Lazy, Messy, and a Failure?
By Charlotte Malmberg
Charlotte Malmberg is a principal business architect helping leaders identify how their organizations need to change to meet the challenges of the future. Follow Charlotte on X at @CharMalmberg.
It’s Friday evening, and I’ve gotten away with it again. I’ve done well at key aspects of my job like coming up with solutions and making valuable connections. But no one knows the toll—the late nights, the early mornings, the mad rush to hit deadlines.
They don’t see the mess I live in—unwashed dishes, the books piling up, the clothes on the floor, mounting debt, and neglected admin tasks. Behind the facade, I’m filled with shame and frustration. I try hard to manage life, but I feel like a lazy, messy failure.
I didn’t know that these struggles weren’t character flaws or a lack of discipline or willpower. I didn’t know they could be indications of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Neither did I realize that ADHD also impacted the things I wanted to achieve but never pursued or only completed under external pressure. Every unfinished project chipped away at my confidence, leading to low self-esteem and a lack of self-belief.
How could someone at my age, 54, not have figured out how to get things done consistently and commit?
Struggling with doubt
Like most people, I had heard about ADHD, but my understanding was limited. While I struggled with everyday tasks, I was good at devising business solutions and making unique connections. I could even read extensively—both nonfiction and page-turners—which I’d heard was impossible for people with ADHD.
Yet, one of my biggest frustrations in life was the disconnect between seeing something that needed to be done and doing it, even though I told myself to do it. It was as if something was missing—as if the link between seeing a task and doing it was broken.
This contradiction left me flipping between thinking I might have ADHD and believing I simply lacked discipline and willpower. I oscillated between hope for a diagnosis and the crushing belief that I was deeply flawed, beyond help, despite my efforts and the various systems I tried.
This went on for years, more than a decade, after I had heard about Adult ADHD for the first time.
Learning about the impact of a diagnosis
With so much internal doubt about ADHD, a conversation with a friend’s husband, who had recently been diagnosed with ADHD, blew my mind. One of the things that had changed when he started taking ADHD medication was that he now tidied as he cooked—something that he had never done.
Neither had I.
He also shared that now he “saw” things. Things out of place triggered actions such as picking things up and putting them where they belonged—automatically, without thinking. I struggled with this as well, which is why my home was always messy.
It had never crossed my mind to link these behaviors to ADHD. Wasn’t this something that some people did and others didn’t? Something that some people decided to do and did, and others, like me, just failed at, even when we wanted to.
These examples made me wonder again if I had ADHD.
Could ADHD medication help me, or was I a person riddled with irredeemable character flaws? It was during this conversation that I decided to seriously look into ADHD. The next day, I started to read book after book about ADHD in women, and I recognized myself in a lot of them. I also discussed ADHD with friends. Some dismissed it as a made-up or trendy diagnosis, while others questioned the benefits of a diagnosis and expressed concerns about medication, about taking “uppers.” These comments echoed my own doubts and hesitations.
They said, “Wasn’t this all about treating yourself with kindness, finding better systems, and meditating instead of medicating yourself to get things done?”
I’m not saying that these things don’t help. I have tried them over and over again without any major improvement in my life. However, they do not get to the root of my problem. You have to do these actions consistently to get benefits from them—and I have failed so many times at this.
The deciding factor
While I was still undecided about potentially having ADHD, challenges at work brought the need to manage my time and workload into sharp focus.
During the second half of 2022, I hired three people to join my team. It brought home to me how many things I started and didn’t finish. Project after project was left unfinished, some due to changing priorities, but not all. I found myself getting up earlier and earlier to get the work done, not because of the workload but because I struggled to focus during regular hours. I’d get distracted by less important tasks or prioritized helping others above my own work. It felt good to be helpful, but later, I experienced regret when I had to get up early (at 4 a.m.) to finish my work.
At times, I dreaded going to the office, worrying about the things I had not done or something I had said in a meeting, which would lead to a lack of sleep due to overthinking the situation.
Then, my manager gave me feedback: I worked best with a colleague who did a lot of the documentation, he said. He also told me that I liked to keep my fingers in all the pies and didn’t focus enough on my priorities, which was holding me back at work.
Now, it felt as if work was falling apart, too. I realized I couldn’t continue this way. It was time to seriously consider whether ADHD might be at the root of my lifelong struggles.
The turning point
After years of doubt and hesitation, I finally saw a psychiatrist in August and September 2024. We covered a lot of ground. Was I chronically depressed? Did I suffer from anxiety? Or autism? Was I bipolar? It all came back negative. There was only one diagnosis that fit my symptoms, my struggles, and my experience of life: ADHD.
The ADHD diagnosis was surprising yet, at the same time, expected. After a discussion about treatment options, I got prescribed Elvanse (Vyvanse). I left the office with my prescription, a mix of excitement, trepidation, and sadness - for letting my doubts rule me - coursing through me.
The next morning, sitting at my dining table, I was looking at this innocuous-looking pill, and I was scared. For the first time, I was going to experience a day on ADHD medication.
There were so many thoughts. What if the medication didn’t help? What if the diagnosis wasn’t right? All my reservations were rearing their head. After staring at this pill for what felt like hours—this pill that would either help me or doom me—I worked up the courage to take it.
My first day on medication was like taking the red pill in The Matrix.
It was as if the link between seeing something and doing something was finally working. The connection between decision, intention, and action—so elusive before—now felt natural and effortless.
I saw something that needed to be done, and it got done. No thought was needed. I didn’t need to push myself mentally. It just happened. But perhaps the most unexpected change was the quietness in my mind. The constant stream of negative self-talk, the relentless inner critic—it all faded, not gone but significantly less busy. There was so much less overthinking, and I had amazing focus when my friend told a longwinded story.
The difference was as stark as night and day. Suddenly, I could see the world—and myself—with a clarity I’d never experienced before. I realized: I’m not lazy. I’m not messy. I’m not a failure. I have a neurological condition that responds to medication.
Life on ADHD medication
Imagine suddenly being able to see clearly after a lifetime of blurred vision. That’s what ADHD medication feels like for me. ADHD medication is like glasses for the brain. Just as vision problems vary, so do ADHD symptoms. Like squinting to read without glasses, untreated ADHD means working harder for the same results. Some need it, like reading glasses, to help them work, and some need medication the same way that someone needs glasses all day.
I have now been taking my ADHD medication for 4 weeks. The changes I have noticed within myself span a wide range of areas of my life.
In my personal life, I’m saving money due to less impulsive decision-making. My home is tidier, and the dishes are done. Small admin tasks are actioned without me having to think about them. My emotional roller-coaster is not as extreme anymore, if someone doesn’t reply to a text, I don’t feel emotional despair until they respond as I used to. At work, I’m able to focus on the work in the office, to do the harder work, the work that demands more from me, and I’m able to focus on it for longer.
The other day, I had pages of notes that needed to be written up. This would normally be a challenge—as if I would have to tie myself (metaphorically) to my chair. This time, I sat down and wrote them up without any hesitation. I stayed on task until I finished.
With medication, the thing that changes is that daily decisions mean something; they are things I act on. It is as if the link between noticing something that needs to be done and doing it has been restored in my brain.
The reality of ADHD medication
ADHD medication is often perceived as a magic pill, the solution to all problems. Just pop a pill, and you will be fine. This is not my experience at all. For me, medication opens up the door to possibilities, to capacities I didn’t have access to before.
However, I still have to decide what to do, what to focus on, and what to commit to. The medication cannot do this for me; it only helps me do all of these things. It’s as if the link between seeing something and doing something is finally working. The connection between decision, intention, and action—so elusive before—now feels natural and effortless.
Often, ADHD medication is perceived as helping you become more productive, and it has. However, the more impactful change is that my mind is less busy. I don’t overthink, I don’t judge myself harshly, and I don’t interrupt or finish other people’s sentences. This gives me the mental space to focus on what matters.
There is not a single area of my life that isn’t better when I take my ADHD medication, and when it wears off, I get to experience life as it used to be. Just as glasses don’t cure poor vision but allow one to see clearly, ADHD medication doesn’t cure ADHD but allows me to navigate life with newfound control.
A new perspective on my future
For years, I thought I was lazy, inherently messy, and a failure. To learn that I had a neurological condition and that there is medication that helps me has been eye-opening. Today, I know that I have ADHD.
Even after such a short time, four weeks, I notice that I have more confidence in myself, higher self-belief, a better idea of what I’m capable of, and I recognize more of my own strengths.
I now feel as if my future is unknown, and I’m seeing positive changes to support this hopefulness.
On Friday, when my cleaner came around, I didn’t have to tidy for 2-3 hours before she turned up; a quick 15-minute runaround made my flat ready to be cleaned.
I have also completed all the activities in the How to Write with AI course from Every and written this essay. A couple of times, I fell behind by a day; normally, after a week or two, I would be so far behind I would give up.
Lastly, I now believe that if I commit to something, it will be done, which gives me hope. At the same time, I hope I won’t need ADHD medication for the rest of my life and that I can now build the routines, habits, and thinking patterns I need for the future while medicated and make this carry over to a non-medicated state.
Whatever happens, I feel as if the future is bright and unknown in a good way. It’s as if I have been granted the gift to explore a different future and a different way to view my past.