A lightbulb just went inside me - I have ADHD!

I posted the below to the r/DecidingToBeBetter community and the reply I got was that I have ADHD. How did I not realize this?

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This is going to be a long wall of text - I want to share this somewhere and this feels like the best place right now. I am a 35 year old mom of 2 (6 year old son and 4 year old daughter). I work in technology and my husband is also an engineer - between me and him, we make a pretty decent paycheck. We have financial security and we are very careful with our spending. I actually have a lot of things going for me. My kids are very sweet and amazing, my husband is very understanding, we bought our house and my husband pays the mortage. My paycheck is mostly unspent and I put the majority of it towards index funds and stocks. 

In spite of all this I feel like a failure and I am unhappy. I have been unhappy for as long as I can remember. All my life I was told that I am smart but I am lazy. This used to be the constant feedback I get from my teachers at school and it applies to this day. I am not sure why I cannot study or do work unless it is last minute. I procrastinate until the last possible minute, finally panic will set in and I will do my work in record time. This is how I have always been and I hate it. My asian parents made sure that I finished undergrad in computer engineering and went to grad school but I absolutely hate working in technology.

I take out all my frustations with myself on my kids and my husband. I yell at them constantly and get very emotional when my kids don’t behave. Yesterday, my daughter wanted to sleep in my bed with me and my husband. When I refused and asked her to sleep in her room, she started crying and asked for her dad. I yelled at her even more and she ran out of the room crying. She slipped on the way down the stairs. Instead of immediately comforting her, I took this as an opportunity to yell at her even more and tell her that this is what happens when she does not listen. My husband heard the commotion and came running to see what was going on. My daughter couldn’t even talk as she was completely blubbering at this point. Finally, my husband calmed her down and put her to sleep. This is just one example of times when I lose my cool with my kids. 

I have no routine even at this age. My house is always a mess and the only time I will clean is if I know there are guests coming. Then I will clean in a panic and yell at the kids if they get in my way. Right now, I have probably 5 loads of laundry, 4 bags worth of mail to deal with and 2 days of dishes to clean. At work, I have a big presentation on Friday for which I didn’t even start preparing for yet. Technically, by now I should have at least completed a first draft of the presentation to share with my manager. I cannot wake up to an alarm and only wake up when my husband tells me that it’s X in the morning. I don’t have a routine at night. After my kids go to sleep, I usually stay awake watching TV. I finally go to bed when I can no longer open my eyes properly - this can be 10:30 PM, 11:30 PM or 1 AM depending on the day. Half the time I forget to keep the leftovers in the fridge after dinner. I have woken up many times to fruit flies going to town on the dinner and finally having to throw perfectly good food. After I wake up, I take half an hour to drink my morning coffee and snap at my kids when they ask me a question at that time.

I have been trying to declutter my things for 10 years now and keep telling myself that when I finally have only things I love, I will be better.

My husband finally told me yesterday that he’s tired of this life with me. He hates that I am always making the kids cry and told me that if I keep behaving this way, the kids will grow up to hate me. I also treat my husband like dirt and only complain to him about everything wrong with my life. 

I know I shouldn’t compare myself to others, but my friends from grad school have all had an astronomical growth in their career whereas I have never been promoted. I do great in interviews as I portray the ideal version of me that I wish I am. The recent job that I switched, my manager was actually interviewing for 6 months to fill the role and I wowed her so much that she ended up giving me more money than I asked for so that I wouldn’t accept positions from any other company. After I joined, I have only disappointed her. She recently had a meeting with me saying that she thought by now I would have completely changed the vision for the product they are working on but she didn’t expect me to be this passive. I don’t know how to fix it. It’s like I have some sort of lethargy wash over me and I cannot work. I get easily distracted. I will be in the middle of a meeting and suddenly think “I wonder how fashion changed during the Regency, Victorian and Edwardian eras” and I will start googling right there instead of paying attention to the meeting. I have severe imposter syndrome at work and feel like all my colleagues are laughing at me behind my back. Then I daydream about having a different career “maybe I should be an artist”, “maybe I should be an actress”, “Maybe I should be a pianist”, even though my drawing and piano skills are pretty basic and I have never acted even in a school play. 

I make great first impressions and then I cannot live up to the expectation of my own self. I hate what I am doing to my kids, I hate that I am constantly frustrated, I hate that I take it out on my husband and sometimes I feel if I abandoned my kids/husband, they will be happier. 

I also have no empathy for others. One of my cousins is currently going through a personal crisis. I was actually secretly thrilled that someone else is suffering. My husband was heart broken to hear of the crisis and called constantly to check on her and make sure that she was doing good. I felt terrible that I am gloating over it.

How do I change for the better?