Hi Crazycat - I can relate well with what you are saying. In childhood, I was constantly expected to DO things - we weren't allowed to just sit and think. If so, a chore would be allocated, and if not done perfectly it would have to be done again, and again, and again until it met unrealistic and ridiculous standards. As a result, i spent my life rushing from one thing to another, feeling guilty if I just sat and thought. Employers loved me - i was fast, efficient, and completed everything to a high standard. At age 45 i addressed the depression I had always had - a day I always knew would come and that i delayed with endless distractions and self medication. Unfortunately - and I'm sure there are others here that can relate to this - the journey of seeking treatment was confronting, exasperating, and damaging. Suddenly this person who had spent his life serving others - (I was a nurse, and also worked in 5 star hospitality), creating all sorts of things (writing, theatre, arts and crafts), who cared about those around him and who stuck his neck out for the good of others (help enact federal laws protecting the elderly in nursing homes, exposed abuses in religious mens shelters) - was suddenly potentially dangerous, a liar, untrustworthy, liable-to-explode-at-any-moment, and 'troublesome.' Another major event caused by the criminal neglect of various govt departments nearly finished me as I was threatened for exposing it, police harrassing me to shut up and promising arrest, sectioned against my will in psychiatric wards without consulting my treating doctor - not even trying to consult him - and the list goes on and on. In the end I won, but there was no justice. The whole harrowing experience nearly cost my life. Suddenly I no longer cared about anything, no longer tried, just sat and battled the resultant trauma, the unfairness of it all, and the ingrained guilt that I was just sitting and doing nothing.
Seven years later and I still do as little as possible. The thought of starting anything new exhausts me. The line in the second paragraph of your post "I am also just existing, not being inclusive in a world I have never felt a total part of, there is a real sense of okayness with that for me...pang(s) of wanting to take part," is exactly something I would have written. I am beginning to accept that it's okay to do absolutely nothing, that life is not some endless rush going nowhere, somewhere, anywhere but here. Also, the fact I was always popular and surrounded by people and now have virtually no-one isn't the great bother that it used to be. To be honest, I like it. I don't know if I have the patience with others now that I used to have. So, you Crazycat, don't dwell on the world rushing around outside striving to attain this and achieve that, endlessly chasing the Next Big Thing, the latest consumer product in a chain that never ends. Just wallow in the peace you have found. It will change when it's ready to.
In conclusion I would like to quote a line from the fabulous series Boardwalk Empire, spoken by the character Arnold Rothstein: "Man's problems stem from the inability to just sit quietly in a room."