Mom is Still Clueless

I have not seen my daughter since that last time when I realized how skinny she was. I seldom hear from her, and if I call, I don't get a call back. I don’t know what’s going on with her, and I don’t get answers to my questions (you can’t if they don’t talk to you).

She has sent nice text messages telling me how much she loves me and will make up all this lost time. She’ll even go as far as asking to meet up on a Sunday. I’ll be excited for that, and she’ll inevitably blow me off. This past Sunday was a case in point. Her text message said, “u, me, food, Sunday J” so how could I resist? I agreed, of course, but waited until Sunday morning to follow up. I sent a text at 10 a. m. to confirm that we were still on, but never heard back.

I set aside the day (stupidly, but hopefully), but ended up going grocery shopping and taking a nap. Finally, my boyfriend invited me to hike to relieve the stress and that helped a bit. That night I texted again, “Never heard from you. You okay?” A while later I got, “Yeah, sick.” That’s it.

I wrote that she should’ve told me instead of blowing me off once again. It wasn’t until the next day that she responded with an apology, in which her excuse was that she slept the whole day and didn’t even realize the day had come and gone. My response was the I didn’t know what to say, that it wasn’t the first time, and I hoped she was feeling better. I haven’t heard a word since. I left a voicemail yesterday with just a hello, but so far there's been nothing back.

Of course, I automatically speculate about why this is happening. Why is a healthy 19-year-old young woman sleeping all day and forgetting what she says? So that, the weight loss, the inconsistency . . . what else could it be except drugs? She doesn’t reach out to me so what am I supposed to do? I have no proof, only fear. I could be wrong—she could just be rude and unreliable (which truly isn’t news). If I ask her, she swears she’s not.

My problem is that I’m scared. Not physically or emotionally—we don’t fight or have major confrontations. I just don’t understand her or her lifestyle, and I’m afraid I’m going to find out things I don’t like or can’t handle—that go beyond drugs. In fact, it might not be drugs at all. Maybe she’s into something adult or raunchy. I did find sex toys among her things when she moved out the last time. I just packed them up and brought them to her without saying anything. Her sister said that after my daughter lost her job, she took up at a porn movie studio as an assistant of some sort, cleaning the bedding and whatnot. It was too much for me to hear, and I wouldn’t let her tell me any more. I essentially erased it from my memory until now. Then my daughter swore she had a new job at another call center and was the manager. She stands by that story to this day, even though her sister argues that it’s a lie and tells me, "Mom, believe what you want to believe."

Just writing this is making me feel ill. Every time I think my daughter is on the right track and doing well, I get the feeling that I’m the biggest, dumbest, most ignorant asshole on the planet. But when your kid is an adult, lives on her own, pays her own bills, and makes her own decisions, there’s not a hell of a lot you can say or do about the choices they make.