House share issues

I am a 22 year old girl who is studying away from home at University. I live in a shared house for which I have lived in since September 2006. From Sept 2006 - June 2007 I lived with 2 guys who I had lived with in my first year at Uni, in Halls. The other 3 people were friends who I had met along the way. We were all friends before we moved in although one of the guys I had lived with in Halls was not friends with the others because he often went out with his friends from football and not with us.

Two of the girls did not get on with this guy when we all moved in together. One girl in particular made it clear she was unhappy. She is a very quiet person and quite difficult to get through to because she is not very open, which makes it hard to talk to her. She seems to have a lot on her mind. Last year she would drink a lot and end up crying to us about her problems, saying that we are not her friends and we don't care about her. She would also say how ugly she was and how she hated herself. She would never express her feelings when sober so I never tried to discuss it with her.

At the end of the academic year, two of the housemates left as they were going on a years work placement. One of the people that left was the best friend of this said troublesome girl. The two that left were replaced by two friends of the guy that the troublesome girl did not particularly like. I knew she was going to find it difficult because they are his friends, and also because she is incredibly shy and insecure.

Sure enough when we started back at Uni in Sept 2007 she made little effort to converse with the new housemates. She never really spoke to them at all. About a week after we moved back she stopped coming downstairs altogether. She would come in from her lectures and go straight to her room, and literally didn't come out, not even for food or water. She also started going back to her parents' home when she had no lectures, so she was only staying over a couple of nights a week. When she was here I didn't try to talk to her or invite her out with us, because, despite the fact she is shy, I know she could have still made more effort, we are all nice people and we wouldn't have excluded her had she of come downstairs to see us.

I became very good friends with one of the girls that replaced the original housemates, and it annoyed me that the troublesome girl was ignoring them and making no effort.

Anyway, the term passed with this girl literally staying in her room and her not talking to anyone and vice versa. When we returned after Xmas she said she was going to come out with us that night and make an effort to be around more. Well, she ended up drinking copious amounts of alcohol and having to be carried out of the club by a bouncer. She also told us in her drunken stupor that she was on anti-depressants.

The next day I went to see her in her room. She was quite emotional and was crying. My Dad suffered from severe depression so I told her I had some idea of what she was going through but I didn't understand totally, because you can't unless it is happening to you. She seemed a bit more open and honest with me now. That night I went out again with all the other housemates (Tuesday night).

Again she did not leave her room until she had a lecture on Thursday. She went back to her parents' home after her lecture for the weekend (as she always did). On Monday she called me to tell me she had told her parents about her depression and they had agreed she should move back home and commute down for her lectures. I accepted this as I thought it was obviously best for her to do this.

She then deleted me and the rest of the housemates from Facebook, and does not contact us by text/email/MSN. I have tried talking to her on MSN before and sometimes she doesn't reply, although occasionally she will. Now it seems like she wants nothing to do with us at all.

I know she thinks I could have done more for her. I am an outgoing, happy person so I can't really relate to her negativity. I wanted her to talk to the new housemates and get on with them so that we could all get on and have a laugh together, I wanted her to be a part of the house, but she isolated herself completely, and it looks really bad to the newer housemates how she wouldn't talk to them at all.

I was never going to be the kind of person to stick around in a two in nightclubs etc., I like to socialise and talk to other people, but she wants someone with her all the time. I understand she has problems, if she talked to me about them when she was sober that would be fine, but people don't want to hear about it on a night out. Now I think she never wants to speak to me again, but I want her to see where I am coming from to.

What is the best way to get her to come round, so that she speaks to us again and doesn't hold this grudge anymore that she seems to have?