DDs strange behaviour

[TheChosenTwo]

Don’t know where I’m going with this really. Last night dd(18) left the house at 2am and came back in at 2:50am. We weren’t aware of this. Dh was disturbed in the night and went downstairs, he met dd who said she was just getting some water. He noticed the outside security lights were on but thought nothing of it, got himself a water and came back up to bed.
This morning he thought about it again and checked the cctv (not a ring doorbell, he has valuable tools in his van and in the garden workshop at times, we’ve rarely ever checked the footage) and she went out at 2 and came back at 2:50.
She’s had a lot of mental health struggles, suicide attempts and is now on medication and other therapies to help her. We thought she’s been in a pretty good place recently.
I think she’ll lie to us about why she went out, where she went etc.
Dh said to me that he’s mad and that she shouldn’t be leaving the house in the middle of the night without even letting someone know (sending a text or whatever).
We’ve had a lot of conversations over the past 5 years about honestly and trust and the like, her somewhat erratic behaviour has been concerning for us but we have always tried to help her through it.

That sounds really rough op and I understand that lack of trust and not knowing what is "normal" behaviour.

I think all you can do right now is take it at face value. Would she understand if you were to tell her why you were worried? How open can you be with her about her past mental health struggles?

It is very hard for parents.

It's very hard for her too I would think. There is 4 generations of suicide or attempted suicide in my mam's family - my great-great grandfather, my great-grandmother, my grandma's brother and my uncle.
Only one- my great-grandma was known about as a possibility as she was very ill and in great pain and at the time there was no pain relief that helped.
The other 3 were youngish men (20s and 30s) suffering from long-term, untreated, depression but living relatively normally daily lives and then with no talking about it or warning just did it. One was unsuccessful - my mam's brother. He could never fully explain it. He suffered depression on and off throughout his life but never attempted suicide again. He said he had rarely even thought about it before he did it. My grandma found him unconscious and called an ambulance and he was taken to hospital. She worried about him and watched him carefully, as did my mam, for the rest of her life.

You haven’t scared me, as I said I’ve been living in terror for a long time now, nothing could frighten me any more than what I’ve seen and what we’ve been through already.
we will be checking the footage more regularly now.

@BobbyBiscuits teens DO keep weird hours, this is very true. I did too.
But it would be very remiss of me as her parents to think that because she’s managing to hold down a job that she’s fine. Because history had taught me that it’s not the case.

Thanks, I’m glad you can see about not really trusting our own thoughts around what’s normal and what’s not. At face value going out at 2am may be easily explained but at the heart of it it’s worrying that she wasn’t already asleep after being at work all day before and, not to drip feed but her and her boyfriend had just gotten back from holiday late on the Friday night - so she should have been really physically tired if not mentally.
we can be really open with her about her past history, we just had a brief conversation with her before she went to work but will have a proper check in with her once she gets home.
Dh wondered if she was taking her medication properly while she was away but she sent me a video of her most days having her breakfast and taking her tablets so I don’t think it’s that.

And thank you to everyone, I appreciate all your thoughts and comments.
our older daughter and the younger one are 2 completely different characters and they are the only ones I can base my thoughts and feelings around so it’s helpful to get wider opinions.

Her story sounds very plausible. It's understandable youre incredibly worried OP given what she's been through but I would definitely challenge your DH if he's saying she needs to stay in etc- she's an adult and any attempt at control may worsen her mental health

And thank you @LuluBlakey1 for sharing your experiences, it sounds torturous 😫 and I’m sorry they all had to go through that.

This.. I’ve been fortunate enough not to have experienced serious mental health difficulties but I’ve certainly had times of feeling stressed, or overwhelmed or grief and I’ve done exactly this. Probably more often when I was your daughters age as I was living with my parents ( and siblings - a busy house) and felt like I never had space to breathe.

We had to put a lock on the cupboard where the burglar alarm is so that if our ds left the house he wouldn't be able to do it without setting the alarm off.

I won't go into details about why it was necessary but it was for his safety at the time.

No one is saying she needs to stay in.
He was making a point that we should
know where she is, for her own safety. A text in the middle of the night wouldn’t have disturbed us, our phones are on silent. But her coming home again obviously disturbed dh hence him going downstairs. I was fast asleep and oblivious until he told me this morning.

Oh for heaven's sake, why say such a thing? Her daughter may well be still in bed.

I was going to say similar. I have an 18 year-old DD and this sort of thing isn’t unheard of at all. She will pop out to an all night garage to get snacks or pick up friends from a club and drive them home. Or just go for a drive with other friends who are also nocturnal! I’m as certain as I can be that DD isn’t using drugs- we talk openly about them and she told me when she tried weed. (I have quite a lot of personal experience with drugs too so am fairly alert to the signs!)

Sounds normal to me.

Her story sounds plausible but I completely understand the high alert when she isn’t where you expect her to be.
How co-operative and empathetic is she? If you asked her to leave a note if she’s popping out, would she? If you explain you get anxious when she does this.

I'd say 'lifts' or 'boys'... it's too random or one off for drugs!

I don't see why you can't just ask her? It is odd behaviour and given her previous MH issues would be cause for concern.

Young adults nowadays are up and out all night... my DD only last night 22 rocked up home at 5am!

All perfectly normal and above board

Haha don’t worry, it’s okay, I posted too soon initially and this response came inbetween my first and second post where I explained dd was still upstairs in bed but slowly getting sorted for work!
@PiggieWig id say she would be fine with us asking her to leave us a note, she does understand why certain things would make us worry which is also possibly a reason she decided to just slip out quietly last night.
However I don’t really want to reinforce the idea that it’s a good idea to be going out regularly at 3am, she works and has just finished college and we feel that her keeping to a regular daylight and daytime schedule is important and healthy for her mind and body.

Thanks @sentfrmmyiphone - we have asked her if you can see from my update at 10:42. And I agree that coming home at 5am isn’t uncommon, I’ve done it myself, but she went up to bed last night after dinner and clearing up, shattered and ready for sleep. I went up about half an hour after she’d gone up because I’d barely seen her since she got back from her holiday and we had a nice chat and she was very tired as expected. It was more the unexpected of her then getting up and leaving the house 4 hours later that was unusual.

@TheChosenTwo perhaps moving forwards ask her to drop you a text just to let you know what's what.. this is something I do with my DD, I don't need to know what's she's up to but ask for a text.. either 'just popping out' or 'I'm back' because I am a worrier...