“For 31 years I thought something was wrong with me,” shares Malaysian woman who spent whole life being called lazy

The post “For 31 years I thought something was wrong with me,” shares Malaysian woman who spent whole life being called lazy appeared first on In Real Life.

She couldn’t explain why her body wouldn’t move, why she forgot the people she loved, why she couldn’t hold jobs. For thirty-one years, she had no name for any of it.

I have lost count of how many times I have sat in my car outside an office building, engine off, unable to make myself walk through the doors. I would just sit there, I knew I wanted the job and I was ready for the day. But I was completely unable to explain to myself why my body wouldn’t move. I did this at six different jobs over six years.

For a long time, I thought this meant I was lazy or broken.

The Lazy Kid

Growing up, I was the kid who never finished anything. My report cards were a study in contrast. As in subjects I found interesting, Cs and Ds in everything else. My teachers said I was “bright but unfocused.” And my parents said I was lazy. For a long time I believed them.

I remember spending entire nights trying to finish homework that should have taken an hour, getting distracted by everything and I mean anything, like something as silly as the texture of my pencil. By the time I looked up, hours had passed and I had done almost nothing.

My mother used to say, “If you just tried harder, you could do anything.” I believed that too. So, when I failed to do things I assumed it meant I simply wasn’t trying hard enough.

That belief shaped every single decision I made for the next twenty years.

The Jobs

I want to walk through this honestly because at the time, none of it made sense to me either. From the outside it just looked like I was failing, over and over, until it felt like character flaws.

My first job out of university was as a junior copywriter. I was good at the creative work, genuinely good. However, I completely felt apart when it came to the deadline, inbox organisation, and basic administrative rhythm of office life. I would hyperfocus on one project for six hours and forget I had three other deliverables due that day.

I was let go after eight months. The feedback was “inconsistent” and “unreliable.” Both felt true.

And the pattern kept repeating. A marketing role, eighteen months, let go for missing too many deadlines despite producing some of the best campaign work the team had seen. An admin role I took because I thought structure might help me – I lasted four months before the constant context-switching between tasks left me so overwhelmed I started having panic attacks before work. By the sixth job, I had stopped being surprised by it.

The Relationships

It wasn’t just work.

I have lost friendships because I forgot birthdays, forgot plans, forgot to reply to messages for weeks at a time. Something would catch my attention and the original thought would simply vanish, even though to everyone else it looked like I had stopped caring. I understood why they thought that. Forgetting someone exists for three weeks can feel like indifference from the outside.

My longest relationship ended partly because of this. My ex used to say I was “emotionally inconsistent” : present and engaged one week, distant and forgetful the next, with no apparent reason. It didn’t matter how much I loved him; I just couldn’t keep up with the relationship.

I spent years apologising for things I didn’t understand about myself. I’m sorry, I forgot. I’m sorry, I got distracted. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I do this.

The TikTok Video

I found out about adult ADHD, like a lot of people my age apparently did, through a TikTok video.

It was a list of signs that have nothing to do with hyperactivity. Things like starting tasks and abandoning them halfway through. Losing track of time so completely that hours disappear. Hyperfocusing on things you find interesting to the point of forgetting to eat or sleep. Chronic lateness despite genuinely trying to be on time.

I watched that video so many times and felt my whole life just made sense.

I sent it to my sister. She said, “Wait, that’s not normal? I thought everyone’s brain was like that.” That conversation led to both of us getting assessed.

The Appointment

I was 31 years old when I sat across from a psychiatrist while she went through the assessment. At the end, she said, “You have ADHD. Combined type. Looking at your history, I’m surprised you weren’t diagnosed sooner.”

I cried for almost ten minutes and she let me.

What the Diagnosis Actually Changed

I want to be careful here, because a diagnosis is not a magic fix. I still struggle with the same things – the constant feeling of mental clutter. Medication has helped, though it’s no cure. I still have to build systems and routines that work with my brain, and some days those systems still fail.

The struggle remains the same but the story I tell myself now about the struggle is what changed. For thirty-one years, every failure was evidence that I was lazy, broken, not trying hard enough. Now, when I miss a deadline, I think, “Okay, my brain did the thing again, what do I need to adjust?” That shift, from moral failing to neurological reality, has changed almost everything.

The Anger

I won’t pretend there isn’t anger in this too.

I think about the version of me who could have been diagnosed at seven, at twelve or at sixteen. I think about how different my twenties could have looked if someone, anyone, had looked at the pattern and recognised it for what it was, instead of calling me lazy.

I think about the jobs I lost. Nobody understood that my brain needed different scaffolding than everyone else’s. I think about the relationships that ended in confusion and hurt feelings, conversations that could have happened instead, if either of us had had the right words.

I’m not angry at my parents, not really. ADHD awareness in Malaysia, especially for someone my age growing up in the nineties, was close to nonexistent. They worked with what they knew with all the love and care in their hearts.

I am angry at the years. That it took until 31 for someone to look at my whole life and say, oh, this is just how your brain works.

Where I Am Now

I’m 33 now. I’m in a job that, for the first time, actually works with how my brain operates- project-based, creative, with enough variety that I don’t burn out from monotony, and a manager who, when I explained my diagnosis, simply asked what kind of support would help and then provided it.

I’m working on the relationship stuff too. Progress there is slower though.

Sometimes I think about all the people out there, especially women, who are walking around with undiagnosed ADHD, believing they are lazy or broken or not trying hard enough, the same way I did for three decades.

If that’s you and if any of this sounds familiar, I’m not saying you definitely have ADHD. I’m not a doctor. But it might be worth finding out. It changed everything for me. It fixed the map I had been using to understand why my life looked the way it did, even though life itself stayed the same shape for a while longer.

This is a sensitive topic, and if anything in this story feels personally relevant, it may be worth speaking with a healthcare professional for an assessment.

Submit your story to ym.efillaerniobfsctd-5a27f0@olleh and you may be featured on In Real Life Malaysia.

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‘I gave up my family to pursue my dreams’ Shares 34 YO M’sian woman

The post “For 31 years I thought something was wrong with me,” shares Malaysian woman who spent whole life being called lazy appeared first on In Real Life.