Hi Dk2022
First, want to start by saying you're such a conscious deeply caring person. This person and the world are blessed to have you.
A few questions
- Are they actually depressed or have they reached the conclusion they genuinely just love being on their own, far more than they love not being on their own? Do they happily prefer their own company? or
- Do you get a sense they could know something's wrong but aren't acknowledging the extent of what's wrong? or
- They have zero sense they're in a depression?
With that last one and based on my own experience, a lot of the time someone won't know they're in a depression until they can feel it. I suppose the best way to describe it is by looking at a depression as being like a well, so like a deep long vertical depression into the ground. You may not feel yourself enter in and you may not feel yourself having traveled some way down but at some point you will feel yourself in there. I suppose it's like suddenly waking up to find you're in a depression.
Maybe if you can get to the bottom of why she won't leave the house or attend any function it might offer a clearer picture of what's going on. As an example, if she's become reclusive based on her reaching some conclusion like 'Everyone around me is judgemental and depressing', shutting herself away from people may seem like a logical thing to do but it will only remain logical until it becomes depressing for one reason or another. If she's a sensitive type, switching off from everything and everyone she's sensitive to might feel like a much needed break for her. A break implies she has to go back out into the world at some point and managing how she does that is key. Maybe she'd like to be able to manage that in different ways that work.
Do you get a sense of why she's become reclusive? Has it come with age and intolerance or perhaps it has been born from some need?
