> Disney put me in an apartment nearby from which I could walk to their offices, and I tended to get in in the afternoon and work long into the night. Corporate America is not my natural habitat and I think I was regarded with bemusement by most of the Disney employees. We were receiving no money from Disney during this period, and I couldn’t afford to eat, so I lived on whatever I could find in the office kitchen.
It seems odd that Disney was willing to provide housing, but unwilling to spend even a dime for this man to eat.
Not too long ago I was one of the contributors for this project. Despite my mediocre programming skills, everyone was extremely supportive and gave me a lot of constructive feedback. Hell, I even got a personalized note from one of the original developers in-game, which was pretty awesome.
If you're looking for some fun, then I'd also recommend checking out some of the dev docs.
My biggest issue is that I can't lie down in my bed and stop thinking. I'll be awake for hours with these random thoughts assaulting my head. Even if I do fall asleep, I'll then wake up 3 hours later and feel worse.
Another weird thing is that I feel sleepier during the day than I do at night.
What helped me immensely is simply writing it all down. By writing them down, I think my mind felt it could stop replaying them all because they were stored somewhere. I used to replay them in bed, when I was out walking, in the shower. It was exhausting and took up so much of my time. The same thoughts over and over. And on top of that, as I moved around my flat, I would see things that would remind me of unfinished projects, things I'd need to fix, and then I'd think about them.
So I made two lists. One for projects, one for worries.
The list of all the projects was for things I wanted to do. Things like learn piano, visit Moscow, floss more regularly, literally every project. I saved that on dropbox. It had over 60 or 70 projects on it. I added 50 on the first day, then as I thought of more things or saw the visual triggers (that cookbook I bought to learn to cook more meals, the light that doesn't work because it has a weird bulb), I would add them to the list immediately over the next few weeks.
And another list of all the things I was worried about. Might be things like the client is 3 days late on payment, does he have the money? Did I make a fool of myself at X's birthday? Why does Z keep shooting my ideas down so savagely. I put these all in a temporary tab in notepad++, mixed in with other tabs I tend to have open. It persists between turning the computer on and off, but if you close the tab without saving, it just gets deleted. As it was temporary, I felt I could put embarrassing or even mean thoughts on it. I think this had 7 or 8 things.
With the projects I soon realised I couldn't do 60 things at once and focused on 4. The list is there to find more projects to do as I finish stuff.
With the worries, next time I look at it, most of them are gone. And I just close it, gone forever. First time I closed it, it was so liberating. After doing that every now and again over a month or two, I only have to do it once every blue moon, it's a useful trick when I start feeling a bit overwhelmed.
There could be many things related to this but it seems like two main issues
1) You're being blown about by discursive thought
2) Your circadian rhythm is out of sync
For 1), I'd recommend taking up mindfulness meditation and practicing before bed. This will reduce stress and out you in a better mental state for sleeping.
2) could be caused by any number of things ranging from drugs (caffeine, alcohol, cannabis, sleep aids, etc.), insufficient exercise, not enough light in the morning, too much light in the evening, shifting bedtimes, noisy sleep environment, snoring, etc. Most of the comments around here will help with this problem though I'd be skeptical of anyone telling you to use medication or drugs for it. (I'm not anti-drug, I just think we don't understnad sleep or the brain well enough yet to effectively improve or induce sleep with drugs yet and most existing treatments seem to make you unconscious, but not necessarily asleep).
Have you paid attention to what your thoughts are at night?
I've had similar issues before and I've noticed that if I think about work, projects, my day, etc. I could go on for a long time without falling asleep. I began to notice that if I think about generally fiction/stories, I can fall asleep much more quickly. In my case I think about plots of movies I've recently watched (or a long time ago), whether it's Avengers or Dragon Ball etc. Perhaps you could give that a try.
For the less socials teens, it's much easier for them to play an online game with each other than to actually meetup in person. I would know, because I used to be one of them.
Meeting together in person used to give me tremendous anxiety and as a result I would always vouch for taking the easy way out. In hindsight, I wish I had actually made more of an effort to hangout during my high school years because deep down I did enjoy those personal interactions. Nowadays I'm a lot more social than I was in the past and a lot more happier as a result too.
When I was a child my parents would consistently tell me that I should never put details about myself on the internet. But when Facebook became a thing it was suddenly okay to share pictures of your birthday party with complete strangers.
Personally, I don't feel comfortable with the idea of my photos being taken out of context and used in a way that I wouldn't agree with. Oddly enough, most of my friends don't see this as an issue.
When Facebook first became a thing you only added people you knew, rejecting friend requests from people you didn't, so it didn't feel as weird to share a group photo from your birthday party. When I first joined the site I really only added my friends and acquaintances from school, I wouldn't even add relatives unless they were around my age.
It seems odd that Disney was willing to provide housing, but unwilling to spend even a dime for this man to eat.