What a weird dichotomy. It's not between "sitting in your old employers' parking lot" and "lying in bed all day", it's between "sitting in your old employers' parking lot" and "learning new skills", "finding a new job", "discovering new hobbies", "spending more time with your loved ones" or almost anything else.

Instead he chose to sit alone in a parking lot so he could feel "normal". Feeling compelled to do a specific action (excluding things like breathing) just to feel normal has a name, and that name is "addiction". It is not usually considered a good thing.