Feel really bad but am desperately worried about DS. Undiagnosed officially but is ASD. 23 years old but in terms of emotional development is still very much in teenage phase. V uncommunicative and difficult to talk to. Simmering with latent anger, mostly at his upbringing (by me). (I had a terrible marriage, suffered extreme depression and took out a lot on the children. Now re-married but took him 10 years to "accept" stepdad). V bright but he has no real job - appears naive about the world and uses house like a hotel. Spends all his time in his room watching TV or on his laptop. Appears for meals. Not much respect although better than it has been. Never brings friends to the house. Never appeared to have a social life. Now he has a bar job but often doesn't come home until 8am. Seems to be always on his phone but never talks about having friends. I only know of 1 friend from schooldays. If he goes out he only gives me minimal information. Very cagey. Never tells me who he is out with or what he is doing and if I ask, he always says the same friend (the only one I know of) and that he's going to the pictures. My guilt over his upbringing, and his own ASD issues prevent me from treating him in a more "normal" way and being assertive about my expectations of him as a member of the household. Eg I've tried to talk to him about contributing to the household -even just in terms of doing some jobs around the house but it falls on deaf ears).
Last night he stayed out last night but forgot to take his phone. I'm sorry, I know it's bad of me but I looked through his messages. I didn't know any of the names on there. There were none from the friend he always claims to be meeting up with. Some were from colleagues at the bar where he works. But most of them were about arrangements for meeting up for cinema \ drinks\party. Mostly "normal" I suppose. Although most of them were relatively short threads as though he's only known them for a short while (I'm talking about exchanges of maybe 10 texts on average in total). IT could be as simple as these are new people he has met through being a barman.
But then there were a series of messages from different numbers (no names assigned). Each number contained one text only, which was simply an address (a different one each time). A London address, usually a flat. So something like a text from +44 12345678 then inside the message would read 123 Any Road W123 (basement flat). Nothing else. No reply, no 'conversation'. Just that. I'm really worried. I don't know what this means. Can you help? I can't ask him. Thank you. x