Hi Manda
It's not a good thing, but it is what often happens.

Sometimes people withdraw because they don't know how to help. I've seen it in my life especially when I was young. Fortunately I'm a bit of a hermit crab and find comfort in my own space, but when I was really young and very sad and feeling as if I had been dropped off from another planet, I found that there was no one really who could really understand why I was feeling the way I was. Heck, I didn't know myself.

Obviously this was a little while ago (ha ha - long while maybe) and depression was not even thought of as a real illness, it was thought of as 'madness'. <sigh> Times have changed though and so much more is known about why people have depressive episiodes and how to help people through those times.

I just read an interesting article posted on Psych Central site. It has a paragraph in there regarding relationships and depression. Made a lot of sense to me. I don't really know the answers to give you at this very moment about your loved ones or friends distancing themselves from you but I do know that sometimes we need some help and guidance to get our control back.

We need to be able to control our own lives and when we're seriously depressed we seem to lose that control. As this article also mentions below, getting help and guidance from a professional who is trained to help people who are feeling this way can give us a better understanding about ourselves and also teach us problem solving skills and ways to get back our control.

http://psychcentral.com/library/id278.html
Depression Can Be Hazardous to Your Health
by Allan Schwartz