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All this to say there’s so much life ahead of you and it can take you a million places if you let it.
Body -- diet, exercise, rest
Mind -- useful intellectual inputs and positive relationships; a financial budget
Soul -- community of faith
Attend to these three dimensions of life deliberately for maximal joy.
You write well. Programming is an exercise in communication. You are building a structure that at the very least has to be understood by a machine, but moreover has to be understood by you and anyone else who comes to the codebase. Good programmers create readable code just as good writers author readable books.
As with any kind of writing, reading is a good way to learn. An excellent way to do this is to configure your computer to let you jump into the source code of any library you are using. If you frequently use a library, being able to press one button on your keyboard and jump straight into that library’s source code is very powerful. You get to go deeper and deeper and see how other people solve problems and communicate their solutions. It makes you better.
At the next level, if your coding environment can give you instant access to the version control system of another project then you can leverage that to learn. If it’s a high quality project then each line of code will “git blame” to a commit where the developer explains what they were doing. The Director’s commentary, but for code.
If you can get some kind of critical feedback that would help. That’s hard to do online. People are more unkind than they are kind. You may well be on your own there, until a good mentor finally comes along. For many people, their job provides a way to get exposure to other engineers who can act as a mentor.
Do yourself a favor and figure out those concentration/brain fog issues as quickly as possible. For me the first step in the right direction was an aggressive elimination diet. At some point I had become sensitive to a bunch of foods - but didn't realize the affect they were having on my life. Good luck, friend.
At any rate, being gluten/dairy/sugar free really, really helped me. Nutrition is different for each person, but I have found this to be the single most helpful thing for managing the fog.
Start sleeping more, eating healthier, exercising more, and working less. Cut down on weed and alcohol if you partake. This should hopefully help you feel well enough to get a different job which will be less stressful and pay better. Good luck!
Start sleeping early also. Gradually build up to sleeping before 10pm. A friend once told me people sometimes stay up late because they did not feel enough in-control over their day -- this idea stuck with me for a while (Quick googling now seems like the name for it is revenge procrastination).
1. Take time off, like a month or more. [1] Use it to do anything other than coding. Hone a hobby, travel, volunteer, etc. No-one will care about a month or two gap on your resume. 2. You are worth more than you currently think you are. Internalize this, know this, that is key. "I am a sole developer for Mobile and Web platforms at this startup in a very small team" --> is a desirable skill in and of itself. 3. Stop…
definitely. I would highly recommend creating something. Woodwork, metalwork, sculpting, crochet... whatever.
It uses the brain in a completely different way. it creates new challenges and the satisfaction of physically manipulating the world is unequal in the digital world.