hunt he and his daughter conduct every St. Patrick’s Day, and how this accidental tradition perfectly illustrates some of the challenges associated with ADHD (impulsivity, time blindness, hyperfocus, etc.) and celebrates the joy of overcoming those challenges by working together to create something awesome.

Esme jumps in with her take on the whole operation, reflecting on what it’s like to watch the two of them disappear into this strange, funny, and surprisingly elaborate project. For her, it’s a front‑row seat to the way their brains click together and the easy connection that comes from following an idea wherever it leads.

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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.

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Marcus and Esme discuss a common condition among neurodivergent people: the fear of being perceived. This widely reported phenomena is an internal, emotional, and sometimes physical reaction to being "seen" or judged, often causing people to feel as though they are "on stage." Marcus and Esme dive into why this fear is so common, how it manifests, and what neurodivergent people can do to cope with and possibly even overcome it.

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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 [email protected] with your own cringe-inducing pre-diagnosis story and they might feature it in an upcoming episode!

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Marcus and Esme discuss the ADHD “Tax” – a term used to describe the very real financial, emotional, and psychological consequences of living with the condition. Esme identifies some of the many transactions and decisions in which people with ADHD might incur the "tax" and offers a few suggestions for dealing with or avoiding it altogether. Marcus does his best to add value to the conversation, with somewhat limited success. 

And yes, the human being who wrote the previous paragraph used an em-dash. Em-dashes do not immediately signify that something has been written by AI! I know many of us are on the lookout for non-human generated content, but please do not rob those of us who think and write tangentially of a much-needed punctuation mark.

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Spoilers abound in this week’s Hyperfocus Bonus, as Marcus and Esme share their final thoughts on Season 1 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. But before that, Esme comes clean about foregoing sleep to finish watching the most recent season of Bridgerton the night before they recorded this episode. Will she make it to the end of the show before she passes out? You’ll have to listen to find out! 

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