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[Zrk2]

What about finding her a job as a cashier or the like? It would get her out doing stuff, she wold interact with people, and it could help with your families financial problems a bit.

[Ottofar]

How about a ridiculously long book series? The Wheel of Time of Harry Potter or something.

They're light reading anyways, I read HP in six days and Wheel of Time in 25. If you'd want to get someone to read stuff for a long time, hand her some Dostojevsky or Tolstoy.

[Zrk2]

25? I could do a book a week (or a bit more) but the whole thing in 25 days?! No wonder you aren't posting in WWYDT. lol

[Patchouli]

Zrk2,
I'll see if I can get her into any of my books, she didn't seem very interested in many of them.

Poltifar,
One small problem is that the hobbies I do mess around in are generally single-person activities. I'll have to try new thing as well to get this stuff working out right.

Mindmaker,
I don't know. Worth a shot.

profit,
One of my friends is going to be fixing up his backyard when he gets the cash, and I'm probably going to end up helping him out. He wants to start up a garden and stuff, so maybe I could bring her along for that. A soup kitchen might be interesting, the nearest one to me is rather far though, and busting up some time in my schedule might be difficult (or not if the work hour cuts keep coming), as well as additional costs (presumably gas and stuff) for helping her out. I'm grateful for the advice. I don't know about the part about loving my cousin though, I literally never knew her until she moved in. I just think that it's not right for a person to beat themselves up so much unless you really deserve it, and I don't think she deserves it.  Hakuna Matata and all that.

Another problem is that she's really too good at hiding her emotions. There doesn't seem to be any way for me to convince her that talking to other people can help.

A slightly smaller problem is that she's putting me on point with this, because my parents know that I'm rather distant with many people, especially distant family. And for all purposes, I don't think of myself as particularly close with her, so it would be weird for me to start bringing her out of the home and stuff. I should have also mentioned that she has a younger brother, which makes it difficult for me to only bring her out without suspicions of me dating her. And if her younger brother is with me, it obviously makes it difficult for her to talk with me about her emotions or whatever. The easiest solution is to go out with her while the brother is at school and her parents are at work, but I've also school and work as well. It's really quite a pickle I'm in.

Zrk2 again,
Trying to. It's working like crap so far, and she hasn't gotten any calls back, but it's still something she's trying (not really as hard as I'd approve of, admittedly) to do.

[Ottofar]

Does she play any instruments?

[Patchouli]

No, I could try getting her into guitar though.

[Mindmaker]

Your main limitation seems to be her parents.
If you could explain it to them somehow, you could act more freely, without attracting wild speculation.

[freeformschooler]

Oh man, I had a girlfriend like that. 90% of the things you have stated were her traits. It was pretty awful. Stick by your common sense -- even if you do start going out and doing stuff with her all the time, don't let yourself become her world. You may think that's your responsibility but that tends to be how people like that are. They find a focus, and they eat it alive. And then you'll start eating yourself alive for it. Alternatively, screw the rules and start going out with her and when your relatives make a "what" face you just say "Yeah, this is my bitch, bitch, and I'm hers, that's how I roll. Keep it in the family." Alteralternatively, don't listen to me.

[Vector]

Having been that girlfriend, I'd recommend against going out with her =/

What she really needs, if she's anything like I was, is firm friends.  Dating will likely just make the situation more stressful.

[Mindmaker]

True that.

Also don't worry about her confession too much.
Groundless infatuation is most likely a coping meachanism for depression.
It wears off, once she get's better.
At least this has been the case with me in the past.

Just be clear, that you have no interest in her.

[Patchouli]

It seems like she's getting too dependent on me, even though I haven't really done anything besides listen to her, and it makes it difficult to make free time for myself. I've made it clear that I don't really want to go out with her, and even she knows/acknowledges that I wouldn't want to.

She wrote a rather long angsty letter, about stuff like how I'm treating her like a younger sister, how she's needs me, how she feels like she has no problems when I'm around, how I'm going to classes soon, which will make her "alone again", how she "knows I'm uncomfortable", and angsting about how I decided to check up on her for a second before chilling out in a different room. Also, stuff about how she hates being rejected, "does he ever think about me", and a rather long list of "why..."s, including "Why do I cry when there is actually nothing to cry about", "Why do I have a very soft heart", "Why do I take everything seriously", "and "Why do I like to think negative thoughts".

Thoughts?

I'd honestly be pretty pissed if someone gave this much information about a private letter I wrote, but yeah, I've not really much choice. Should I bring my parents into this? I don't think I have to mention that fact that she likes me, but I'm sure I could at least mention she's depressed. However, I don't know how much tact they'll have when it comes to it, my dad comes off as the "man up" type, and my mom might be able to help, but that might only be if my cousin manages to open up to them, which seems unlikely.

Another thing about getting friends is that I can't introduce her readily to any of mine in hopes that they'll help her out, my best bro has got his own very serious thing going on with his girlfriend, and when my sister introduced friends to her, they ended up as the gossiping type that made my job more difficult that it could be. She won't open up to my sister either, and I don't know how my sister will take to the idea that my cousin would like to date me.

[Vector]

If it were me... I'd talk to your mother, but not your father.  My parents are both very sensitive, but I think what you need is some advice from someone wise who won't just go with the "man up and deal with it" route.  I would even go so far as showing her the letter, in this situation.  There really isn't any shame in it, and she needs more people to help her.  It's obvious that you're in over your head.

If it helps, I had a suicidal friend who was in love with me and I "betrayed" her by telling her mother to be on suicide and self-harming watch.  When she finally found out she cried a lot, but she was actually happy to have someone watching over her.

It seems to me that she's just at that age, you know?  I know that when I was 19, I always wanted to know why, why, why for everything, but two years later I'm now just happy to learn anything at all.  I think it's part of the process of rearranging yourself so that you can be an adult--beginning to ask yourself "why" in earnest, instead of just accepting everyone's answers.  To me, she actually sounds relatively healthy.  That sounds bizarre, I'm sure, but she's confiding in you instead of just getting angry.  She's thinking through her feelings and being honest.  I know that when I was this way, I could never be honest with anyone... it felt like I was rotten all the way down, always desperately trying to tell someone something that we both knew wasn't true.

If I were you, I would just encourage her to come see you once in a while rather than you coming to see her, and then slowly, as she gets used to instigating interactions and learning "I don't have time right now" isn't a rejection, she'll probably start thinking "Oh, I want to meet some new people."  At the very least, I definitely had that sort of feeling.  When you don't have time, or don't want to have time, you have to be able to gently tell her "I don't have time," and then you have to come by and say "I have time now... let's do something fun."  That way, it won't just be you rejecting her.  It will be evidence that you value spending time with her, but can't always do it.  That's probably the lesson that she needs to learn.

[Patchouli]

I might ask my mum, don't know about showing the letter though. You have to imagine that the family that moved in is from my dad's side, and came to my parents for help, and now they find out that the girl wants to date their son. I could at least tell her about how much my cousin is flipping out.

It's a relief you think she's fine and can relate. I've been looking into the Nevada Partnership for Homeless youth as a place to maybe give her some purpose, and besides, I can bake some pretty mean cookies.

It's a huge help that you brought up the idea that I should let her know that she can come see me rather than the other way around. I realize I never explicitly said that she could come to me, and I'm sure that me rejecting her would discourage her from doing so without me telling her.

[Phmcw]

Hmmm, you could also try introducing her with good books like "of mices and of mens", "the master and Margarita", or any other good books speaking about human relations. They could help. (the list is short because it's the only one whose title I know in English. I would have advised "l'étranger", "la peste" (camu) "madame Bovary"(flaubert)  ...
A good book help thinking and putting things into perspective when you're depressed (well that work on me anyway). 

[DrPoo]

Dwarf fucking Fortress,

Find the place for her, the most dropout drops out of interest because of they never find any suitable place(River, without aquifier, flux stone etc.) Then make a basic fortress, and let her play it, the game can be a hobby itself, i think she needs a pause from love, like i do now, we all know its extremly heart warming, rewarding and motivating to look at theese industrious dwarfs running around doing work for one. She might turn into the "psychopatic leader" type, but hell thats better than a broken little bird. Because theese people sadly tend to be popular.